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.