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Chapter 3: Memories of Aoyama Masaaki

Keio Boy

June 17, 2001.

Aoyama Masaaki, a charismatic editor, subculture writer and eccentric, died today. He was forty years old. He committed suicide.

Born June 27, 1960, in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture. His real name was Otsuka Masami.

He was ten days shy of turning forty-one, and his death came far too early.

He was a mutual acquaintance of Isaki, myself and Nekojiru.

He was a professional mentor whom I deeply respected.

I have seen the deaths of Nekojiru, Aoyama and Isaki, in that order.

Three talented people. Sensitive, unique, gentle, self-aware and vulnerable people.

Aoyama Masaaki, with his deep knowledge of psychotropic drugs, has a cult following to this day.

His articles and edited books have garnered a legion of devoted readers and remain highly sought-after.

Aoyama was born an only child, with a doting mother and a father who served in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force.

Though he never studied, he was known among his peers to be a child prodigy. In the second grade, he was known for being able to recite his times tables in twenty-five seconds.

In the third grade, his father bought him Supernatural Mysteries, a children’s book by Minamiyama Hiroshi. This sparked an interest in the supernatural, the occult, and other paranormal phenomena. It was around this time that he was deeply moved by Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”

By the time junior high rolled around, Alice Cooper had become Aoyama’s god. Influenced by the rise of glam rock in the early ‘70s, Aoyama began importing records such as School’s Out.

He was a genius. He ranked first in Kanagawa Prefecture’s mock entrance exams two years in a row. His teacher even gave him the thumbs-up, telling him he had a bright future ahead of him as a doctor or a public speaker.

Aoyama could often be found in the library, immersed in poetry collections, such as the works of William Blake. He later became obsessed with progressive rock during high school and stopped studying altogether. His grades dropped.

Despite this, he was accepted into Keio University’s School of Law while still in high school. Thus he joined the ranks of the Keio boys.

It was around this time that the name Aoyama Masaaki began to surface.

The Lost Student Magazine

In 1981, Aoyama teamed up with friends to edit and launch the student magazine Mutation. Its unconventional, taboo-breaking content garnered wide acclaim.

Themes such as eroguro, freaks of nature, dead bodies, drugs, lolicon and bigotry were tackled in witty and original writing. He even pulled risque stunts like sneaking into an elementary school with a hidden camera and solving a hate speech-themed crossword puzzle that produced a photo of the Crown Prince of Japan. His youthful energy and vibrant graphics stimulated the dark, morbid curiosity lurking within people’s hearts. It’s said that a writer’s essence is captured in their debut work, and the true essence of Aoyama Masaaki, who later pioneered the kichiku (devilish) kei craze, blossomed during his school days.

Editor-in-Chief Aoyama Masaaki’s afterword in his inaugural issue read,

“In my opinion, radicalism is the only way forward. How can we express that with a magazine? Let’s start by making people angry.”

The fact that they published images of deformed bodies stirred controversy.

When this zine became a hot topic among fans of the eccentric, Shiina Makoto (who was popular at the time for his frivolous Showa-era style) denounced it in Asahi Shimbun, saying, “This shouldn’t be tolerated,” further spreading the name of Mutation and Aoyama Masaaki far and wide.

Aoyama later challenged Shiina to a duel in an article in Weekly Playboy, saying he’d meet him outside the giraffe exhibit at Ueno Zoo, but Shiina never showed.

Aoyama was a genius at finding beauty in the macabre. He began writing for adult magazines like Hey! Buddy and Billy (both published by Byakuya Shobo) while still a student, and made a name for himself as a perverted writer.

Frequent topics included articles on drugs, lolicons and cult films, but with the rise of otaku culture in the early ‘80s came a demand for lolicon-centric content.

Aoyama’s name became synonymous with lolicon, hard drugs and all things degenerate. He became a writer for another world.

Launch of an Overseas Travel Magazine

I first met Aoyama in 1989.

At the time, I was an editor and writer. I was editing an adult magazine, and one of my writers was Aoyama, who was working for a stock information magazine called Industry and Economy.

I often went to Kabutocho, where Aoyama worked, to pick up manuscripts. Both of us were unsatisfied with our lives at the time.

Through avant-garde musician Akita Masami of Merzbow, we learned of an opportunity to launch a new magazine.

