Charcoal burning seems a common method
In 2014, more than 25,000 Japanese took their own lives.
That's 70 every day. The vast majority were men. Those figures do not make Japan's the highest suicide rate in the world in a developed nation. That dubious title belongs to South Korea. But it is still far, far higher than virtually all other wealthy countries. It is three times the suicide rate in the United Kingdom.
The fastest growing suicide demographic is young men. It is now the single biggest killer of men in Japan aged 20-44.
And the evidence suggests these young people are killing themselves because they have lost hope and are incapable of seeking help.
The numbers first began to rise after the Asian financial crisis in 1998. They climbed again after the 2008 worldwide financial crisis. Experts think those rises are directly linked to the increase in "precarious employment", the practice of employing young people on short-term contracts.
Japan was once known as the land of lifetime employment. But while many older people still enjoy job security and generous benefits, nearly 40% of young people in Japan are unable to find stable jobs.
Isolating technology
Financial anxiety and insecurity are compounded by Japan's culture of not complaining. "There are not many ways to express anger or frustration in Japan," says Mr Nishida. "This is a rule-oriented society. Young people are moulded to fit in to a very small box. They have no way to express their true feelings. "If they feel under pressure from their boss and get depressed, some feel the only way out is to die."
Technology may be making things worse, increasing young people's isolation. Japan is famous for a condition called hikikomori, a type of acute social withdrawal.
Hikikomori
The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare defines hikikomori as people who refuse to leave their house and isolate themselves from society in their homes for a period exceeding six months. According to government figures released in 2010, there are 700,000 individuals living as hikikomori with an average age of 31.
An overlapping group of people with the hikikomori, otaku are "geeks" or "nerds"
The young person affected may completely shut himself - it is most often a male - off from the outside world, withdrawing in to a room and not coming out for months or even years. But that is only the most extreme form of what is now a widespread loss of direct face-to-face socialising. And when young people do find themselves isolated and depressed, they have few places to turn to.
Mental illness is still very much a taboo here. There is little popular understanding of depression. Those suffering its symptoms are often too scared to talk about it. Japan's mental healthcare system is also a mess. There is an acute shortage of psychiatrists. There is also no tradition of psychiatrists working together with clinical psychologists. People suffering from mental illness may be prescribed powerful psychotropic medicines but unlike in the West, this will often not be accompanied by a recommendation that the patient seek counselling.
The counselling industry itself is a free-for-all. Unlike in America or Europe, there is no government-mandated system of training and qualifying clinical psychologists. Anybody can set him or herself up as a "counsellor" and it's very hard for someone seeking help to know whether they actually know what they are doing. It is not a happy picture, and while the suicide rate has actually begun to decline in the last three years, it is still woefully high. Wataru Nishida says Japan needs to start talking about mental illness much more, and not just as something scary and strange that afflicts a few. "When you see a television discussion on mental illness in Japan they still talk as if 'depression equals suicide'," he says. "That needs to change."
- BBC -
