Japan's internet 'suicide clubs'

By Andrew Harding
BBC Asia correspondent

In Japan, the internet has been blamed for a spate of group suicides which appear to have been arranged in online chat rooms.

Andrew Harding talked to one young man searching for someone to die with.

Naoki Tachiwana opened his apartment door with a surprisingly warm smile, and beckoned us in to a neat living room. His computer was switched on - the screen facing out towards Naoki's eleventh floor balcony, and the night sky above Tokyo's eastern suburbs.

"Last night I was up all night," said Naoki, smiling again, "talking online to this woman who really - I mean really - wants to die. She asked me to do it with her today, but I said I couldn't because I had this television crew coming to see me. So she said we can do it after they've gone."

It had taken days of online research, emails and text messages to bring us here - face to face with a member of Japan's "internet suicide" community.

It is a growing, and morbidly frank underworld of chat rooms and websites with names like "Suicide Club," where thousands of (mainly young) people meet and talk and plan their deaths.

At least 26 people have died in this manner in the past two months.

Death ads

The message boards are littered with personal ads like: "I have pills and charcoal briquettes - I'm looking for someone to die with," and "I'm 23 and want to die. I can travel anywhere."

I asked Naoki - a 34-year-old bank employee who has been off work with stress-related problems for six months - why he was considering joining a suicide group.

"Well, I'm depressed - and that's a disease," he said. "But to be honest, I think I've always been interested in killing myself." His enormous cat jumped down from a shelf and waddled over to the computer screen.

"I'd never thought about doing it in a group before," he continued. "But then I visited a website and thought - ah, if I join this I won't have to go through with it on my own. It's like crossing the road when the traffic light is red... it's not so scary when you're with others."

High suicide rate

In recent months, dozens of Japanese have crossed that road together. In the last fortnight alone three groups of three people, and two groups of four have been found dead - usually gassed in cars on remote mountain roads.

Japan already has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, and so far the internet-related deaths are only a small proportion. But it's a growing one.

"It's almost like a cult... these internet groups," argues Yukiko Nishihara, a Tokyo helpline worker. "When people are lonely and suicidal - but afraid of death - they find these websites which egg them on. There's an inhuman element to it."

But others see the sites very differently.

"There's nothing bad about suicide," said Wataru Tsurumi, author of a graphic, and best-selling handbook on the subject. "We have no religion or laws here in Japan telling us otherwise. As for group suicides - before the internet people would write letters, or make phone calls... it's always been part of our culture."

Ghoulish as many of the sites are - complete with skulls and dripping blood - many of their owners argue that they do more good than harm. Late one night in a crowded internet café in central Tokyo, we met up with a shy 24-year-old who wanted to be known by his online nickname - Ama Terasu.

"My site has a message board, and chat rooms and links to other sites," he told me. "It's a virtual world where you can talk about subjects you can't discuss in real life.

'Vicious sites'

"There are some vicious sites which really encourage people to die, and when you get in a group there's a momentum which makes it hard to stop - people become irrational. But my site is not like that. I started it because I had tried twice to kill myself.

"I think it has saved my life - because it has enabled me to open up about things online. And I believe it can help others too."

Back in his small apartment, Naoki was still weighing up his options. He told me that he'd come close to killing himself the day before with another person, but that she'd pulled out at the last minute.

"This time," he said, "it's me who has got cold feet. I told the other woman who wanted to do it today that I was not ready to die so suddenly."

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised here and would like to talk to someone in confidence for details of further support and information, please call the BBC Action Line on 08000 566 787.

The lines may be busy, so please remember that the Action Line is open seven days a week, from 0730 GMT until midnight. All calls are free and confidential. Andrew Harding's film was screened on Tuesday, 7 December, 2004.

Newsnight is broadcast on BBC Two at 1030pm every weeknight in the UK.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/prog...ght/4071805.stm

Published: 2004/12/07 12:08:47 GMT

© BBC MMIV

this is messed up, i didnt know this stuff really went on

^
was a surprise to me as well

So i guess that japanese movie Suicide Club is based on some factual things.

^ yeah maybe it was but it was way over the top

This is more messed up than hikkikomori

I saw a movie exactly like this

I think it was the suicide club

somehow this kind of stuff doesn't really supprise me. sure it's first time i've actually heard it but i always vaguely knew stuff like this exist. i bet it's not just japan. suicide is worldwide phenomenon.

This has been going on for quite some time now in Japan.

damn thats just scary
but I do see how depression can do that to people

Oh man, I got to dig up a true story someone told me. These kids have to meet so many expectations, and sometimes they just can't perform. It's really sad.

"So let's say an 18 year old who has lived in Japan all his entire life, horrible English even through six years $hitty English that they teach here in our schools, decides to go to America since he couldn't get into a university here in Japan.

Get a visa from the American embassy, an I-20 from the school, etc. etc.
Costs $hit load of money

The plane ticket
Costs a little bit of money

Tuition for foreign students
Costs heavy load of money

Place to live
Costs a doozy every month

Man, I've used up all my money...I'd better work since I need the cash...
Oops. Sorry - you're here in America to study. You can't work.

Hence - leech off your parents to wire you money every so often
Mommy and Daddy works hard to wire their child the money "to maintain their image" among the neighborhood and co-workers that "our child is studying diligently in America

Reality:
Heck, I don't have to work (it's not my fault - America doesn't allow foreign students to work), my parents send me money, and I'm taking this easy @$$ class in some stupid community college
Kid wanders around in America for another eight years in "never-ending ESL" class, leeching off his parents' money

By the time he's twenty eight, his parents are fed up with sending him money, and his visa expires so he goes back to Japan.

He comes back to find that no one hires him because he did nothing - has no experience - and has no education. All he can get is some cheap @$$ labor that pays less than 1500 yen per hour as a late-night convenience store worker. Gets into a bad habit of snorting liquid illegal substances and magic mushrooms, constantly in schizo-mode...

Finally decides to take his own life by gassing himself to death with carbon monoxide poisoning."

Speaking of which, this conversation was brought up after he said he saw a person jump in front of a train at the train station.

**sigh**.....suicide....such a sad thing.....iaf i could take the life
of these individual and give it to unborn baby i would...people like this
don't desever to throw away life like it was $hit.........so what life a b!tch
gotta learn how to fight it.....no matter how depress never give up

Japanese people are sometimes really extreme in their way of thinking...different from most asian countries....

That's completely idiotic.

suicide is pathetic

that movie must have started a trend

maybe

Whenever I think of Japanese the word "suicide" automatically comes to mind.