Commuters get off trains at JR Yurakucho Station.

Suicide suspends Yamanote line operations more than 4 hours

Friday 08th August, 10:19 AM JST

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rtrhead1 at 11:57 PM JST - 8th August

22 years old. didn't even really know what life was about. what a waste. i feel for her family. if she had a grudge against society and this was the biggest "bang" she could make, looks like she just deepened the gene pool a bit.
romulus3 at 12:52 AM JST - 9th August

this is a real bad trend here. I for one would not shed a tear about paying a bit extra for a ticket if it meant safety walls were gonna be installed on all routes but I would rather spend much much more tax money in support of revamping this countries mental health system. What this girl did was sick. Not for the people who were inconvenienced, but for the driver of the train and clean up crew. what hell they face everyday of their life at the hands of these desperate, selfish, messed up, crazies. even in her pain and torture she never once thought that she could spare those around her some pain and torture. A very vengeful suicide. common in Japan, like when the mother takes the kids too. its vengeance. a sad life spent in tatemai with a spiteful end. this inept government is going to face a wake greater than WW2 going forward if it does not repair and renovate the crumbled foundations of its feudal period social structure. anyway, I wonder if someone had of smiled at her this morning or even acknowledged her existence with a genuine heart...would it have given her enough to continue...always be kind people. you could save a life with one timely well spoken compliment or smile.
imagawa at 01:23 AM JST - 9th August

No, you are right, she didn’t think, she wasn’t thinking, she was someplace else, in her world, in her very black world. It isn’t that she didn’t think about the train driver, the clean up crew or her family, where she was they simply didn’t exist. There was no selfishness here because to be selfish you need to have other people in your thinking, she didn’t.

She may not have even planned what she did, that final temptation coming down the line towards her was just too much & she went for it. We do not know what was happening in that girls head in those last seconds.

I hate what she did to herself, 22 without the least idea of what it means to have lived. It would make no difference if she had gone & dug a hole for herself so as not to trouble anyone.

How many of you have the heart to imagine yourself standing infront of her in those last minutes & knowing what to say that might change her mind. Not the blunt arrogance that we have read above, but a simple act of kindness. So many experts that have worked out the hours, who did what & what their job involves, what the costs are. I am an atheist but have more soul than most of you put together.

This was a young woman very lost in a very deep black pain & what do we read here? A cost analysis of the days event.

I think if she read what is written here now she would know she did the right thing, are you the population of a world that anybody would want to live in?
carlosgodoy1 at 01:46 AM JST - 9th August

Imagawa-san, thank you.
Sensitivity vs. Wasted manhours and passengers inconvenienced...

Whats going on in this thread regarding care for humanity?
OgieDoggie at 02:47 AM JST - 9th August

Once again Japan News Reporters give us the blood but no insight as to why this young girl took her life. Was she being pressured by her manager at work? Was she dumped by her boy friend/girl friend. The reporters don't mention a thing what so ever...people don't just take their lives because they are bored.

Come on News Reporters gives us more than the gore!!! There could be a REAL story behind all this.
motytrah at 03:57 AM JST - 9th August

Japanese society can be pretty frustrating. I guess I'm not surprised so many people take their lives in a way that causes inconvenience to others.
Freespeech at 06:07 AM JST - 9th August

Ah, finally ! northlondon and a few others joined this discussion and gave me the feeling that there are a few here who care about man (name of this : humanism), not about sordid calculations of working hours or money compensations. Someone did not get my thought when I wrote about compassion : I emphasized the fact that society (and in the very first instance the Japanese society) should have more compassion for the people it makes its victims. And the Japanese society should do more soul-searching in order to find why it has this formidable capacity for destroying human beings. Many thanks also to Imagawa-san.
Mark_McCracken at 07:35 AM JST - 9th August

Some idiot has even calculated how many man hours were lost in total (you must be so bored with your life).