A thriving Nagoya-based telephone sales company was looking to enter the publishing business in Tokyo. They were recruiting editorial staff.

Aoyama and I both jumped at the chance. Writer Goan Yasunori and editor S joined us. We formed an editorial team of four people from the world of underground publishing.

Leading us was M, president and editor-in-chief, who had come from our magazine’s parent company. And that’s how Eccentric was born.

It was a visually striking travel magazine that pioneered the likes of 03 (Shincho-sha) and Gulliver (Magazine House). The rest of the content covered our specialty: underground subculture.

We lived in a bubble. For the overseas features, we were hooked up with airlines and hotels if we sold it well to upper management.

We just assumed that was how it always worked. All you needed was the right pitch for the places you wanted to go, and off you went, no questions asked. We traveled the world on the company’s dime.

Eccentric featured places like New York, Bali, Hong Kong, California and London. It ceased publication after the Bangkok feature.

The reason? Money.

We sold the magazine directly through bookstores. We were responsible for collecting sales revenue along with any returned copies. There was no way a major publication would turn a profit with such a labor-intensive process.

At first we’d take the mountains of returned books back to the editorial department, but this became too much of a hassle, and in the end we just dumped them in the trash cans right outside the store.

Eccentric was essentially a zine. The most expensive zine in Japan.

It was an experience.

Using other people’s money, we could make whatever we wanted without any restrictions. We had our hands full, but we also had a lot of fun.

It was in this editorial department that I first learned to edit independently and of my own volition.

Working at the same desk as Aoyama and Goan was an incredible learning experience.

The other day, I had the opportunity to speak with M, who was president at the time.

“Yeah, we lost about 100 million yen, but it sure was fun.”

A magazine like Eccentric could have only existed during the publishing bubble.

Those were the golden days. Aoyama and I were both so young.

Passionate Work Days

Thus Eccentric was discontinued and the editorial department disbanded.

Since we were already together, we decided to form our own editorial team. For a while, we shared an office and collaborated on projects like a package tour magazine (for which we commissioned Nekojiru’s illustrations for the first time) and a university entrance exam information magazine. We made a decent living that way.

It’s funny to think Aoyama was penning articles saying, “Do your best for your university entrance exams.”

He was working quietly at the desk next to mine, his face dead serious.

Work piled up, and we pulled all-nighters to get it done.

Before long, the night was over, and the pale orange morning sun poured down on us through the window.

“I can’t believe it’s morning,” I said as I stretched.

“Yeah. We’ve been working hard…” Aoyama said, stretching his legs. “Shall we get breakfast?”

“Yep.” I searched the office kitchen, starving.

“There’s some Akai Kitsune in the cupboard.”

When I opened it, I found over a dozen instant udon packages stored there, as if stockpiled.

It was his strange addiction. He told me he’d eaten it almost every day since high school.

We boiled the water and feasted over the sizzling stove.

Instant noodles are a perfect match for an empty stomach. It tasted so good, I wondered if anything could beat it.

To think we derived so much pleasure from instant noodles.

When we opened the window, the sound of sparrows chirping filled the air.

We were so busy with our work that we didn’t have time to play, but we were content.

In addition to the work we took on as a team, we each did other jobs as writers and editors.

I worked as an editor for Recruit magazine while Aoyama wrote scripts for cult films.

We had steady work and a decent income. It was the peak of our publishing bubble. We worked hard and partied harder.

Some of the projects that Aoyama and I collaborated on in the early ‘90s included Eccentric (1990, Zenkoku-sha), Bessatsu Takarajima: Thailand Reader (1992, Takarajima-sha), and Volume 1 of Dangerous Issue No. 1 (1995, Data House).

He met Nekojiru and Isaki through me.

I commissioned Nekojiru to draw manga for mooks edited by Aoyama, and Aoyama would write positive reviews Nekojiru’s books in return.

Both Saki and Nekojiru had known and admired Aoyama, the king of kichiku kei.

Being two years my senior, Aoyama Masaaki was like an older brother to me.

He influenced both my work and drug use. He wasn’t the type to lead by example, so I took it upon myself to imitate his outstanding editing style.

He became my role model. Aoyama’s writing was carefully refined, logically sound and, most importantly, entertaining.

Aoyama was in good health, working hard as both an editor and writer, and traveling to Thailand almost every month.

