Aokigahara Forest

Aokigahara is a freaky forest out in Japan, right at the base of Mt. Fuji. Now what makes this forest freaky is that it is one of the most popular place in the world to commit suicide. Being a popular suicide site isn't that scary, but unlike the Golden Gate bridge or Niagra Falls, the bodies don't just "wash away". Nope, the corpses of the unfortunate are just left there, swinging from trees or rotting inside tents.

Every year Japanese police and volunteers make a macabre journey into the woodlands to see what they can find. Why anyone would volunteer to journey into a forest full of bodies is beyond me, especially since they have found as many as 70 bodies in a single year. But the creepiness doesn't end at the rotting corpses...

Aokigahara (Also known as The Sea of Trees) is so dense that wind doesn't even reach its depths... There's also next to no animals there, leading to most of the forest being completely silent. Then between the bodies and silence, there's the darkness. The density also blocks out the light, leading to some areas being completely caped in black. The Japanese government has also made sure the whole area is full of signs, holding messages in Japanese and English that read "Life is a precious thing! Please reconsider!", "Please consult the police before you decide to die!" or "Think of your family!".

From the darkness, silence and corpses, you would expect people to avoid the place... but no. Being at the foot of Mt. Fuji, Aokigahara has a few nice caves that draw regular tourists. The Aokigahara Bat Caves attracting many visitors. However, along with the tourists comes a more sinister type of person, Aokigahara Scavengers. These people, realising the dead may have money or jewellery, venture out into the forests in search of treasure. They move through the trees, praying on the corpses like ghouls, disturbing the dead for their pocket change.

The whole place is just shrouded in creepy and to no surprise, Aokigahara is a famous setting for ghost stories. The sea of trees is supposed to be filled with Yurei (Freaky Japanese ghosts. If you've seen the Grudge, you know what I'm on about), thanks to the suicides and something called Ubasute. Ubasute is an apparent Japanese tradition where younger family members would take the useless old people (Such as that Grandma which never buys you presents) and drop her off in the woods to die of dehydration/starvation. At least it was more humane than British care homes.

The tradition of committing suicide in Aokigahara is accredited to a book called Black Sea of Trees (Kuroi Kaiju by Seicho Matsumoto), which features two characters committing suicide inside the forest. This however isn't entirely true, as suicides were committed in the forest before the book was published. Well before the book there was a story of two farmers, who down on their luck and struggling to feed their families, ventured deep into the forest to take their own life. The poor men figured that if they killed themselves, it would leave more food for their children...

Aokigahara forest is a place of great sorrow, suffering, greed, betrayal and misfortune, where the last breaths of so many were taken. So much life is lost within this land of the dead, where even the trees sit silent, and yet its beauty remains captivating. Tourists come to the area in droves, stories are woven from the lost life and human interest remains forever held by the sea of trees.