14.10.16

A Walk in the Suicide Forest

Ladies and gentlemen, we present you with the singable English translation of "Jukai." It took us a few days to work up to this one due to its heavy themes, but we hope you won't be disappointed.

Sakurai almost certainly got the title of this song from the Aokigahara Jukai, the forest at the base of Mt. Fuji near the Five Lakes region in Yamanashi Prefecture. Jukai, which literally means "Sea of Trees," was chosen as the name of this forest because the forest stays green all year round, and when viewed from atop the surrounding mountains, it looks like green waves lapping at the base of Mount Fuji. Not only this, but the the forest is notoriously dense and maze-like. The trees grow directly on lava floes dating from Mr. Fuji's latest eruption, in the 9th century A.D., meaning that the forest floor is unusually uneven and riddled with potholes and lava caves. Tree roots crawl snakelike over the boulders, and iron ore in the underlying rock has a tendency to scramble GPSs and compasses alike. In addition, the unusual topography prevents the wind from blowing straight through the forest, blanketing it in eerie silence and stillness. Mr. Fuji is an important sacred site in Japanese Shinto/Buddhist tradition, and you can practically feel the power radiating out of the ground here. 

A miniature shrine in a lava cave in the Aokigahara Jukai [Photo: Cayce] For reference: this cave is at least 8 meters wide and it goes down to the center of the earth, for all I know.

Though the forest is also extremely beautiful, and the trees are fairly short, meaning that sunlight readily filters down to the forest floor. Nonetheless, a feeling of gloom and foreboding suffuses the place even in the daytime - perhaps this is how the Aokigahara Jukai came to be "The Suicide Forest". Not only is it the top spot for suicide in Japan, reportedly it's the second-most popular suicide spot in the whole world, after the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. The fame of the forest as a suicide spot probably began with Matsumoto Seichi 's 1960 novel Kuroi Jukai ("Black Sea of Trees"), which features a love suicide in the forest. Following this, Tsurumi Wataru featured the forest in his Complete Manual of Suicide. Reportedly, copies of the latter book are regularly found in the forest, often near bodies. During the early 2000's, as many as 100 people per year would make a suicide pilgrimage to the forest. Though that number has apparently decreased in recent years, the perimeter of the forest is still posted with signs advising potential suicides to consider their loved ones and call the advertised suicide counseling hotline. Also posted are phone numbers for bankruptcy lawyers and other services. "Your life is a precious gift from your parents. Take a moment to reconsider" is a common refrain.


A sign in the Aokigahara Jukai advertising a suicide hotline.
[Photo: Cayce]

The culture of suicide in Japan goes back to the days of the samurai, when seppuku ("hara-kiri") was codified into cultural tradition as a way of taking responsibility for one's failure. Because of this and the lack of religious stigma, suicide is still more accepted in Japan than in many other countries. Combine this with a shitty economy, a masochistic work culture, and a persistent stigma against receiving mental health care, and you have a recipe for a high suicide rate. The government is trying to change things, and advertisements for suicide hotlines are now all over the train stations, but unless society changes in a fundamental way, it's unlikely that much progress will be made.

The authorities do a yearly sweep of the forest, but this is mainly to look for remains and clean up abandoned items - and there are many. Shoes, tents, and the suicide manual mentioned above are the most archetypal, along with the plastic ribbon or rope commonly used by wanderers in the forest as a guide for how to find their way out if they decide not to die after all (or if they were just in there to do a gothy photoshoot and had no intention of dying before their time). Due to the uneven terrain and the lack of paths, the forest is only navigable by this ribbon method, Minotaur's labyrinth style - unroll the ribbon behind you as you go in, then roll it back up as you come out. Go into the forest without rope at your peril. Everyone gets lost in here, as we can attest from having been there - this is not hyperbole! Some parts of the forest are even crisscrossed with ribbon left behind by the departed. 

