Netflix adapted "The Hanging Balloons" as part of the anime, Junji Ito Maniac. Here's the deeper meaning behind this tragic suicide tale.

The Hanging Balloons is the sixth chapter from volume 4 of the Horror World of Junji Ito Collection, The Face Burglar. The story received a sequel entitled Return of the Hanging Balloons. Kazuko is trapped inside her house, unable to leave or she will be killed.

Hanging Balloons is a fascinating tale of suicide and how news of one such suicide can spread across multiple teens and cause the same thing. This domino effect has been well documented in Japan before, with spikes in suicides within a 10 day period of celebrity suicides.

In junji ito, a man I don't remember his name, is seen throwing an umbrella through the hole of the rope, he gets an umbrella stuck in his neck and dies. This shows the rope symbolizes the neck, and severing it would mean decapitation. What my thought on how to survive the hanging balloon :

The hanging balloons aim to wrest their counterparts free from their attachment to the illusion of their old lives, and force them to move on to whatever comes next. This appears to people as simple murder as a reflection of their own lack of understanding and lack of readiness to let go.