His reason? Heroin and hookers.

The Bubble Bursts, and the Market Stalls

The publishing boom was gradually beginning to recede.

First we were let go from the university entrance exam information magazine. Then went the recruitment magazine.

Goan had left the editorial department at this point. So Aoyama and the rest of us went to pitch our ideas to Bessatsu Takarajima, which was thriving in the subculture scene at the time.

We received the green light for an entire issue based on the overseas travel section of Eccentric. Its theme? Thailand.

The product? Bessatsu Takarajima: Thailand Reader. Aoyama, S and myself handled the manuscript, writing it based on two weeks of on-site research.

This book is filled with fond memories. Good sales were a bonus.

“Is it really okay to turn what I love into work?” I wondered to myself.

Around this time, our editorial team began going by “Tokyo Koshi.”

The name comes from Bangkok Kosi, a high-end massage parlor in Thailand.

In 1992, Aoyama self-published Dangerous Drugs through Data House.

It was like a culmination of his drug experiences up to that point. It flew off the shelves from day one, and went on to sell over 150,000 copies, an unheard of sales figure for a book of its nature.

A longtime bestseller, Dangerous Drugs became a bible for addicts and users, revered as a legendary text.

“All accounts verified by the author!” boasts the cover.

The book’s success earned him the reputation of an iconic drug writer.

While he appreciated the recognition, his unfiltered drug-taking exploits got him into trouble with law enforcement. Around 1993, when he was publishing “Ura Hawaii Reader” in Bessatsu Takarajima, Aoyama experienced a sharp decline in popularity.

He became an addict.

He was into heroin, cocaine and stimulants.

He also used the now-illegal GHB in combination with melatonin to sleep. For a normal person, a teaspoon of GHB and two to five melatonin tablets would be enough. But Aoyama would down fifty melatonin tablets with a whole bottle of GHB. He would then vomit it all up.

He feared nothing when it came to drugs. I still wonder how he survived so long with such reckless behavior.

Before long, Aoyama’s writing output had steadily declined.

One day, he just up and vanished. He was battling addiction, on the brink of divorce from his first wife, his energy sapped.

If Thailand Reader was roughly fifty percent Aoyama, thirty percent Yoshinaga and twenty percent S, Ura Hawaii Reader was more like eighty percent Yoshinaga and twenty percent Aoyama (and even that’s being generous).

Aoyama got divorced, Tokyo Koshi was laying low, and Data House, the publisher of Johnny & Associates, offered to meet us in the middle.

The First Publication of Dangerous Issue No. 1

In 1995, we set up shop in Shibuya. With Data House as our sponsor, we resumed editing as Tokyo Koshi, releasing the first volume of Dangerous Issue No. 1.

It was a brutal magazine, with Aoyama’s signature flair boosting our profile. Dangerous Issue No. 1 was published annually, with Aoyama as editor-in-chief and myself as assistant editor-in-chief.

Aoyama made the following statement to the media:

“The stories being put out these days are ridiculous. They’re dull. We have the right to imagine. I intend to present a new story that doesn’t fit the media’s narrative. We can’t control what we think, no matter how egregious our thoughts are. This magazine is a place of freedom.”

“Studio Voice and SWITCH are pretentious and boring. We need to communicate in ways that are more interesting and easy to understand.”

He said the same to me.

The contents of the inaugural issue of Dangerous Issue No. 1 were as follows:

“Special Feature: Drugs,” “Tokyo Hitman Information,” “Corpse Disposal Manual,” “Garbage Hunting,” “True Crime,” “Recommendations for Idle Sleep.”

Tokyo Koshi became somewhat of the editorial department for Dangerous Issue No. 1.

It’d eventually become a big hit, selling over 150,000 copies and pioneering kichiku kei, the subculture that deliberately sought to expose the seedy underbelly of society at its most depraved.

Aoyama himself was the mastermind behind it all.

Lolicon and Mama’s Boy

Aoyama and I were busier than ever.

Since sadomasochism and drugs were in our blood, we pushed ourselves just as hard.

Aoyama conducted interviews, wrote articles, and edited like a madman. In May 1990, he traveled to Thailand to do research for the local corpse-on-parade magazine, Achaayagam.

