Suicide rates are way up everywhere, they're just sweeping it under the rug here. I couldn't find any official statistics for 2020, but I found one health official stating that in their county they hit 2019 totals by June.
There is a class of people called hikikomoris that somehow fall out of the work system for one reason or another, and because the companies there are terrible, and already will shun you and ruin you for small slights, they can't seem to manage to make it back in. So they become complete shut-ins and are forgotten by society. It's probably even worse during a pandemic, they'd feel more hopeless.
Then there's a bunch of people that are extremely lonely even with work, and without the outlet of going to work/restaurants/pachinko/whatever else it's not a surprise they'd fall into a depression.
Small businesses, like ramen shops, are suffering there with stupid policies, just like here. Some shop was closed because they started selling ramen burgers instead of ramen (it's easier to take-home), but it apparently was some vaguely-related transgression against their renting agreement to change their business (making a burger instead of soup). Ridiculous.
Does Japan need a hug or something? WTF is going on over there?
Suicide rates are way up everywhere, they're just sweeping it under the rug here. I couldn't find any official statistics for 2020, but I found one health official stating that in their county they hit 2019 totals by June.
There is a class of people called hikikomoris that somehow fall out of the work system for one reason or another, and because the companies there are terrible, and already will shun you and ruin you for small slights, they can't seem to manage to make it back in. So they become complete shut-ins and are forgotten by society. It's probably even worse during a pandemic, they'd feel more hopeless.
Then there's a bunch of people that are extremely lonely even with work, and without the outlet of going to work/restaurants/pachinko/whatever else it's not a surprise they'd fall into a depression.
Small businesses, like ramen shops, are suffering there with stupid policies, just like here. Some shop was closed because they started selling ramen burgers instead of ramen (it's easier to take-home), but it apparently was some vaguely-related transgression against their renting agreement to change their business (making a burger instead of soup). Ridiculous.
Suicide is hush-hush in the US. If you ever head of someone that simply "died" with no explanation, you can probably assume it was suicide.