A 15-year-old junior high school girl died after she was hit by a train on the JR Chuo Line train at Nishi-Kokubunji Station in Tokyo on Sunday.
According to police, the special rapid service train departing Tokyo Station for Otsuki Station hit the girl at around 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, Kyodo News reported. Police said the girl was confirmed dead at the scene.
Police said the girl was dressed in casual clothes. Her bag, which was found on the train platform, contained a cell phone and prepaid e-money Suica card.
After reviewing security camera footage, police said that the girl was standing alone on the platform and jumped onto the tracks as a train pulled into the station.
Editor: If you or someone you know in Japan are having suicidal thoughts, help is available. Click here for more information.
© Japan Today
34 Comments
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Rodney
Sad.
oyatoi
Undoubtedly, there are people including teachers at her school who knew all about the bullying that was most likely at the heart of this. However, unless she left an incriminating suicide note, you can bet they’ve all gone to ground and in the best manner of Sergeant Schultz, heard and saw ‘nussink’.
Spitfire
There was one yesterday as well.
Very sad.
Japan must be a harsh place to grow up in if you are even a degree outside 'the norm.'
Eugene
I said it before and I'll say it again, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
I wish she had gotten some help before it came to this. My heart goes out to her family.
Sven Asai
Why that? It’s similarly harsh or even harsher if you’re grown up and are even in the center of the norm. So that is surely not the reason for her suicide.
Daniel Neagari
@Spitfire
Yes it is a problem... but suprisingly Japan is not the country wiht more suicides in the World, is not even in the top 10. So perhaps the image of "Japanese society makes you wanna die" type of narrative is wrong and old?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/suicide-rate-by-country
Daniel Neagari
@Eugene
From a third person point of view, yes it sure seems like that.
But from the point of view of the person who is suffering or having that types of thoughts, the situation and the logic that you are trying to apply may not be valid.
Not everyone have the same brain connections nor perseption.
Please considere that, that type of comments may be as hurtful to the person suffering as any bullying.
tora
And the way suicides are classified as such is the same from country to country? Me thinks not.
nakanoguy01
I'm guessing from the vague title that JT is trying to not sensationalize suicide but then why even write about it? And then include a suicide hotline at the end. This is a serious comment that I hope the staff at JT have.
Daniel Neagari
@tora
Huh? how on hell can "suicide" be classified?? so it is voluntary suicide, involuntary suicide, accidental suicide, chemical suicide, magical suicide??
Suicide " the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally",
What other type of suicide is there??
commanteer
You may be right. Unlike many other countries, Japanese life insurance pays out for suicide. That means there is less motivation for authorities to cover it up and more motivation to actually do it. If the figures were tabulated identically for all countries, Japan would likely be even further down the list of "suicidal" countries.
Laguna
When my kids were in JHS/HS, I was working seven days a week. Though it paid for college in the US, it took a toll on me. Suicide surfaced, yet lucky for me, my wife reached out and dragged me out of that hole.
Yet memories of that dark time linger. When (and if) you are ever in that hole, reach out. People are there to help.
wallace
A sad ending to a young life who lost all hope.
Jay
Really tragic news. Only 15 years old..
While suicide numbers in Japan don't place it in the top 10 of countries, according to World Population Review, "Suicide is the leading cause of death in men between the ages of 20-44 and women between the ages of 15-34". That's serious cause for concern, by any metric.
Chibakun
Yes but she was 15. Which country has the highest child suicide rate?
purple_depressed_bacon
What an odd thing to report. Why does it matter? The poor girl clearly committed suicide. Condolences to the family.
Suicide can actually be classified into four categories depending on motive: Egoistic suicide, Altruistic suicide, Anomic suicide, and Fatalistic suicide.
https://www.opencollege.info/types-of-suicide/
SapperJon
Today I will have great sadness in my heart a young life lost. I will think of her and her family.
itsonlyrocknroll
There is very little information that gives any insight into the teenagers state of mind.
My thoughts are with the family.
In Kochi there are helplines and Independent support from a wealth of services and dedicated professionals.
blimeylimey
Agree. The article itself was quite vague about how it happened. Its only revealed to be a suicide in the last sentence.
Thomas Twatt
Er… well… but…
…so… not so ‘wrong and old’ an image after all, maybe?
TT
nosuke
Sad news and another youngster to prevent the graying population of decaying japan has left the planet. RIP little girl..... Japan oh Japan.....have you not realized your society cleary has a problem with children taking there lives and parents killing their babies and complain about the graying population of Japan but does almost nothing to help.
