Tokyo – The English translation of ‘jōhatsu’ is “evaporation”, a term used in Japan to refer to people who intentionally vanish from their lives. Generally applied to the sciences of physics, chemistry and meteorology, the term is composed of the kanji Jō, meaning vapour, and Hatsu, meaning emission or release. Thus, it signifies ‘release of vapour’ or, indeed, “evaporation”.
Nakamori Hiroki, a sociologist, university professor and author of the book titled “The sociology of Disappearance”, is one of Japan’s leading scholars and experts on jōhatsu. He discusses the history of this phenomenon in his writings. Introduced in the Japanese press in the 1960s, the term was used to describe the phenomenon of people who “vanish into thin air”, likening their disappearance to a silent and irreversible process of evaporation from their lives. The jōhatsu phenomenon was often associated with ‘tsuma’, meaning wife, as many cases involved women who disappeared to flee marriages that had become unbearable due to domestic violence or other situations of severe family distress.
In the academic world, the study of this social pathology began in those years, explains Nakamori, and sociologists adopted jōhatsu as the technical term for it.
“I had no choice but to die or run away”, “I struggled to sleep for fear of debt collectors”, and “I couldn’t face my family” are some of the responses given by people surveyed by the sociologist Miyama Hideaki who investigated and described the painful reasons why people choose to disappear, which include personal or professional failures, debt, serious financial difficulties, marital or family issues, the desire for a fresh start, and the wish to escape an oppressive professional routine. The narrative of the jōhatsu phenomenon in Italy and other Western countries, influenced by long-standing stereotypes about Japan that emphasise the idea of it being a rigid and inflexible country, gives the impression that it is exclusive to Japan, which hinders an understanding of the complexity of the problem and the ongoing processes of change. Indeed, depending on the source, as many as 80,000 to 100,000 people are reported missing each year. However, for many experts, this is not enough to prove that voluntary disappearance is a Japanese phenomenon. Official statistics show that around 600,000 people go missing in the United States each year, 100,000 in Germany and 150,000 in the United Kingdom, while Italy’s total number of missing persons to date is close to 62,000. It is therefore a global phenomenon with similar causes, although Japan undoubtedly has its own distinctive features. The fact that it has a specific name for it, ‘jōhatsu’, is an indicator of a specific cultural awareness.
There are aspecialised service companies in Japan called ‘Yonigeya’, which help “evaporated people” to disappear secretly by arranging nocturnal removals, providing new accommodation and offering advice on starting a new life elsewhere. Additionally, strong privacy laws significantly restrict private investigators and family members from accessing personal information to locate individuals, unless a crime is involved. The “ghost” or marginalised areas of large cities, such as Sanya in Tokyo or Kamagasaki in Osaka, have been erased from official maps and exist in a legal grey area, guaranteeing anonymity.
Marco Del Bene, a university professor specialising in Oriental studies, with a particular focus on Japan, argued that certain social phenomena, including jōhatsu, are not exclusive to Japan. In one of his lectures, he stated: “The only generalisation that can be made is that, thanks to its forward-looking approach, Japan is a social laboratory where phenomena and trends emerge at an early stage, eventually affecting all affluent and advanced societies in different ways and to varying degrees at some point in the future.”
Jōhatsu is therefore a complex, global phenomenon, somewhere between despair and hope, rooted in the ailing human heart.
During his apostolic visit to Japan in 2019, Pope Francis called on the Catholic community “to create spaces in which the culture of efficiency, performance and success” gave way to “a culture of generous and selfless love”, offering everyone, not just those who have ‘made it’ the possibility of a happy and successful life.”
On 17 June, Pope Leo XIV called on the Church to rediscover the Kerygma as “the source from which every pastoral action, every catechesis and every ecclesial gesture must flow”, indicating the path to follow in order to realise the hopes of his predecessor. “The kerygma is not a formula, but an encounter,” said Pope Leo XIV. “It is the voice of the Risen One calling by name.” This personal call is missing from the lives of many jōhatsu, who are often so overwhelmed by their experiences that they no longer feel loved or called by name, and want to disappear. However, the desire to disappear often masks a deep-seated cry for help.
The Kerygma is therefore the Good News that only the Church can offer to those who have chosen to “evaporate”.
