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sushi · Joined: 28 Aug 2005 Posts: 145

Anyone know when the practice died out. I have read some pretty gruesome accounts of the act as observed by westerners.

Doglover · Joined: 14 Dec 2004 Posts: 305 Location: Kansai

JimDunlop2 · Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Posts: 2286 Location: Japan

The term hara kiri is the colloquial (more vulgar) way of referring to seppuku (as Doglover pointed out).

Read the entry on it on Wikipedia -- it's fairly comprehensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku

If you're too lazy to click, here is the paragraph dealing with seppuku in modern Japan:

Seppuku in modern Japan

Seppuku as judicial punishment was officially abolished in 1873, shortly after the Meiji Restoration, but voluntary seppuku did not completely die out. Dozens of people are known to have committed seppuku since then, including a large group of military men who committed suicide in 1895 as a protest against the return of a conquered territory to China; by General Nogi and his wife on the death of Emperor Meiji in 1912; and by numerous soldiers and civilians who chose to die rather than surrender at the end of World War II.

In 1970, famed author Yukio Mishima and one of his followers committed public seppuku at the Japan Self-Defense Forces headquarters after an unsuccessful attempt to incite the armed forces to stage a coup d'etat. Mishima committed seppuku in the office of General Kanetoshi Mashita. His second, a 25-year-old named Morita, tried three times to ritually behead Mishima but failed; his head was finally severed by Hiroyasu Koga. Morita then attempted to commit seppuku himself. Although his own cuts were too shallow to be fatal, he gave the signal and he too was beheaded by Koga.

Some believe the 1990 suicide of the father of Japanese serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki should be considered seppuku.

In 1999, Masaharu Nonaka, a 58 year old employee of Bridgestone in Japan, slashed his belly with a sashimi knife to protest his forced retirement. He died later in the hospital. This suicide was dubbed risutora (downsizing/lay-off) seppuku by the mass media, and was said to represent the difficulties in Japan following the collapse of the bubble economy.

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So.. I would say that the last FORMAL seppuku were those of Yukio Mishima and his unsuccessful second, Morita. Interesting footnote to that, the swordsman who actually beheaded both Mishima and Morita, (an experienced kendo practitioner) Hiroyasu Koga only received four years in prison for assisting the two suicides. He is now married, changed his name and has since turned to religion and practices Seicho no le.

Willy_In_Japan · Joined: 20 Jul 2004 Posts: 329

I was told that an associate of Horie from Livedoor committed suicide and did it by Seppuku. Don't know if there is any fact to it, but that would be the most recent if true.

moot point · Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 441

massivegeoff · Joined: 16 Dec 2004 Posts: 43 Location: thailand

i'm no expert on japanese. what i know about hari kiri comes mostly from reading shogun many years ago. i always assumed that seppuko meant ritual suicide and that hari kiri was a less formal term. i hazard a guess that hari kiri refers to the method, whereas seppuko is the concept of ritual suicide. loads of people commited hari kiri in the book shogun, but i remember a scne where an old lady jumps off the roof of a castl and it is recorded as official seppuko.

according to what i was told, men commit hari kiri my ritual disembowlment. woman make a thrust to the troat with the knife. i don't think they get a second, nor would they need one. don't know what hari means, but kiri is as in kiri-masu ("please cut now kids").

there are loads of films showing hari kiri, even an episode of miami vice if memory serves!

JimDunlop2 · Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Posts: 2286 Location: Japan

Big John Stud · Joined: 07 Oct 2004 Posts: 513

[quote="Doglover]I have no idea whether women have ever done it but its a samurai custom and pretty much stopped around the Meiji period when it was forbidden to carry swords in public.[/quote]

Women have their own version of Suppico. I saw it once in a Samurai TV series.

angrysoba · Joined: 20 Jan 2006 Posts: 446 Location: Kansai, Japan

As I remember, in Mishima's story 'Patriotism' the wife of the soldier commits ritual suicide after her husband has committed seppuku.

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PAULH · Joined: 28 Jan 2003 Posts: 4672 Location: Western Japan

Excuse me for being a stickler for accuracy, the japanese terms for these acts are harakiri and seppuku.

PS Shogun is a work of fiction spiced up to make interesting reading. I remember I saw the TV program with Richard Chamberlain and in one scene they boiled a whole bunch of Dutch sailors alive in a large pot.

Nabe, anyone?

JimDunlop2 · Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Posts: 2286 Location: Japan

Big John Stud · Joined: 07 Oct 2004 Posts: 513

JimDunlop2 wrote:

Highly recommended.

Forty-Seven Ronin Story by John Allyn: The whole darn thing is about seppuku. What could be more Japanese and more honourable than 47 samurai all committing mass suicide for their master?

I also highly recommend the 47 Ronin! Great story! Reading the book was like going back in time.

seanmcginty · Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 203

"Tales of Old Japan" by L. Redesdale has a very good version of the 47 Ronin. Its recently been re-published.

Eiji Yoshikawa's Musashi is a fantastic read. Two of his other books, "Taiko" and "Tale of the Heike" have also been translated and are worth a read, though he died before finishing Heike.

Tale of Genji isn't the first book ever written, its the first novel. There are 3 english versions, all of which are pretty good, though long.