Young suicides and lonely expatriates: the melancholic side of the Asian metropolis

A view of the city. How could a collectivist society — one in which the group is more important than the individual, and where relationships and hierarchy are central — become a fragmented society of people who rush about, busy and often alone, like isolated atoms spinning in empty space? Tokyo is not Japan; it is an exception — as all large metropolises are. The “average” life may well be found in smaller towns and provincial cities. Yet Tokyo, as an exception, contains both what is traditional and characteristic of the local culture and what departs from it. After spending most autumns here for three years, I have slowly and with difficulty begun to form a deeper sense of the city — not so much through its outward manifestations or its urban layout, but through what I might call Tokyo’s “intimate emotional life.”

A claim that is in its own way comic. To truly understand such a complex reality might require a lifetime. My outsider’s gaze has its strengths and weaknesses. Its strength is that you cannot grasp the extent of a sea while you are immersed in it. Being born into and living within a culture is like being immersed in that sea. Only the foreigner sees things from outside and therefore perceives the external limits, because those boundaries must be crossed — not only geographically but in a deeply symbolic sense. At the same time, however, it is difficult to penetrate the heart of something you mostly see from the outside. This is made harder by the fact that my social relationships here are limited and difficult to deepen.

I will put aside the Japan that appeals to foreigners (the one of kimonos and cherry blossoms), and even the Japan that fascinates me (its history and literature). I will try instead to look at this country with a different eye. Undoubtedly, in speaking of this country I will simply be addressing issues relevant to people in our contemporary world. I believe, from the outset, that while my reflections are triggered by Tokyo, they may have broader relevance — not because my personal thoughts are particularly important, but because the “ethnic” or purely cultural component may not be decisive.

Taking one’s life in solitude. My reflection begins with an anecdote that at first seemed unrelated to this theme. While browsing the web for Western films set in the Land of the Rising Sun, I remembered an old 2007 movie I had seen almost by chance when it came out: Silk (directed by François Girard, based on the novel by Alessandro Baricco). It is full of orientalist and romantic clichés, but overall it is a pleasant film.

Looking at the cast, I made a sad discovery: the actress who played the mysterious young woman had died a few years ago, still young. She had committed suicide in her Tokyo apartment. Her stage name was Ashina Sei (芦名星); she was born in 1983 and died in September 2020. She left no note, and no one understood the reason for her act.

The image of this smiling young woman peeking out from a web image search struck me deeply. The thought that she died in such an apparently senseless way filled me with great melancholy, if not genuine emotion. I found myself thinking about her for the rest of the day — a disproportionate reaction, perhaps, given that she was a complete stranger. Death is an ordinary fact that affects enormous numbers of people every day. Why, then, did the story of this young actress disturb me so much?

Ashina Sei’s fate led me to investigate her life and the circumstances of her death — not out of morbid curiosity or gossip, but to understand what might drive someone to such a desperate act when so much of life still lies ahead.

Ashina Sei had not been forgotten by the public when she died. She had a successful professional life. Beautiful, young and famous, she should not, by the ordinary logic of things, have had suicidal thoughts. I found, in gossip-leaning articles, that a few months earlier a close friend and fellow actor, Miura Haruma (三浦春馬), had taken his own life in 2020. Some articles hypothesised that Ashina Sei felt a difficult-to-manage guilt because the friend had called her shortly before his death and she may have cut the call short due to an engagement that day. Miura Haruma left no explanatory note either, only a brief goodbye. I cannot verify the truth of such claims, but I report them as presented.

That same September 2020 saw another tragic death: the actress Takeuchi Yuko (竹内結子) also took her own life, with postpartum depression offered as one possible explanation.

The loneliness of Tokyo’s residents and expatriates. Why recount this list of suicides, which risks seeming in poor taste? What do the deaths of these young actors have to do with the lives of “ordinary” people? Much more than one might imagine.

