Suicide victim video by YouTube star sparks anger in Japan

TOKYO: Japanese social media reacted with a storm of outrage to a video by YouTube star Logan Paul showing a suicide victim in a forest near Mount Fuji, as anger spread over the now-deleted video on Wednesday. Angry comments flooded Twitter after Paul, who gained notoriety on social media and has a popular video blog or “vlog”, apologised for the footage, which was reportedly viewed six million times. The video shows the 23-year-old discovering a body in Aokigahara, a dense woodland at the foot of Mount Fuji known as “the Japanese Suicide Forest”, in a country that has long struggled with some of the highest suicide rates in the developed world. As news of the video and apology was reported in Japan Wednesday, social media erupted with indignation over the film, which showed a man who had hanged himself.