This is why

In a comment, Lanney asked why certain Japanese folk lock themselves away. Well, take yourself back to the most intense peer pressure experience you ever had, the one where you really didn't want to do or be involved in what was going on, you really wanted to get away, and you just had the worst feeling in the pit of your stomach about the whole thing. Whatever the situation, you were convinced it was bad, and felt even worse knowing everyone around you at that moment wanted you to go their way, and they were not going to like you if you didn't. So you were stuck between your conscience and your peers. Pressure!! If you choose to go with your peers, the pressure alleviates. If you don't, at least you can go home and get away from the peers for a bit. You can find some "shelter" from the pressure.

Now imagine that such a peer pressure situation isn't an isolated event that you come across in certain circles in life, but that your whole country is exerting that kind of pressure on you, including your family and closest friends. What are your options for getting out from under the pressure? Well, there's conformity on one side, and in Japan at least, suicide and complete isolation on the other. Suicide and isolation are the "shelter".

Now, of course, the overall situation in Japan is not that simple, as life never is. Japanese people are individuals as much as anyone; the amounts of pressure they feel or exert on each other vary, and the ways they choose to cope are numerous. Not everyone who disagrees with the societal peer pressure becomes isolated or suicidal. Not everyone disagrees with the norms of their society. Those who lock themselves away are some who have chosen not to conform. And yet it would seem they have enough hope not to give themselves over to despair and suicide, although there have been cases where in time they did. Pray for these people, they are trapped in a form of hell that we in North America are fortunate to find very strange.