No, it is not a film based on “Il late Mattia Pascal” by Luigi Pirandello, it’s all reality. In Japan there is a social phenomenon that intrigues and restless at the same time: the Johatsu, which literally means “evaporating”. These are people who choose to disappear voluntarily, leaving family, work and relationships behind them. We are not talking about crimes or kidnappings, but of a conscious decision, often planned in the smallest details, to get rid of an perceived existence as unsustainable.
Because disappearing may seem the only solution
The reasons behind this choice are manifold. Some decide to disappear for overwhelming debts or for shame linked to economic failure. Others want to move away from situations of domestic violence, scandals or social pressures that are difficult to hold. In a culture that attributes enormous value to honor and public image, vanish into thin air may appear less painful than to face the judgment of society.
Yonigeya, the agencies of the silent escape
To make all this possible there are the Yonigeya, real agencies specialized in “disappearances”. They operate at night, organizing quick removals, finding new houses in anonymous neighborhoods and even offering support to get small jobs.
In the most extreme cases, some require cosmetic surgery or even documents for a new identity. The law does not forbid to disappear, but in the presence of fraud, insolvenze or minors involved, you enter a gray area at legal risk.
Where the Johatsu go to live
Those who choose this road often take refuge in marginal areas of large cities, such as San’ya in Tokyo or Kamagasaki in Osaka, neighborhoods where anonymity is guaranteed. Here you live in occasional or black jobs, far from the pressure of traditional Japan. In these places, nobody asks too many questions: silence becomes a form of protection.
Freedom or silent condemnation?
The Johatsu is seen by some as a rebirth, the possibility of resetting everything and starting again. For others, however, it turns into a trap: many end up exploited by organized crime or trapped in a precarious existence. The investigative agencies, paid by families to find who has disappeared, also thrive around this phenomenon.
Two parallel markets that revolve around the same drama. The phenomenon, with its ambiguity, remains the mirror of a society where personal failure can become unbearable and where the idea of ”disappearing” appears, incredibly, one of the few ways out. Below we leave you a documentary that speaks of the Johatsu.
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