Though the authorities may not attempt to rescue anyone, some volunteer groups and individuals do try. For obvious reasons, hanging is the most common suicide method in the forest, and those fully determined to die typically get to it quickly - but others who are not so sure may camp in the forest for days or weeks at a time. Geologist Hayano Asuza makes regular sweeps of the area and reaches out to people he meets in the forest, encouraging them to choose life over death. For more info about Hayano and for beautiful film images of the forest, watch this video - but be warned, there are some human bones in here.


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And now, the lyrics to the song:

Sea of Trees
Lyrics: Sakurai Atsushi
Music: Hoshino Hidehiko

I'm all alone tonight again baby
Dream of a dream of a memory
Losing my way in the dark
I'm sinking down

Right now - a dream of you maddening soaking in me
Your fingertips pulling ribbons
Ah upon your lips crawling all over my skin
Lapping the sap, try and taste it

Drag you through the dirt again
And you drag me, that's how we love
Till the shift of the seasons buries us under

I'm all alone tonight again baby
Dream of a dream of a memory
Losing my way in the dark
I'm sinking down
Feels like I might forget you baby
Everything, even your face, all of it
Deeper and deeper it slides
I'm sinking down

Here before my eyes
The night staring at me
I'll melt into the night
Into the sea of trees

Drag you through the dirt again
And you drag me, that's how we love
Till the shift of the seasons buries us under

I'm all alone tonight again baby
Dream of a dream of a memory
Losing my way in the dark
I'm sinking down
Feels like I might forget you baby
Everything, even your face, all of it
Deeper and deeper it slides

I'm sinking down ah

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For translation notes, read this translation on This is NOT Greatest Site. Feel free to add you comments below. Also, for those of you who hadn't noticed, the translations for "The Seaside Story" and "Manjusaka" are also now up complete with notes, so feel free to add your comments on those songs, too.


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10 comments:

  1. Whenever I read up about Aokigahara it brings me to Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei referrence that it's a hot spot for "people who want to get taller" or to put it simply a hot spot to hang themselves.

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  2. #mermaidstory: As an Eastern Europe kid growing up at the beginning of the 90s, aka after the fall of communism, i find it sometimes funny that the original anderson are less known than their disney versions. So thumbs up to Imai for getting back to the originals. Although I vaguely remember that there was a Japanese animated version of the story...

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  3. Thank you for the translation and information! This song looks like is referencing suicide more directly. Maybe I am wrong but Sakurai hasn't been writing a lot about this in his career compared to others in VK.

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    1. Let's get one thing straight: Buck-Tick are not, and have never been, a visual kei band. The term "visual kei" was brought into existence based on X Japan's tagline "psychedelic violence crime of visual shock," and X Japan debuted after Buck-Tick. While there's no doubt that Buck-Tick exerted a lot of influence on the development of the visual kei movement, they are not and have not been a part of that movement themselves, except insofar as they appeared in the same magazines as visual kei bands, and occasionally perform with visual kei bands such as Luna Sea, Merry, etc.

      As for suicide as a topic, I think you'll find that Sakurai was very much enamored of singing about suicide in the band's early years. Pre-Kurutta Taiyou, I think he was mostly doing it to sound cool. On Darker Than Darkness he dealt with the question overtly, especially in "Yuuwaku," though he came to the conclusion that he didn't have the guts to take his own life. He's written a few other songs along similar lines over the years, probably because it was something he actually considered at some point (it is pretty obvious from his work overall that he has struggled with depression.) On I Am Mortal he explored death in all its forms and as I see it, Jukai, Manjusaka and Ai no Souretsu are an extension of that exploration.

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    2. Yeah I think that overall you can find the suicide motive lingering in some songs and I think in an interview he said that he let go of the possibility of doing it in the end. Lol, I've personally never thought of B-T as a "VK band" tbh despite all the discussions of western fans on the topic. In fact I consider VK a needless "subgenre" of Japanese rock but that's another issue altogether. B-T though, tend to be associated with it based on the ties with other artists, festivals, etc. and when younger VK bands mention them as inspiration.

