Japan's suicide rate tops 30,000 / yr. Over 3X the 10,000 or so automobile related deaths. Most of the suicides are men in the 50's and 60's and often due to job related and financial stress. So, while many Silicon Valley ventures were built buy people who had lost their jobs in the defense industry. Japanese tend to commit suicide instead. Japan's suicide rate is among the top 10 in the world. It is said that Japanese mental health medicine is 30 years behind the US (Although Kurokawa-sensei is trying to do something about that.) So it makes sense that cleaning up after a suicide is as common as cleaning up after a traffic accident and people are being billed the costs. The original article below is from 1998, but suicides have increased since then, making it more relevant.

Waiwai is the Mainichi Daily News summary of articles from Japanese Weeklies. This one is from Shukan Hoseki (10/1/98) a bit old. Relevant sections quoted below. See original article for full text.