A Very Public Suicide

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    I hope none of you out there were shopping in Ikebukuro this afternoon and saw the event described in this video:

    Slightly before 1:00PM today a young man and woman jumped to a very bloody death from the top of the Parco department store, right into the sidewalk in front of the main entrance. As is often the case in jumping suicides, shoes were found on the roof of the building.

    Update: Reports now indicate that it was a woman in her twenties who jumped, and she landed on a 37 year-old man. The woman is dead but the main was reported to be in critical condition as of 5:25PM.

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    15 comments - What do you think?   Posted by James - November 6, 2007 at 4:34 pm

    Categories: General Japan  Tags: ,

    • CS

      Shoes removed?

      Whats the origin of that Japanese custom?

      …Stepping through Deaths door?

      • Brett

        For some reason I seem to remember because shoes are considered not clean, hence when they want to cross over they tend to remove their shoes. But this is what I have only heard from some of my students. I don’t know for sure why.

        • The Overthinker

          Looking at this: http://okwave.jp/qa622050.html I suspect most Japanese don’t know why shoes are removed either. Several theories are mentioned, such as the influence of a TV drama, the idea that ghosts don’t have feet and thus don’t need shoes (an idea created in the Edo period by a famous Kabuki actor who started to glide rather than walk when playing a ghost to make it creepier), to signal that this was premeditated and not a murder, that they will not be returning to this place, etc etc.

    • Wing_Goddess

      Very sad :(
      Though suicide is nothing really new in Japan.
      I wonder what made them pick that location? and their age?

    • hs

      Actually, what I heard from the news was that there was a woman who committed suicide by jumping from Parco, and the man was so unfortunate that he just happened to be walking the street where she fell. She fell on him and died an hour later. The man is in a coma… :(

      • hs

        Just so that I don’t ruin James’ translation… The news I saw was not this one… It was the evening news.

        • http://www.japanprobe.com James

          Thanks for letting me know: It looks like the earlier reports on this were incomplete, and more details are now being reported.

    • http://www.equinoxio.org/author/julian Julián Ortega Martínez

      According to the Mainichi, the woman had been treated from schizophrenia since 2002. :(

      • DryHumor

        schizophrenia is one of worst psychiatric illness with high suicide rates and strong hereditary component.

    • 404error

      holy sh*t hit by a falling body… man she could have jumped somewhere else…

      • The Overthinker

        Yes, the man’s relatives are not going to be happy – they’ll probably charge the woman’s estate for his medical bills.

      • mon_cherie

        Hasn’t anyone seen (Le destin fableux du) Amelie? In black humor, her mother died because someone jumped off a church and landed on her X_x.

    • http://www.mysonabsalom.com S. Pihlaja

      I will now look up before I go into Parco.

    • The Overthinker

      “Parco – it’s not only our prices that are falling”
      “Parco – you’ll jump at our prices”
      “If you’re tired of Parco, you’re tired of life”
      “Come see our Parco rooftop shoe sale – limited time only!”

      What – too soon?

    • ijanders

      The Overthinker, those slogans might actually work if Parco didn’t obviously have the most unbearably slow elevators of all time.