The Mount Mihara Suicides

In 1933, a 21-year-old student named Kiyoko Matsumoto developed romantic feelings for her classmate Masako Tomita at Jissen Women’s University. The pair started up a secret relationship, but during this time, same-sex relationships were considered extremely taboo in Japanese culture. In a tragic turn of events, Matsumoto and Tomita chose to take their own lives by leaping into the crater of Mount Mihara, an active volcano located on the fishing island of Izu Ōshima, which had already been a well known suicide spot since the 1920’s. Matsumoto was the only one who jumped on that fateful day; Tomita was hesitant at the last moment and failed to go through with her suicide.

The news of Matsumotot’s tragic suicide soon spread through the university and gained significant media coverage in Japan, leading to her emergence as a posthumous figure of notoriety. The Tokyo Bay Steamship Company established a daily steamship service to the island, transforming it into a site of morbid tourism. The local community, primarily composed of impoverished fishermen, shifted their focus towards tourism, providing donkey rides for visitors to a vantage point that offered views of the crater. 

The media frenzy prompted an unfortunate phenomenon of copycat suicides. Young individuals romanticized Matsumotot’s suicide and began to journey to Mount Mihara with the intention of taking their own lives by leaping from the steep cliffs of the crater. Reports indicate that over 900 individuals took their own lives at this location in 1933 alone. Tourists flocked to the notorious volcano, often to simply observe and await the next tragic jumper. Media accounts indicate that over 2,000 people took their own lives at Mount Mihara during the 1930s. Authorities ultimately enclosed the volcano's crater with fencing, and security patrols were established to deter potential jumpers.

Mount Mihara has been prominently featured in various works of fiction. In 1965, both Oshima Island and the volcano played a crucial role in the climax of Gamera's inaugural film, where the military devised a plan to lure the giant turtle to the island in order to ensnare it within a massive rocket ship constructed there.

In the film The Return of Godzilla, Mount Mihara served as the location where the Japanese government confined Godzilla. Subsequently, in the sequel Godzilla vs. Biollante, explosives detonated on Mount Mihara, liberating Godzilla from his fiery prison.

In Koji Suzuki's novel Ring and its film adaptation, Shizuko Yamamura, the mother of Sadako, foresaw an eruption of Mount Mihara through her psychic powers. Following a failed psychic demonstration that led to Sadako inadvertently causing the death of a reporter, Shizuko fell into despair, ultimately succumbing to madness and taking her own life by jumping into the crater of Mount Mihara.