Though Thailand is a Buddhist country, gory magazines are readily available in bookstores, and they sell quite well. Just as there are volunteers who clean up bloody, dismembered and rotting bodies at the scenes of traffic accidents and murders, there are those who take photos to publish in magazines.

This is why a majority of the corpse photos commonly seen in Japan were taken in Thailand. For Aoyama, a lover of lolicons, junkies and freaks, Thailand was the ideal kingdom to satisfy his morbid curiosity.

He even used a photo of a Thai girl he messed around with on the cover of a book.

After Aoyama turned thirty, he got into ethno pop (world music) and became deeply immersed in house and techno.

In 1993, he began following the German and Goa trance scenes I had become obsessed with at the clubs in Nishi-Azabu. He was obsessed with techno, and spent every penny he earned buying forty to fifty CDs a month.

And when he found the time, he’d fly to Thailand.

A lolicon junkie freak—that’s how people described Aoyama Masaaki.

But he had a softer side, too.

Aoyama was a raging mothercon. So much so that those who knew him well would refer to him as “the lolicon junkie mama’s boy.”

Lolicon and mothercon may seem like opposite ends of the spectrum, but even they can coexist. For Aoyama, whose blood flowed with romance, they did.

He married twice, and lived with his parents throughout both. When there was friction between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, he left his parents to live with his wives. But before he knew it, he had returned to his parents’ home.

“Who will you choose, me or your mother?”

When both of his ex-wives asked him, he always replied, “My mother.”

Violation of the Cannabis Control Act

Early July, 1995.

In the middle of an all-night editing session of Dangerous Issue No. 1, shit hit the fan.

“We’ve got trouble! Aoyama’s been arrested!”

It was a call from someone at work.

I had a feeling this day would come, but when it did, I almost thought I’d drifted off into a dream.

Aoyama Masaaki, who’d written extensively about his drug use, was probably someone the police were dying to catch. He was charged with violating the Cannabis Control Act.

With Aoyama gone, would we see publication? This was bad…

Aoyama’s arrest left me feeling on edge, as if I was next.

Still, I had to finish this book before the rapidly-approaching release date by any means necessary.

I had no choice but to visit him at the Tsukuji Police Detention Center and later at the Tokyo Detention Center in Kosuge, where he’d been transferred.

Aoyama looked pale and haggard.

I forced a smile. “The editing is going well.”

Discussing Dangerous Issue No. 1 in front of a police officer was awkward, to say the least. Articles included “The Right Way to Quit Stimulants” and “The Relationship Between Ecstasy and Rave Culture,” so we spoke in riddles to avoid arousing suspicion.

Something that sold me on Aoyama’s affinity for his mother was what happened after Aoyama was arrested for marijuana possession.

She called the office.

“Just come to the house.”

When I arrived, she said, “When I visited Masami (Aoyama’s real name) today, he told me to dispose of something behind his bookshelf.” She handed me a package, and I took a peek inside.

“Whoa!” I choked, surprised.

What on earth is this…?

To the untrained eye, they looked like research chemicals.

But it was heroin, cocaine, stimulants, ecstasy, marijuana…

This would be a harrowing discovery during a raid. Either way, I found it amazing that a man and his mother could relay urgent messages through police-supervised visits alone.

I was overwhelmed with editing Dangerous Issue No. 1 at the time, so I left the package at the office. I was pretty annoyed when Aoyama hounded me about returning it to him later…

He was a spoiled only child. His parents never scolded him. To them, he was free to do as he pleased. He had never needed to develop self-discipline. He was dependent on his mother, who loved and accepted him unconditionally. Living with his wife meant living responsibly, which Aoyama couldn’t do unless he was under his parents’ roof.

He just couldn’t stay away from them.

State of Enlightenment

Miraculously, Volume 1 of Dangerous Issue No. 1 was completed without Aoyama, and released in mid-July.

“I did it.” I showed the book to Aoyama during a visit at the Tokyo Detention Center. I had to sneak it in because of its feature on drugs. Aoyama was delighted when he saw it in person. Afterward, he was given a suspended sentence and released. He called me to his office, took ecstasy and LSD, and was off clubbing that same night.

“Hasn’t he learned anything?” I thought to myself.

But in reality, the experience of his arrest loomed large in Aoyama’s mind for years to come, suffocating him. Maybe it was even a distant cause of his depression.

Then came the summer of 1999.

