Despair in The Land of The Immortals

The islands of Japan have long held a reputation for the world’s greatest life expectancy, with the average citizen likely to hit 86 years, and many expected to live past 100.

In fact, ancient Chinese have dubbed Japan the “land of the immortals” for many years, due to its seemingly ageless lifestyle.

The secret? – Rather than fantastic sex and abundant tropical holidays, Japan’s robust population has come about, unsurprisingly, through good old boring diet and exercise.

However, all does not seem well in the land of the ageless, for underneath the fish, rice, vegetables and miso soup, Japan appears to be becoming depressed, sloppy and down right desperate.

Its economy has contracted 14-15% in the last quarter, and China, the rising beast in the monetary abyss, has just muscled out Japan in economic prosperity. Meanwhile, typically cautious Japanese bureaucrats are turning into space cadets, or so it seems.

A recent population re-assessment has revealed 271 of Japan’s ‘ageless’ centenarians are reported missing, while 25 of these continued to receive public pensions. Furthermore, 800 pension recipients older than 85 are reported as ‘whereabouts unknown’, and out of 59 pensioners who made the unearthly 110 mark, five were reported already dead.

While it appears Japan’s civil servants are suffering from economic anguish, members of the public seem down right desperate. As recently, a Tokyo woman believed to be alive at 104, was found dead, stuffed into her son’s backpack where she lay for more than ten years.

These ‘re-assessments’ were initially triggered after a man, believed to be 111 years old, was found dead in a Tokyo apartment where he had been rotting for the last 30 years. Shortly after, the man’s daughter and granddaughter were arrested for pocketing his pension, which had amounted to roughly $120,000 Au since his death.

Meanwhile, thousands of cases of centenarians have been neglected, with public anxiety and bureaucratic embarrassment perpetuated by an aging population with a declining birth rate. The solution?

Dr Dudley Puffin, from the Avant-garde Archipelago Association (AAA), believes the answer is simple – a rapid increase in junk food and sex. A decrease in dietary standards, he explains, will gradually expel any notion of an ageing population, while an increase in sex will add “much needed sunshine to a terribly withered garden”.

Whilst the report has outraged Japanese officials, its announcement has lowered public anxiety by a staggering 63%. However, the reliability of the figure remains uncertain.