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    3. Oh, visual kei is definitely a movement that can be clearly defined. It is acknowledged as such by band members both within and outside the movement. It's also true that a number of bands have been associated with visual kei due to marketing, who aren't really visual kei in terms of what they were intending to express (Guniw Tools would be better defined as "art rock," Plastic Tree are a shoegaze band in disguise.)

      In Japan, no one thinks of Buck-Tick as visual kei, and they have never been marketed as visual kei. As I said in the previous comment, they're only associated with visual kei in that they are an acknowledged influence on the visual kei movement and have performed alongside visual kei artists.

      If overseas fans think that Buck-Tick are visual kei (and I know some of them do), it's just because they are lacking complete information on the subject.

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    4. With all the news regarding Yoshiki's Visual Summit and the bands there, this issue resourfaced again and I see that there are a lot of VK fans or even B-T fans who think that, not just some. I would ask you please write smth about this whole VK deal, but I know you're busy and I want those translations and the CT live report more, lol.

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    5. Are you talking about overseas fans or Japanese fans? The only people in Japan who think that Buck-Tick are visual kei are either mainstream people who only have a vague concept of what visual kei is and who Buck-Tick are, or people who are marginally fans of visual kei without knowing jack shite about B-T.

      If a lot of overseas fans believe that Buck-Tick are visual kei, I posit the following reasons why this might be the case:

      - Westerners tend to lump disparate elements of Japanese culture together into a homogeneous blob due to lack of knowledge, and visual kei bands performing at overseas anime conventions has not helped.

      - Japan is a faraway country with a difficult language and an insular culture, and unless you speak the language or actually visit the place, it can be pretty difficult to know what's actually going on there.

      - Visual kei is the only genre of Japanese music besides idol pop to achieve significant overseas popularity, but in Japan, visual kei is scene as highly niche and cult. Many of the rock bands who are mainstream popular in Japan are completely unheard of overseas. Therefore, Westerners tend to have an extremely skewed and inaccurate view of what the Japanese music scene actually consists of. If the only Japanese music you've ever heard is The Gazette, Dir en grey, L'arc en Ciel, and Kyaru Pamyu Pamyu, you might be forgiven for assuming Buck-Tick are visual kei. Hell, you might be forgiven for assuming that Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is visual kei. That doesn't make it true.

      - A lot of overseas fans of Buck-Tick discovered the band within the past 5 years, mainly through either Trinity Blood or Sakurai's guest appearance with T.M. Revolution (who, again, they probably discovered through anime.) I wouldn't necessarily expect these people to know about the history of visual kei unless they'd taken the time to do serious research.

      - As for as research goes, to the extent that information on the Japanese music scene exists in English, it's largely the product of translations written by fans with limited knowledge of the Japanese language, and little to no firsthand knowledge of the Japanese cultural context for visual kei and Japanese rock music in general. The only person who's ever written a reputable English-language book on the Japanese rock scene is British cult rocker Julian Cope, but he only made it through the 70's. I've been considering writing my own book on the subject, picking up at the beginning of the 80's, but it would be a big project and I haven't yet had the time.

      - Not to trash on VK fans here, but I've noticed that a lot of them don't seem to have much knowledge of other genres of music, either Japanese or Western. Lack of broad background knowledge tends to foster excessive and unfounded narcissism about the one specific niche you do know something about.

      In conclusion: I will try to get around to writing an article about the origins of visual kei, especially since you're far from the first person who's asked. But I'm also going to prioritize the live reports. However, I'd also like to remind everyone that just because cultural phenomena can be subjected to a certain degree of open-ended interpretation does not mean that there's no such thing as objective truth. You can declare Buck-Tick are visual kei, or you can declare that the moon is really and truly made of green cheese, but just because you think that doesn't make it true.

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    6. Well, what can I say, you are always so generous with us. Thank you very much for considering to write about this. I think it will be a valuable information for everybody interested in the topic, not just B-T fans. P.S. I meant western fans since I don't really know what the Japanese think, but of course you caught up on that.

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  4. Until I read the translation, I thought the song was about something more positive due to the music composition. Hide managed to throw me off again. Brilliant composer.

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