Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-4893169-20150414041052/@comment-4893169-20150418163320

Actually, the suicides in Aokigahara predate the novel, causing the area to be long associated with death. Also during ancient periods of famine, families used to abandon family members in the forest so there would be a few less mouths to feed. So not only suicides there also the long drawn out death due to starvation and exposure. Then further adding the creepiness factor, beside all the really thick vegetation, numerous caves you can accidently tumble into, and rotting corpses you can fall over, there's also the common phenomen of electronic devices being rendered useless by the copious amount of magnetic iron in the area's volcanic soil. So that probably explains the legend of the demonic forces at work. Not a good place you'd want to picnic at let alone spend the night, folks.