After
seppuku, kamikaze and karoshi, Japan could hope that through a different perspective on the Japanese attitude toward work/duty, the next Japanese word to pop up in an English dictionary might be kodawari.
Matt wonders if committing
seppuku would absolve him of that last comment.
Since the POWs had either surrendered--an irredeemably dishonorable act--or allowed themselves to be captured, yet did not commit
seppuku, it was the duty of honorable men to punish them.
Japanese overlord Shogun sentences benign ruler Lord Asano to commit suicide,
seppuku, allowing Lord Kira to snatch both Asano's territory and his daughter Mika.
The most damaging came in 1663 when the practice of junshi, a form of
seppuku (ritual self-disembowelment) performed by samurai upon the death of their lord, was outlawed.
Seppuku - ritual suicide - was part of the Samurai code, and Kamikaze pilots were seen as the bravest of the brave.
Even if Japan is a country with specific types of suicidal risk (
seppuku, kamikaze), the rate of suicide is lower than in many European countries.
Of special interest is a section on cultural scripts for suicide: Russian roulette and duels, death by
seppuku, self-immolation as protest, victim-precipitated homicide, sati, suicide by police, and suicide as liberation of the soul.