This place, of course, is not included in the list of tourist attractions, but many tourists visit it during a trip to the famous Mount Fuji, without even realizing that they are in the most ominous point of Japan.
The Aokigahara Jukai Forest, located at the foot of the volcano, is the exact opposite of the beauty and majestic tranquility of the country's main peak. Aokigahara translates to "plain of green trees." Its second name Dziukai - "The Sea of Trees", is fully justified, since from a height this massif of dense green mass really resembles a rough sea.
In 864, there was a violent eruption of Mount Fuji. A powerful lava flow descending along the northwestern slope formed a huge lava plateau with an area of 40 square meters. km, on which a very unusual forest began to grow. The soil is dug, as if someone was trying to uproot age-old trunks.
The roots of the trees, unable to penetrate the hard lava rock, go up, intricately intertwining over the rocky debris once thrown out of the volcano's mouth. The relief of the forest is riddled with crevices and numerous caves, some of which extend several hundred meters underground, and in some of them the ice does not melt even in the summer heat.
The Aokigahara area is one of Tokyo's favorite weekend getaways. Walking paths run through the forest, picnics are held on the vast lawns, children play ball or fly kites, and travel brochures serenely tell about birds, chanterelles and flowers. The unparalleled views of Mount Fuji attract numerous photographers and artists.
However, this place is known not only for walking in the fresh air. The word "Aokigahara" is pronounced by Japanese children in a whisper when the time for horror stories comes at nightfall. Tourists are required to be reminded to be careful, and in no case deviate from the paths deep into the forest.
It's really no wonder to get lost in this sea of trees: if you move away from the trail a few tens of meters and that's it, you can get lost for a long time, if not forever … Even a compass won't help you get out of dense thickets: a magnetic anomaly makes the needle spin randomly, making this device completely useless.
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But most of all, the blood is excited by the legends about the numerous ghosts hiding in the forest. This place gained notorious fame back in the Middle Ages, when, in years of famine, the poor, driven to despair, brought their elderly and infirm relatives to the forest and left them to die.
The groans of these unfortunates could not break through the dense wall of trees, and no one heard the groans of those doomed to painful death. The Japanese say that their ghosts lie in wait for lonely travelers in the forest, wanting to avenge their suffering.
No one suffers from hunger in Japan these days, but Aokigahara continues to play his sinister role today. The mystical landscape and the ringing silence of the legendary forest attracts those who have decided to voluntarily leave this life. In terms of the number of suicides committed annually, Aokigahara is second only to the Golden Bridge in San Francisco to this eerie palm. Since 1970, the police officially began to search for the bodies of the dead, for which special funds in the amount of 5 million yen are annually allocated from the treasury.
Once a year, the police, together with a large group of volunteers (about 300 people), comb the forest. It is reported that during such raids, between 30 and 80 bodies are found. This means that on average every week someone enters this "sea of trees" so as not to return ever … In three nearby villages, which are entrusted with the duties of collecting this terrible harvest, equipped with storage facilities for unidentified remains.
The authorities are trying to stop this stream of suicides. The owners of local shops are volunteer police assistants: they track suspicious people, having learned how to accurately isolate those who arrived here to commit suicide from the crowd of tourists.
As a rule, these are men in strict office clothes, according to one of the store employees, "they hang around for a while before going down the path, and they also try not to meet their eyes." Such cases are immediately reported to the police.
There are rumors about the Aokigahara forest that you can see the white ghostly outlines of the yurei between the trees here and there. According to Shintoism, the souls of those who died a natural death connect with the spirits of their ancestors. Those who took a violent death or committed suicide become wandering ghosts - yurei.
Finding no solace, they come to our world in the form of legless ghostly female figures with long arms and eyes burning in the dark. And the ringing silence of the forest is broken at night by their groans and heavy breathing.
Why do the Japanese, seemingly living in such a prosperous country, take one of the first places in the world in terms of the number of suicides? The most common reason is the loss of a job.
Many people say that the Japanese have become too pragmatic, and the lack of money means too much in the modern world. But here, perhaps, an important role is played by the mentality that took shape many centuries ago, when the loss of social status is perceived as the worst of evils and can push people to commit suicide.
Another terrible ritual, called "conspiracy suicide" in Japan, has also survived from ancient times. This refers to the voluntary departure from life of two lovers who, for some reason, cannot be together in this world. The belief that simultaneous death will unite them in the other world is still very strong.
"Conspiracy suicide" is still so common in Japan that when the bodies of a man and a woman are found nearby, the police usually do not conduct a thorough investigation, considering the case to be obvious. One of these cases is described in the detective novel by Seite Matsumoto, published in Russia under the title "Points and Lines." Although this novel is not about Aokigahara, it is still dedicated to the topic at hand.
A surge in the pilgrimage of suicides to the Aokigahara forest was caused by the work of the writer Wataru Tsurumi "The Complete Guide to Suicide", published in 1993 and immediately became a bestseller: more than 1.2 million copies were sold in Japan.
This book provides a detailed description of the various methods of suicide, and the author described Aokigaharu as "a great place to die." Copies of Tsurumi's book were found near the bodies of some of Aokigahara's suicides …