Dangerous Issue No. 1 finally came to an end with its fourth volume, The Complete Works of Aoyama Masaaki. It went out with a bang, tackling a wide variety of Aoyama-esque work, from nuclear fusion to prostituting young girls. “I’m a pathetic guy who slacked off for eight months of the year and finished the book in two,” Aoyama said self-deprecatingly. “I’ve accelerated my journey to enlightenment. I’ve decided to change direction with this final book…”

“I’d also like to dedicate this book to my past self, banish it into nothingness (I’ve had enough of the ‘dangerous’ stuff, so I’ll leave that to Dangerous Issue No. 28), and conclude by devoting my entire heart and soul to developing and spreading the gospel through novels, philosophical books, workshops and more.”

At first glance, it seemed like a solemn vow. But to me, it sounded like an excuse to continue using drugs.

I worked with Aoyama for over ten years, but grew somewhat estranged from him towards the end. He became completely withdrawn, confined to his home, without working or seeing anyone.

Sales of Dangerous Issue No. 1 were quite strong (each volume eventually sold over 100,000 copies), so it was obviously time to release a third volume. I took over as editor-in-chief and enlisted freelance editor Nicholas Keiji to help create the book.

It sold well, but like Aoyama, I found the job extremely demanding and stepped down as editor after the third volume was released.

True crime, drugs, freaks… Creating a book with bizarre themes is fun, but mentally taxing.

Out of nowhere, Aoyama signed a publishing contract with Data House without consulting the members of Tokyo Koshi.

Pushed to my breaking point, I ended up crying to Data House’s president, Uno. Soon enough, Tokyo Koshi was absorbed into Data House, and I was the only one left working freelance.

We were nearing the end of the publishing bubble, and I was confident (deluded, rather) that I could make it on my own.

After producing the second volume of Dangerous Issue No. 1, Aoyama married a second time to a fan a generation younger than him. He left the house less and less. This was the beginning of his withdrawal.

The brilliant Aoyama became deeply sedated, and perhaps convinced that the world of sleep was his only reprieve. He closed himself off from the world around him.

Reclusive Days

“The 24-Hour Worry Factory”—that’s the nickname we gave Aoyama back then.

He was always worried about something. His health, his work, his women, his drugs… on the surface, it was almost comical to watch him invent one worry after the other and use them all as an excuse to withdraw. His tendency to worry extended to his interpersonal relationships; despite being perfectly capable in many ways, he felt inferior to others.

“Yoshinaga, I can never compare to Yamagata Hiro or Yanagishita Kiichiro,” he’d tell me. “I realized that after meeting them in person. I just can’t compete.”

He had quite the inferiority complex.

It’s because of it that he was always picking jobs that weren’t suited to him.

At the end of 1997, Aoyama married one of his fans. She was a keen, right-brained young woman.

He fell into a severe depression shortly after.

Everyone goes through rough patches following a marriage. Anxiety about adjusting to new life changes may be a catalyst.

Aoyama became near bedridden. His young wife became his caregiver and the main breadwinner during spells of unemployment.

Every now and then he’d ask his ex-wife for money. She didn’t hate him. She divorced him as a wake-up call. They remained close even after the divorce.

Due to Aoyama’s withdrawal, I was forced to complete the third volume of Dangerous Issue No. 1 on my own. I was so busy with work that we grew apart.

In the summer of 1997, I began working on personal books after stepping down as editor-in-chief.

With nobody to lead the project, Data House compiled Dangerous Issue No. 1, Volume 4: The Complete Works of Aoyama Masaaki. The book was made at the request of Data House’s president, Uno. It was essentially Aoyama’s second and final solo product. Aoyama further receded and quit working for Data House. The intense highs and lows of drug use likely worsened his depression. The 24-Hour Worry Factory was working overtime.

“If I can’t make a living as a writer, I’ll get a real job.” With that in mind, he began searching for work outside of the media industry.

“Where are you working now?” I asked.

“A bread-making factory,” Aoyama replied with a timid smile.

I had no idea how to encourage him.

I highly doubted that someone as weak as Aoyama could work a labor-intensive job at a factory. It was probably a struggle to work there and only further lowered his spirits.

He didn’t last long (and quit, in fact, after one day, but told an interviewer that he hadn’t) and retreated to the safety of his parents’ house.

