He was offended by the coldness of the authorities, and after his retirement began to patrol the cliffs to try and prevent suicides.
[3] On April 27, 2004, Shige founded Kokoro ni Hibiku Bunshu Henshukyoku (Publishing bureau for collection of writings that reach the heart), which has continued to work to prevent suicides around Tōjinbō.
[4] In 2008 Shige reported a spike in suicide attempts after job losses among casual employees due to the financial crisis of 2007–08, known as the "Lehman shock" in Japan.
[9] In 2017, Shige and his team of volunteers at NPO were featured in a YouTube documentary by Field of Vision entitled "The Gatekeeper."
[10] The story of Yukio Shige also inspired a French novel, Le Cœur régulier (published in 2010), which was then adapted to cinema under the same name (but renamed "Kokoro" for the US audience).