This paper discusses four specific problems in relation to a study of suicide in Japan: 1) It defines the field, scope and areas of suicidology involving phenomenology, theory and prevention as the three major concerns of this specialization; 2) The basic trends in suicide rates around the world are discussed and then analyzed in terms of three discernible models: the Hungarian, Scandinavian and Japanese models into which all suicide trends could be subsumed; 3) Some Specific, sociodemographic characteristics of suicide in Japan have been analyzed in relation to other cross-cultural data from Europe, North America and Asian countries; 4) the prevailing theories of suicide from sociology, psychology and psychoanalyses are discussed and re-examined in light of some available empirical data, and revised theoretical approaches to understaning suicide behavior in Japan are presented. (41 refs)