In Japan, death is not so scary any more

Tokyo

AKIRA Okomoto sat up and climbed out of a coffin. "It was very relaxing," he proclaimed, as his 27-year-old daughter, Miwa, then trepidatiously took her turn lying down for five minutes in the dark enclosure that would one day be her final resting place.

The scene is a cafe in eastern Tokyo where a handful of people have gathered to hear a talk by a death specialist and try out the cafe's Coffin Experience, which owner Masumi Murata says helps people "cherish each and every day and realise what's really important" by pondering their own deaths.

Japan's earthquake and tsunami in 2011 killed more than 15,000 people. The ground below the 36 million residents of the Tokyo area rumbles spasmodically with minor earthquakes in an ever-present threat. Combined with these continual reminders, Japan has one of the most rapidly ageing populations in the world where more and more people, old and young, are living alone. Millions of Japanese saw the hit film Departures, about the respectability of an undertaker's profession, which won the 2009 Academy Award for foreign film. All this has made talk of death commonplace in Japan - and prompted a number of companies including…