JTC
I know of a Teacher in JHS who is so intolerant, particularly of those who aren't Native Japanese, that he goes out of his way to show off how powerful he is, but getting the Parents to write "Sorry" letters, and come into School whenever he sees fit, and threaten the pupils concerned that they won't get recommendation letters to get into SHS. He's the type of teacher who will make any pupil he dislikes, consider themselves worthless, and not worthy of living. Unfortunately, there appears to be little that can be done towards this particular person...
So, the causes of Suicide can, come from the least expected quarters.
kaimycahl
@Eugene I totally agree with your post but I would also think that who at such a young age would think about suicide if its not an ingrained cultural thing. It seems to me that the day you start pre-school in Japan whether the kids know it or not they are being subjected to enormous pressures that the society puts on them in ways to behave or to conform with rules. These same pressures I won't say rules follow these kids as they grow up into adulthood nothing changes. Your school life is dependent upon how or what kind of job you will have in a society where everyone is expected to have and if you don't have a job you have a feeling of being no one. The pressures in school leads to bullying in a work place especially if one person feels the other person is slightly different from them. Once they realize this they have their friends isolate that one person whether in school or the office. Everyone doesn't have coping skills some people are tough under the skin and in Japan its in writing if you have mental stress go seek help but that's just on paper MOST Japanese will not tell coworkers or friends their problems because that becomes a sign of weakness. When you have no one you THINK you can turn to even your parents at this young girls age they think suicide is the only answer. Perhaps she had little or no communication with her parents and felt no love because if she did personally I don't think she would have taken herself out.
I said it before and I'll say it again, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
I wish she had gotten some help before it came to this. My heart goes out to her family.
kaimycahl
@Daniel Neagari What other type of suicide is there?? DEATH IS death the END!
@tora
Huh? how on hell can "suicide" be classified?? so it is voluntary suicide, involuntary suicide, accidental suicide, chemical suicide, magical suicide??
*Suicide " the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally",*
What other type of suicide is there??
Thomas Twatt
Many types, potentially. Giving a definition of A doesn’t preclude there being different types of A.
You can define ‘blood’ or ‘kiss’ or a hat or a butterfly, but there is more than one type of each. Likewise there are voluntary suicides, involuntary suicides, assisted suicides (euthanasia), accidental suicides, ritual suicides, mass suicides, and so on (where ‘and so on’ means I can’t think of any more).
TT
proxy
Those high school entrance exams are very stressful. There always seems to be a lot of 15 year olds that fall into rivers etc.
Abe234
you Shouldn’t be reporting on this. If I’m right the WHO guidelines say you shouldn’t report the place this was done or the method because it actually suggests to those who cannot see hope, to see this as a possibility.
1 you mentioned where it took place
2 you mentioned the method.
quite prominent.As a mental health worker we always notice an uptick after all the reporting.
for your convenience here are the WHO guidelines on reporting suicide.
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/258814/WHO-MSD-MER-17.5-eng.pdf
TokyoLiving
So tragic..
Suicides happen in many more countries and for many more diverse reasons, leave the drama..
Denis Čuček
@ Daniel Neagari
It's the country with most adolescenct suicides.
Daniel Neagari
@to all who for some reason think that Japan is the only country in the world leading teen suicide and suicide overall.
First of all, I am not denying that Japan has a high rate of suicide. I am saying that that image that many still hold almost religiously, that Japan is the suicide leading country is wrong and outdated (the first link demostrate it clearly).
Second, the suicide rate of teen in average is high in EVERY country, because teens are suceptible to suffer from that.
The US suicide rate of teens is still high (not like Japan of Sout Korea) but it reaches 14%.
https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00857/
Also, a consideration has to be made regarding how the US defines suicide for the cases of teen with guns, and how many Latin american countries count and consider suicide (being the influence of catholic religion a big thing).
Third, I wonder why you so eagerly want to put Japan in first place for suicide, to the point of ignoring data, and why attack people that suggest to revise your views.
Lastly, as I person who suffers from clinical cronic depression and have in the past 2 unsuccesfful attempts of suicide (if i were succeful in taking my life, the statistics would not have been in Japan but elsewhre), I think I am able to see thing in another light. I live in Japan currently, and just last year a had one of my hardest episodes of depression of my entire life... I got to the point of thinking that I did not need to live anymore.. but my wife, friends and doctor (all of them Japanese by the way) help me to reconsider.
The cause, was not in fact the "evil" Japanese society... but in fact due to power harrasment and psycological, social and laboral abuse from a couple of people from a non japanese (non Asian) country.