Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #22 January 2016 | Page 38

The Forest: the real story of Aokigahara
Daniel S. Liuzzi

Coming soon to a theatre/cinema near you!
The Forest, a film about a young women traveling to
Japan to find her twin sister who committed suicide
in the Aokigahara forest. I’m a big lover of anything
Japanese so when I heard about this movie I got really
excited, till I saw new ads saying ‘Inspired by true
events’ which actually annoyed me. I know many may
know that when a film says that it was ‘inspired’ by
a true event they mean they saw a story either on the
web or the news and let their imagination run wild,
but many movie goers mistaken this term for ‘Based
on a true story,’ which means the story you’re seeing
is a recreation of an ‘actual’ event. With The Forest, I
feel that like anything else inspired by Japanese lore
or pop culture, Hollywood is going to fail explaining
it to an audience full of people who are not familiar
with what the story is trying to say, resulting in many
people in the audience going on Rotten Tomatoes,
IMDB and social media saying ‘I don’t get it.’ and
as a result, damning a potentially good story because
someone at a studio did not take the time to explain

the whole picture so the audience is up to speed.
So with that said I wish to explain the true story of
Aokigahara for you in the event you would like to see
the movie The Forest and have an understanding of
the ‘true events.’

Aokigahara is located at the northwest base
of the famous landmark of Japan, Mt. Fuji. The
forest also goes by the name Jukai, which means
Sea of Trees because the forest is thirthy-five square
kilometres (14 sq mi). Aokigahara is a very dense
forest, so dense it’s said that it blocks out a lot of
natural sounds from within the forest itself! The
ground under the dirt of the forest is made up of
volcanic rock which prevents trails being made by
hand or machine. Because of this there are not many
official trails that you can walk on in the forest and
the locals and local authorities urge, if not beg, hikers
and casual explorers to stay on the paths and not to
go into the woods since many people who’ve been in
the woods can attest to—it’s VERY easy to get lost

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