Others, like Azusa Hayano, walk the forest in hopes of discovering the desperate before it is too late, to bring them back to the world and give them the help they need.
The forest also draws those who seek to help signs caution those who seek to disappear that there are others who can help them, debt services, an ear to listen (Though mental health issues are still a major concern in Japan at this time, due both to stigma and to a lack of adequate supports within the healthcare system). Others seek the loneliness of the forest to make their final escape from life, driven by depression, social pressure to succeed, financial hardship it is there that they go to disappear, where the must feel that the burden they assume they carry will not pass on to others when they die. Some are drawn by this very “macabre” culture, drawn by the accumulation of death and the forbidden idea.
#Good reads kurosagi corpse manuals
The forest has appeared in Japanese fiction, popular/pulp culture, manuals for death, and even been the subject of psychological study since the mid 20th century. Peter Ten Hoopen, Dutch photographer on Aokigahara On the North-facing slope of Mount Fuji, arguably one of the most iconic places, both spiritually and culturally for the people of Japan, lies a forest of trees so dense and old, that getting lost and never returning from within is not only a fear, but in fact an inspiration and a lure for those who have suffered the many trials of living in the modern world. I am fascinated by the long history of tragedy, and of cultural association with death, that the forest has endured. Aokigahara, known as both “The Sea of Trees” and “The Suicide Forest”, is such a place. I have spent no small amount of time researching the history of such a place, that is about to reach an even wider audience that it has since the mid 1990’s and early 2000’s as a place of real tragedy. It’s why I am a much bigger fan for movies like “ Gojira” and “ The Devil’s Backbone” than I am for the mistake that was “ The Chernobyl Diaries.” What is worse is the fabrication of horror films based on a completely fake history, or one that takes the tragic history of an event or location and renders it trivial, hidden behind the “story” that is created based on the stories based on the real experiences. As a historian and horror enthusiast, I am always both excited and apprehensive when a horror film draws on the byline “Based on a True Story or True Events”, as so often that true story has been warped and torn in so many ways that the truth which inspired the initial horrific reaction is muted in favour of sensationalism and loud scream-y “jump out” moments.