He was a heavy sleeper since elementary school, and slept even more as an adult. He slept so much that his second wife found mushrooms growing inside his futon (this is a true story). His drug use affected his sleep schedule so much that he decided to study sleep. One could say he was obsessed with it.

But nothing would change unless he stopped using.

People can train themselves to fall asleep on a different schedule, but it may not come easy. Chemicals make it easier, sure, but following the body’s circadian rhythm is best.

Debt, Divorce, Depression

Aoyama spent his days alone, struggling with depression.

He retreated into his own little world. I barely saw him.

He didn’t do anything productive near the end, apart from marrying again. He ended up divorcing his second wife and immersing himself in books about spirituality and drugs. I’d never seen such a clear-cut case of depression before.

Nobody saw him during those days, so we can only imagine what he was like. He began living with his mother at his parents’ house. His father had passed away.

In Aoyama’s case, drugs played a major role in his path to suicide.

He was using in moderation during the publication of Thailand Reader and Dangerous Issue No. 1. He’d take stimulants to give him a boost at work. He’d take acid (LSD) to go clubbing. He only smoked weed in front of his first wife.

But around the time of his first divorce, he started using drugs as an escape.

He’d take them to forget his worries. He’d feel relief, but only briefly. As soon as the high wore off, he’d rebound and end up bedridden again. It was a deadly cycle.

I think his drugs of choice were stimulants and heroin. Recreational drugs like LSD and ecstasy don’t provide much of an escape. Stimulants and heroin, on the other hand, make you lose track of time and leave you feeling good. They’re the perfect escape.

In the later years, he became a walking anti-drug PSA. It’s one thing to use them recreationally, but turning to them for reprieve can only end in disaster.

He was a total recluse in his final days. He did nothing but withdraw.

He didn’t have a job, so he had no income. He borrowed drug money from his ex-wife and his acquaintances. But eventually they stopped enabling him. So he turned to shady, high-interest loan sharks to get his fix.

He fell into a panic near the end of the cycle. Overwhelmed by his debt, his divorce, his inability to work, his depression, and a dispute with a colleague. It all came to a head and he had a breakthrough; he was going to get clean.

His second wife and mother warmly provided him with food, clothing and shelter.

Liar

One of the underlying causes of Aoyama’s depression may have been his contraction of APMPPE, an eye disease that affected a mere fifty people nationwide in November of 1994. Overcome by his fear of blindness, he threw himself into recovery.

Aoyama was a delicate,sensitive person. Believe or not, he had an innocent side. He wasn’t a pervert, but rather a man with perverse interests. An innocent man who studied bigotry, deformities, drugs and lolicon. He was far too gentle to be called truly evil.

Even during the kichiku kei craze, he was conflicted. “I’m not really dangerous. It’s a joke, but people are calling me hardcore for real.” He never resigned to his fate and constantly worried about his reputation.

The year before he committed suicide, in a BURST interview with Hirano Yu, owner of the live venue Loft Plus One, Aoyama said the following:

“I haven’t touched drugs in five years. That’s because I don’t want to end up behind bars again! But let it be known that if drugs were legal and I couldn’t get caught, I wouldn’t mind doing them.” (September 2002 issue)

This was a stretch.

Aoyama never quit using. He continued to use alone for fear of being arrested again.

“I think drugs, if used properly, are as safe as alcohol. Heroin is an exception, though.”

Despite Aoyama’s words, he hid until the very end the fact that he was hopelessly addicted to heroin, the most dangerous drug of them all. He was a man of great intellect, but he was missing the point.

“Yoshinaga says he’s smart because his writing is interesting, but I don’t think that’s the case,” his first wife said.

He was childish. He only wanted to be loved by everyone. During his conversation with Hirano, Aoyama was asked, “If your child or the child of a close friend were addicted to drugs, how would you react?”

“I’d say it’s time to quit. It’ll kill them if they start early. How would I make them quit? By talking to them. Persuade them, completely change their social circle and environment if you have to. The problem is that there are legal drugs ruining lives the same exact way. Once someone’s addicted, that’s the only way to help them.”

Contrary to his word, Aoyama continued to use.

Of all drugs, stimulants and heroin are probably the most deadly.

Stimulants are uppers that get you buzzed, while heroin is a downer that relaxes you. Using both at the same time can send someone on an emotional rollercoaster. Aoyama himself feared heroin, saying, “It’s a league of its own,” but would lock himself in his room and use it anyway.

