Passing through the Aokigahara, the Sea of Trees at Night

Location: Aokigahara

Nearest Station: Kawaguchiko

I was debating about writing this blog due to some of the sensitive nature surrounding this infamous forest. Aokigahara known as the "Sea of Trees" (Jukai), it has earned a reputation for being haunted as well as location for suicide. It also has gained a bad reputation for foreigners disrespecting it - especially due to a specific American YouTuber in 2017. But seven years prior to that, the forest was largely unknown to international community, and I was simply interested to see what the area held.

2010

Just a few months after arriving to Japan, I travelled to the area with two of my university friends. We rested up during the day, and arrived at Kawaguchiko by last train, put on some winter clothes and walked out towards around the outskirts of the forest near the Wind Cave. Along the way, we passed by Moose Burger shop (which reminded me of Canada), a creepy bird statue, and a roadside 7/11 just on the edge of the woods, which my friend wondered if the spirits would come out of the forest at night to buy onigiri. We then made our way to a parking lot near a historical village. Despite being young and adventurous, the area was a lot colder than Tokyo, and by this point we all had started to get very tired and cold. We took shelter for 30 minutes in an open hotel lobby alongside Lake Saiko, and after warming up, continued our night trek around the lake, passing though a tunnel which led us to Kawaguchiko lake at the crack of dawn. I took a photo of an angel statue outside the community centre as we slowly walked along the empty roads. Eventually, we reached civilization again, and I snapped one last shot of the lake at sunrise. It was a clear morning sky, which revealed my first breathtaking view of Mt. Fuji. Utterly exhausted, the three of us took a break in Cafe Gusto before making our way back to the station. Then, I looked out to see none other than Thomas the Tank Engine pull up on our platform - a special promotion for the attraction at the Fuji-Q amusement park.

2012

My next journey to Aokigahara was a couple years later, when myself and several film making friends decided to make a found footage style thriller movie in around the Sea of Trees. We tried to make a "found footage" style horror movie, in a similar method to Blair Witch, Rec, Paranomal Activity, etc. The premise was that an American adventure vlogger (played by my friend Stephen), ends up going into the forest and encounters several paranormal events and uncovers a larger mystery involving the disappearance of two other hikers (played by Josh & Kaori), and one other (Mori). Asides from a few prelude sequences, the 5 of us shot the entire project guerrilla style over just one weekend. Having a budget of only a few hundred dollars, this was intended to be more of an "experimental film" to throw on YouTube just to build some exposure. We first set some ground rules on the production - we didn't actually go into the deeper parts of the forest, stayed very careful not to disturb the forest vegetation or anyone hiking through it. I rented a room in a nearby hostel where we slept during the day, and then we took the last bus of the day out to the forest, filmed all night, and took the first bus back in the morning. There were of course a million unexpected challenges (such as Steve loosing his cell phone), and it was a mad scramble to complete all the scenes on time, which really pushed all of our energy to the limit. Still, we were able to successfully complete the project.

I spent several months editing it in my spare time and eventually put it on YouTube. At first, it generated a lot of positive buzz online, getting about 50,000 views (which for a +40 minute video was fairly impressive, especially with no understanding of YT SEO or other marketing tricks). At first, the comments were all quite positive "this is a cool indie film", with some small criticisms such as how the pacing was a bit slow or the plot was a bit difficult to follow, which was understandable. It stayed up on YouTube for several years, gradually collecting views and comments, and then in 2017, after a certain American YouTuber's Aokigahara incident, the video suddenly got a lot more traction, which was heavily negative. I started to receive a lot of hate messages because most people thought I was Stephen and I don't think most people watched more than the first minute or two of the film. In lieu of the situation and social zeitgeist, I decided to take it down. Although I tried to avoid being insensitive to such a topic, as the film really doesn't go into suicide much and focuses on a very different subject and plot - the incident made me more cautious on choosing locations and topics in a film. Its impossible to avoid offending everyone, but it is important to take precautions so audiences don't misunderstand the subject matter. Interestingly, there a much higher budget horror film about Aokigahara, although this also received some attention for trivializing the subject of suicide.

2017

My last visit to the area was in 2017 with my Lithuanian friend Evgeny, his brother Deivid, and their dog Arthur. Our main goal was just to go camping around Fuji, we stopped into Aokigahara a few times. The first night, we stayed at an official campsite near the forest. We has some chicken cooked by campfire, some high quality JD, and several "Fuji" beers. Mid-way through dinner, Evgeny left his seat to use the toilet. I continued chatting to his brother. When he came back from the toiled he asked us, "Okay, which one of you drank my beer?" - but neither of us had gotten up from our seats. He insisted that he didn't drink it himself. He sarcastically remarked, "Well then, did a ghost drink it or something?" Suddenly, his tent collapses. We look over and his dog Arthur is stumbling around. It turns out the silly dog liked the beer too.

The next day, while nursing his dog's hangover, we travelled into the forest. We found a strange pit filled with what looked like animal bones. Nearby, we found an unmarked, unlabelled home made DVD. Of course the immediate thoughts were some sort of cursed video. My friend postulated that it could also be a video message from someone who went into the forest. So, for curiosity's sake, we decided to test and see if the video could be played on his car DVD player. It worked - and what we saw was absolutely shocking... well not really - it was a ripped porn movie. Since the DVD was damaged, only the title screen worked, so as a joke my friend drove around while playing "porn title screen techno music" until we reached the next camping site. This time, we set up our tents on a beach near lake Shōji. That night, we actually watched the other horror film about Aokigahara. Rather than scary, it was funny for us since it was so inaccurate. The next morning we toured around the historical village before heading back to Tokyo.