Seppuku

("cut-belly", used in writing) or hara-kiri ("belly slitting", used when talking) is a Japanese ritual method of suicide, practiced mostly in the medieval era, though some isolated cases appear in modern times. For example, Yukio Mishima committed seppuku in 1970 after a failed coup d'état intended to restore full power to the Japanese emperor.[113] Unlike other methods of suicide, this was regarded as a way of preserving one's honor. The ritual is part of bushido, the code of the samurai.

As originally performed solely by an individual, it was an extremely painful method by which to die. Dressed ceremonially, with his sword placed in front of him and sometimes seated on special cloth, the warriorwould prepare for death by writing a death poem. The samurai would open his kimono, take up his wakizashi (short sword), fan, or a tantō and plunge it into his abdomen, making first a left-to-right cut and then a second slightly upward stroke. As the custom evolved, a selected attendant (kaishakunin, his second) stood by, and on the second stroke would perform daki-kubi, where the warrior is all but decapitatedleaving only a slight band of flesh attaching the head to the body, so as to not let the head fall off and roll on the ground, which was considered dishonorable in feudal Japan. The act eventually became so highly ritualistic that the samurai would only have to reach for his sword, and his kaishakunin would execute the killing stroke. Later still, there would be no sword, but something like a fan for which the samurai would reach