The Complete Manual of Suicide - Public Reaction

Public Reaction

Because the Japanese criminal code censors only graphical depictions of the sexual organs, this book was not censored by the government. Some prefectures designated the book as yugaitosho (book harmful to youth), which restricts the sale of books to minors, while some prefectures, such as Tokyo, decided against doing so. There are many suicides where the book was found along with the body, including several cases of the suicides of junior high school students. The book neither encourages nor discourages suicide, and as well does not tell those considering suicide to seek help, though wordings such as "completely painless" and "marvelous experience" are used to indicate that certain methods are less painful and more fatal than others. Moreover, the book shows that certain popular methods of suicide have very low success rates. For this reason, some argue that the book has made suicide attempts since its publication more fatal. Some attribute Japan's high suicide rate not just to the number of people who attempt suicide but also to the fact that people use more fatal methods, though to what extent the book has contributed to this trend is unknown.

After the intense criticism and debate, the author subsequently published the second book, 'Our "Complete Manual of Suicide"' (僕達の完全自殺マニュアル, Bokutachi no "Kanzen Jisatsu Manyuaru"?) ISBN 978-4-87233-153-0 where he published fan letters and hate mail he had received. This second book somewhat helped shift the public attention to the various reasons some people commit suicide, and the controversy died down eventually. The book is still widely available. The same publisher, with a different author, published The Complete Manual of Disappearance (Kanzen Shisso Manyuaru) in 1994.