Condolences as Super Chats, Sutras as Remixes: The Heaven and Hell Depicted by the Influencer Funeral 'Last Engagement'

When the heavy doors of the funeral hall “Memorial Arena” in Tokyo opened, the space was filled not with the scent of incense, but with the heat of electronic devices and a faint smell of energy drinks. The farewell ceremony on the 23rd for KAZUYA (died at 28), a video streamer who boasted 2 million subscribers, was closer to a carefully orchestrated product launch than a solemn ritual. The portrait at the center of the altar was not a still image, but a looping, heavily-filtered video shot while he was alive, with KAZUYA throwing a wink at the attendees every 3 seconds.

“Poku, poku, poku, ching.” In time with the rhythm of the wooden fish struck by the monk, the notification sounds of hundreds of smartphones in the venue echoed “pirorin” in unison. This was no coincidence. It is the “Synchronized Sutra System” provided by the emerging funeral venture “Eternal Buzz.” It reacts to specific frequencies of the sutra chanting, simultaneously sending unpublished images of KAZUYA to the attendees’ devices. Instead of clutching prayer beads, attendees gripped their smartphones, completely absorbed in tapping the screen to send “Digital Incense (Likes!).”

What caused the biggest stir in the venue was the massive digital signage placed beside the altar: the “Condolence Money Ranking Board.” The amount of condolence money collected in real-time was displayed as “Contribution,” and the top 3 were granted the “Coffin Two-Shot Right.” It showed excitement akin to a champagne tower at a host club, and every time a top ranker’s name was read out, fans in mourning dress cheered, “Nice condolence!” The irreversible parting of death was elevated here into a monetizable event.

Behind this bizarre spectacle lies the earnest, yet somewhat distorted “love” of the bereaved family. “What that child feared most was not dying, but being forgotten.” The mother, who served as the chief mourner, spoke while wiping a tablet screen with a tear-soaked handkerchief. In her hand, a real-time analytics screen was displayed. “Concurrent viewers are at an all-time high. Now he can rest in peace.” The face of a mother mourning her son’s death and the face of a producer rejoicing in content success swapped with an eerily smooth transition.

However, as the ritual progressed, the atmosphere in the venue began to creak slightly. It was the moment the top-ranking man who won the coffin two-shot right made a peace sign next to the corpse and took a selfie through a beauty filter. Along with the shutter sound, what leaked from some of the attendees was either a smirk or a gasp of terror. Seeing even a corpse consumed as a prop for being “Instagrammable,” even the digital natives seemed to feel a dizziness as the boundary between life and death dissolved. When even the monk began handing out stickers encouraging people to subscribe to his temple’s official channel between sutras, that dizziness reached its peak.

At the time of departure, the hearse drove off not with a horn, but blasting KAZUYA’s “Ending Theme” at high volume. The vehicle was wrapped in a giant QR code, which, when scanned, played a “Thanks Movie from Heaven.” The ones left behind never watched the departing deceased with their naked eyes, but instead held up their smartphones in unison, continuously scanning the QR code. A farewell through a screen. Eternity as data on a server. A drone flew in the sky, drawing the words “Looking for Sponsors” in the gaps between the clouds. Even in death, he continues to earn. And we will gladly continue to press “Like” on that system of exploitation.

Stakeholder Comments

• KAZUYA (AI-reproduced voice): “Thanks for coming today, everyone! The condolence money instead of Super Chats really helps. I’ll make sure my boat across the Sanzu River is a paid item.”
• Chief Mourner (Mother): “I am grateful for everyone’s love (engagement). The memorial service will be a subscription-only stream, so please check that out too.”
• 1st Place Condolence Money Ranker: “Honestly, I was shivering. A two-shot with the cold him is a lifelong treasure. With the filter on, his skin looked even better than when he was alive.”
• Veteran Fan Attendee: “We used to have offline meetings at community centers, and now he can do it in such a huge box (funeral hall)… It’s complicated, but I guess it’s what he wanted.”
• Monk: “Memorial services must also be updated to match the times. We accept alms via PayPay, so the return rate to enlightenment is quite high.”
• Funeral Home Staff: “We have a patent pending for a technology that overlays a smile onto the deceased’s ‘dead face’ using AR. After all, you want to send them off with a smile at the very end, don’t you, with the power of digital.”
• Hearse Driver: “Lately, I get more requests to make it a lively, buzzworthy send-off rather than a quiet one. It takes more care to play royalty-free BGM than honk the horn.”
• Coffin: “I used to be a wooden box to protect remains, but now I’m required to function as a photo spot. The durability tests for opening and closing the lid are tough.”
• Passing Elderly Person: “I wondered what was going on. With such a flashy car, I thought it was a pachinko parlor’s grand reopening. A person has died, yet it’s like a festival.”
• Server Administrator: “The active rate of a deceased person’s account is actually higher after death. It’s ironic. Maybe for humans, the real show starts after you die.”

International Expressions

Haiku

• Over chanting monks / Notifications echo / A spring funeral
• Ranking board displays / Competing for the top spot / Condolence money
• Next to the coffin / A final parting through a / Beauty filter lens
• Even after death / Seeking viral attention / In the spring breeze
• Hands hold QR codes / Expertly scanning the screen / Without any tears
• Tipping Super Chats / To pay the ferryman’s toll / Cross the Sanzu River
• Posthumous Buddhist names / Now come with hashtags attached / On a spring evening
• Portrait smiling bright / Inside the glowing screen lies / Eternal spring
• Digital incense / Sent with a tap of a finger / Feels oh so light
• The hearse drives away / Without ever logging out / Into the distance

Kanji / Chinese Characters

FuneralHallDigitalized CondolenceInstantRanking SutraSyncNotification CoffinPhotoPrivilege FamilyFocusOnScreen PosthumousRevenueMax

Emoji

🙏📱💸📈⚰️📸🤳🧟‍♂️✨🔁🔚

Onomatopoeia

Pirorin, pirorin. Poku, poku, poku… cha-ching! Click, sparkle. Murmur… “Nice Super Chat!”. Bzzzz (The sound of a drone, not a hearse). Click-click-click (The sound of scanning a QR code).

SNS

• #KAZUYAFuneral I made it to 3rd place in the condolence ranking! So thrilled to get the two-shot right 😭
• Unpublished pics dropping to the rhythm of sutras is too genius lol The head priest has high DJ skills 🙏
• The bereaved family is more desperate to read out Super Chats than to mourn, lol. Is this modern memorial service…
• I couldn’t scan the departure QR code… someone please bless me with a screenshot 🙇‍♂️ #LastLive
• Getting money collected even after death, is being a stan actually hell? But I still love him.
• About the coffin lighting being YouTuber-spec and making you look so good.
• Thinking this is my fave’s final moment makes me cry. By the way, there will be an archive, right?
• Paid condolence money via PayPay and the “Payment Complete” sound echoed, it was awkward lol
• I wonder if there’s reception at the Sanzu River? I’ll be waiting for a stream from the other side too!
• #EndofLifePlanning Seeing this made me decide. My funeral will definitely be like this. Be ready with your tips.