The entertainment world, here as elsewhere, bears strong similarities to the fragmentation of contemporary society. The sad destinies of these young performers share features we can also find in the lives of ordinary people today. In show business, individuals often face pressures that can foster isolation: public image versus private life, success creating a life separated from authentic, meaningful relationships, and confusion over whether others are interested in the person or in their status. People in such conditions may experience identity crises. Various factors, coupled with the possible lack of emotional support, can lead to depression and, in extreme cases, suicide — perceived as the only escape from a complete lack of meaning.

The vast, unimaginable mass of a metropolis like Tokyo has dismantled traditional social ties and increased migratory flows, both internal (from periphery to center) and external (foreigners coming from other countries).

Japan’s demographic winter is not only the consequence of young people choosing not to marry or to have children out of unwillingness or a lack of sacrifice; it can also be a choice that is suffered. Meeting people and socializing, apart from school years, becomes difficult. People may live for years beside neighbours whose names they do not know. Family and children would be among the few salvific sources of affection and love out of this solitude, yet forming or sustaining a family is not always possible. The regimented life of tertiary capitalist societies does not help relationships outside of work.

Immigrants represent a particular case. I confess I have not consulted statistics or in-depth sociological studies on the subject; my reflections are based on limited personal experience, and I do not claim universal validity.

Over the years I have often dealt with foreigners, mostly from other Asian countries, who moved to Japan for work. Unlike patterns of immigration in Europe, I have had the impression that people often relocate here alone, not with their families, sometimes for very long periods. Excluding some students who lived lightly — nights out and late mornings — the most sociologically interesting group comprised adult economic migrants.

I have met people who have lived in Tokyo for eight or nine years in shared apartments with strangers they barely greet, regularly sending part of their earnings home to family and children. Last year I spoke a few times with an immigrant woman ethnically Asian but raised in Australia. She is around thirty-five or thirty-six. Her passion for Japanese anime and manga had brought her here five or six years earlier. She lived in the apartment next to mine; without prying, I could piece together aspects of her lifestyle. She worked remotely, went into the office a couple of days a week, and spent long days shut inside, going out only to shop. The thin wall between us did not prevent me from overhearing her on business calls. Her dream of living a life like an anime character had turned into a life of solitude. This year I moved back into the same building, slightly farther from her; I have seen her walking alone nearby. She still lives here.

I have met others who live similar lives, commuting between home and office from early morning until late evening. I tried discreetly to understand what lies outside that dimension of life. Little. Solitude — a lot of solitude.

Conclusions. One of these people has become a friend. I spend many days with him when I am in Tokyo. I ask him why, apart from me, he has not formed friendships with others he has lived with over the years. He tells me, resigned, that people live in their isolation and seem to struggle to communicate with one another, whether Japanese or foreign. He moves frequently, changing residence according to economic convenience, since he has no ties anchoring him to a specific neighbourhood. He confesses that when I invited him for a drink a couple of years ago, he was surprised and put off.

I believe the causes of these solitary lives are not simply selfishness or mistrust. Selfishness and mistrust are consequences of having created a society like this.

Perhaps the main condition that makes these “atomised” lives possible is not the indifferent, undifferentiated mass of the metropolis, but a lifestyle centered on work and consumerism. Have you ever heard young people being told that they should choose study paths “to find a job” rather than to realize themselves and learn? One risks being accused of some nostalgic neo-Marxism, but it is clear that mentalities like these subordinate what is human to the productive structure of society. It is almost banal to say. Since the 1950s many critics have pointed to the inhuman society we began creating then. Today, we hear the echoes of those solitudes even here, in small provincial towns in Italy.

I have no ready solutions to such vast problems. I can only offer hopes and personal reflections. The neoliberal ideology that has dominated the world in recent decades has failed because it has made us all unhappier. Perhaps we should help ourselves and future generations in genuinely creating a more connected society — not the kind of connection offered by social networks. By educating and cultivating empathy, valuing others, and providing more concrete opportunities and spaces to be together — yes, even organised, artificial spaces.

Perhaps only a partial return to a more social and collective dimension of life could soften the sense of solitude of contemporary people.

As I write these concluding thoughts, I cannot help but wonder what Sei Ashina felt in the minutes before she ended her life. It is a small thing, yet the thought of her has inspired these reflections.