Heroin brings on a momentary bliss, the illusion of floating among the clouds. But when it wears off, it’s like waking from a nightmare. You can’t help but crave another hit. You don’t care whose money it is; you have to buy more.

When an addict comes down from the high, they turn to stimulants to bounce back. If a stable mental state is zero and anxiety, despair and fear are a negative ten, then post-heroin depression is a negative one hundred. It’s absolute misery.

That’s where stimulants come in.

Heroin’s negative one hundred, stimulants’ plus one hundred—a difference of 200 points. Throw in life’s normal ups and downs and you find someone that’s clinging to sanity for dear life.

In his final years, Aoyama Masaaki lived off heroin and stimulants. He should have been living a peaceful life.

Destruction was fast-approaching.

The Face of Death

June 27, 2001.

It was a cool, rainy afternoon.

Aoyama was holed up in his room.

As usual, he made some Akai Kitsune, his favorite since high school.

A few hours passed.

His mother called for him. He didn’t respond.

There she found her son, hanging from a rope tied in the closet. He was already gone.

He had instant udon shortly before his death, so I don’t think he truly wanted to die.

Everyone was shocked. News of the genius editor and writer’s suicide spread like wildfire across the internet.

The July 18, 2001 issue of FOCUS featured Aoyama’s death in detail.

The Charismatic ‘Drug Writer’ who Committed Suicide: “Many may wonder why the death of an unknown writer has blown upl online. But his masterpiece, Dangerous Drugs (Data House), published in 1992, is a best-seller that will soon reach over 100,000 sales. He enjoyed a cult following as a writer on all things drug-related, and it is said that nearly thirty media outlets rushed to cover the story after hearing of his suicide.”

Aoyama’s suicide strikes me as being similar to the suicides of those laid off as a result of the economy collapsing.

The bubble era was reaching a critical low. How will young people, who didn’t have a chance from the start, make it out alive? Will only the young survive? A generation that once thrived is now struggling. Which will it be?

A mama’s boy to the end, Aoyama died in his parents’ home.

Comparing the suicides of Saki, Nekojiru and Aoyama, I found Aoyama’s to be the most unexpected.

Though we’d grown apart, I would still get an oddly upbeat call from Aoyama about once a month.

Aoyama didn’t seem to long for death. I thought of him as someone that couldn’t die.

Neither Saki nor Nekojiru were afraid of death, though they were consumed with suicidal thoughts.

Nekojiru’s wake was the first time I ever saw a dead body.

“Huh? Is this what it’s like?” I wondered as I touched her cheek.

Her expression was so calm and peaceful. It was strange.

At Aoyama’s funeral, I saw the cold corpse in his coffin. I touched his face too. His expression was completely different from Nekojiru’s. It was contorted in pain, like something out of a horror movie. His complexion was sallow, discolored from years of using and abusing drugs. He looked unhealthy.

Depression was deeply intertwined with the suicides of all three, but while Saki and Nekojiru’s deaths were “asked for,” so to speak, I didn’t get that impression from Aoyama’s. He didn’t want to die, but he forced himself to.

While Saki and Nekojiru’s sleeping faces were peaceful, Aoyama’s was distorted with fear, reminiscent of Munch’s The Scream.

Aoyama was a man that was overly concerned with his health. Even when drinking canned Japanese tea, he’d take the trouble to transfer it to another container because “prolonged exposure to air would oxidize the can and become toxic to the body.” So how was he okay with ruining himself with so many chemicals? This is mere speculation, but based on the look on his face, I’d say Aoyama was afraid to die after all.

I think Aoyama was somebody that was so sad that he wished he was dead, but couldn’t bring himself to end it all. I can’t help but feel this way, like he was driven to suicide by some third party.

There are different types of suicide. There are those who truly want to die and make the decision to do so, and those who truly want to live but don’t see any other way forward. The motive is different.

Nekojiru and Isaki fall into the former category, but I can’t help but feel that Aoyama falls into the latter.

I asked his ex-wives about my speculation on the cause of his death.

Overall, I think the “worry factory” Aoyama found himself on a sinking ship. Bouncing between stimulants and heroin, the stress of buying drugs and the debt he bought them with became unbearable. That’s what I think.

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