Wataru Tsurumi's book, "The Complete Manual of Suicide," was a best seller in Japan and it's easy to see why. He was writing for a market that is particularly interested in self-destruction.
Japan has one of the highest rates of suicide in the world. Last year, more than 30,000 people took their own lives in Japan. That's about the same total number as in the United States, which has a population of nearly 300 million, compared to Japan's 130 million.
People under 40 are increasing their share of the total number of suicides. For the age groups 15-24 and 40-54, suicide is the second most common cause of death. And Internet suicide clubs are a growing concern. It seems almost every week that police report finding bodies in a fume-filled car somewhere in the mountains. Often the dead people had only recently met in a suicide chat room, and made a pact to kill themselves together.