YOU asked the question. flammenwerfer answered it. You called him an idiot. Is this your idea of compassion?
rtrhead1 at 01:38 AM JST - 10th August

instead of calling us all inhuman, maybe some of you should take a look at the society (japan) that glorifies suicide. that is why many here won't look at her as just another victim. how are we supposed to "help" someone in this deep dark pit of despair if they don't even have the courage to talk to someone? they don't even have that strength. maybe we aren't the ones who should be demonized...
Freespeech at 02:38 AM JST - 10th August

So, who should be ? I do not know whether you are going to answer this question, but I will approve your comment on one concept : the rampant glorification of suicide. It is certainly very damaging for the Japanese society, not to mention the fact that for the Christian who is writing this is outright monstrous. My feeling is that it is a byproduct of this ever continuing glorification of Bushido, that is of a code of conduct that takes men into a spiral of death : kill in any manner for the convenience of your Sire, lest you are willing to be killed, and if you have not been able to kill and fear an ignominious death then restore your honor by committing suicide. New generations of educated Japanese should have a hard and objective look at it, rather than routinely following in the footsteps of their fathers.
imagawa at 06:37 AM JST - 10th August

Freespeech

“of this ever continuing glorification of Bushido,”

She was a 22 year old depressed girl, what has Bushido got to do with it? That was one wild tangent you went off on.

Rrtrhead1

“maybe we aren't the ones who should be demonized...”

If you posted in a way that could be demonized then you are. If you didn’t then you should have no reason to feel that way, do you?
rtrhead1 at 11:35 AM JST - 10th August

i was speaking in generalities. not me specifically. as for your question of bushido, it has to do with being glorified, and even accepted to commit suicide whent times get tough. woe is me, i have a 20k dollar debt. oooh, i have the answer, i'll kill myself and my whole family. yeah, smart idea there. where is the gov't or the media when they should be condemning this sort of thing? they are passively supporting it. by not speaking out against, they are saying they have no problem with it, which is bizarre at best. i have little to no sympathy for people who end up in the news like this. i feel for her family, but not for the selfish one who couldn't see beyond their own nose and chose to have such a big effect on everyone around her. i'm not talking about the wasted time. japanese workers do that well enough so that this won't hurt their efficiency. what I am talking about, is what about the people, or even kids who saw this, and now are stuck with this for the rest of their life? could you imagine how this could mess up a young kid who sees blood and bone splatter because someone chose the easy way out of what probably wasn't something big to begin with?
Freespeech at 06:31 PM JST - 10th August

Imagawa :

This is not a tangent ; it is an attempt at defining one of the reasons for what rthead1 calls the "glorification of suicide".

Now, leaving aside the fact that in Japan suicide has -say- a certain aura, I feel there is a need to understand better the other causes (quite a few...) and the mechanism of such a desperate act.

And who is the one who dares (I say "dares") cast a judgment about he or she who commits suicide ? Particularly if it is for venting an absence of sympathy, or accusing of selfishness. The Christians who know a little about the teaching of St Augustine realize that man cannot judge man : it is God's (or posterity's, use the word that pleases you) privilege to judge.

So many posts here show again and again this lack of empathy for the feeble and the victims that is the hallmark of Japanese society ; past wars and their historical treatment confirm this feeling. Japan being a religious void obviously has something to do with it, by lack of a taught group of values.
therareone33 at 09:16 PM JST - 13th August

No, you people don't fuc*in get it! THEY killed this girl, the typical JAPANESE society. Trust me, I know, they will put you threw hell for your differences that they can't understand. Unfortunately, she wasn't strong enough to handle the shit she was getting, and most likely, all of the people she knew, turned their backs on her because they also didn't want to deal with the drama and have the spot light put upon them in their little circles. Everything is soo damn hidden and cast among the shadows in that demon land. Its no wonder dirt gets swept under the rug, but things as innocent as this girl going threw ijime, is put in the spot light, and she suffers with nobody by her side and people bitchin about being late for shigoto.
therareone33 at 09:22 PM JST - 13th August

I can assure you that she had NOBODY to talk to, as I also was in, and still am, in such situations. It takes balls and courage to extend your heart to a stranger who suffers, something that most people of Japan don't have (and don't really want). Its typical for them to just worry about themselves.