New types of graves and services reflect changes in tradition

New types of burials and ways of mourning have emerged in recent years, ranging from columbariums using digital technology to graves for couples or those where owners and pets can be buried together.

The COVID-19 pandemic made such services as grave visiting in place of families or ones using virtual reality technology take root.

In August 2022, Kenjoin, a Tendai sect Buddhist temple in Sendai’s Aoba Ward, opened a columbarium that can accommodate the remains of 600 people in a modern reinforced concrete building with three digitized altars.

A visitor places a QR code on a user’s card over a reader of any of the altars and then a portrait of the deceased will appear on a 14-centimeter high, 22-cm wide touch screen along with the name, date of birth and date of death. Other data, such as phrases that the deceased liked or memorable pictures, can also be shown on the screen.

The facility is located around a 10-minute walk from Sendai Station. Flowers and incense sticks are made available at the facility so that visitors don’t have to bring anything.

The fee is ¥300,000 per interment of ashes for a period until the 12th anniversary of the death. After the period is over, the cremains are moved to a joint grave.

Kanji Matoba, 84, who lives nearby, interred the cremains of his wife, who had died of illness, in the facility in November.

Explaining the reason why he did so, Matoba said, “I’m originally from Sakata (in Yamagata Prefecture), but I don’t own a grave there since I’m the second son. I don’t have a car and I can’t go to graveyards in the suburbs, so I chose the place where I can walk to.”

He visits the columbarium twice or three times a month, on her death day of every month, and also when he has errands to run near Sendai Station.

He looks at his wife’s portrait and offers a prayer, speaking to her in his mind, “I’m here again.”

Contracts have already been signed for roughly three quarters of the spaces at the columbarium, managed by Memoire Sekizai, a stone material company in Rifu, Miyagi Prefecture.

Masaaki Endo, 55, the firm’s president, said, “People not only come during the Bon season or the equinoctial week but also drop by during lunch time on weekdays or after shopping.”

“This is the new form of grave visiting.”

Graves for couples or with pets

Miyagi Reien in Sendai’s Aoba Ward, operated by Sendai-based public interest incorporated foundation Ataraxia, created limited-period graves for couples in 2015.

Up to four cremains including those of a husband and wife can be interred in a grave. The cremains will be moved to a joint grave after a period between 10 and 100 years.

Contracts have been signed for all of the 124 sections for such graves offered at a usage fee of between some ¥540,000 and ¥1.5 million.

The popularity of the graves reflects the declining birthrate and the increase of nuclear families.

Many of the contracts were made by couples who say they don’t have an heir or their children live far away.

Amid the rise in the number of people who think of pets as part of the family, Miyagi Reien in 2016 set up graves where pets and their owners can be buried together, becoming the first cemetery in the Tohoku region to do so.

In 2020, it started offering tree burials, a practice of planting a tree over the ashes to mark the gravesite. Such burials are gaining popularity due to its image of “returning to nature.”

Hiroaki Endo, 49, head of the cemetery, said, “Awareness about families and burials is continuing to change. We hope to provide graves that fit the circumstances of the times.”

Virtual reality grave visits

Yoshisho Sekizai, a stone material firm in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, started roughly a decade ago a service of staff visiting graves in place of the families.

Orders for the service increased during the COVID-19 pandemic when people refrained from traveling to their hometown. The firm receives about 10 orders a year.

Zenkoku Yuryo Sekizaiten no Kai, a Tokyo-based group of stone material companies of which Yoshisho Sekizai is a member, started in 2020 a virtual grave visiting service using VR technology.

The member firms’ staff shoot a grave with a 360-degree camera so that a customer can remotely experience grave visiting by wearing VR goggles. The fee is ¥27,500 or more.

According to the group, the virtual grave visiting service is used by a certain number of people in the Tokyo metropolitan area, but has been attracting few customers in Tohoku. Yoshisho Sekizai has received only one order so far.

Takuya Yoshida, 45, the company’s president, stressed, “There are few uses because of the lack of recognition. It makes you feel like you are actually visiting a grave, and I’m sure we will receive more orders once the service gets known.”

The firm is planning to place devices in its store so that customers can try the VR service.