Yakuza Comix 3: The complicated world of Japanese suicide, which is sometimes homicide

According to the National Police Agency (NPA), Japan’s annual total of suicides dipped below 30,000 people for the first time in 15 years in 2012 — to 27,766. While the fall is great news, part of me wonders: Has there really been a drop in suicides or should we look at it as a drop in homicides? According to the government’s 2012 “White Paper on Suicide,” in 2011 there were 30,651 cases recorded of people taking their own lives. The... Read More

“Saving 10,000:Winning A War On Suicide” Screened at the National Diet, Publicly Released

 ”Saving 10,000 – Winning a War on Suicide in Japan” the ground-breaking documentary on suicide in Japan  is now available for free-viewing on Youtube. Saving 10,000: Winning A War On Suicide in Japan examines the cultural/ financial incentives to commit suicide in Nippon. Rene Duignan, director of the documentary Saving 10,000: Winning a War on Suicide in Japan which was released in Tokyo for the first time on September... Read More

Killing Yourself To Make A Living: In Japan Financial Incentives Reward “Suicide”

TOKYO — Tadahiro Matsushita, the Minister of Financial Services, was found dead on September 10, on World Suicide Prevention Day in what police are investigating as a suicide. He allegedly hung himself in his own home. He would not be he first Japanese government minister to kill himself and he won’t be the last. It was reported that he was struggling with the pressures of his job.* According to Jiji Press and other sources, the weekly magazine Shukan... Read More

Suicides Using Toxic Fumes Soar in Japan

In the first chapters of Hanayagi Genshu’s book Nigetara Akan!, she outlines the problem of suicide in Japan shockingly clearly — one person every fifteen minutes dies by their own hand in Japan. This article? Just more proof of the problem. From the New York Time Website By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS October 31, 2008 TOKYO (AP) — More than 870 people have killed themselves in Japan by inhaling toxic fumes from household chemicals this... Read More