TOKYO: It took 14 agonising years for Japanese authorities to formally recognise the torment that Kazui Sato suffered at the hands of his junior high classmates was indeed bullying – or ijime.
The seven-month ordeal, which began in 2012, had left psychological scars far deeper than his public school in Tosu, Saga prefecture, had cared to admit.
His torture transcended endless verbal abuse: He was shot with an air gun, threatened with a knife, extorted of more than 300,000 yen (US$3,748 at then exchange rates) and sprayed in the face with insecticide.
While the school originally dismissed these acts as mere “horseplay”, Sato was finally vindicated in March by a third-party probe initiated after multiple lawsuits, which officially found his experience to be “an extremely serious and grave case of bullying”.
The damage, however, has been done. Sato, now 26, continues to seek help for severe post-traumatic stress disorder and is reportedly terrified to leave home alone, let alone find work.
His story is, sadly, not unique. Hardly a week passes in Japan without headlines detailing horrific acts of schoolyard cruelty.
The human toll is staggering as the nation struggles to contain a crisis that appears to be spiralling out of control. While corporal punishment has been illegal in Japanese schools since 1947, the severity of modern bullying has sparked unexpected debates.
Singapore’s recent decision to allow caning for boys aged nine and above in the most egregious of cases from 2027 has drawn some attention.
One online comment, in favour of Singapore’s measures, summarised a shift in sentiment: “Before considering the lifelong effects of corporal punishment on a child, one must consider the lifelong impact of failing to correct behaviour that results in the assault of others.”
Official statistics paint a grim outlook: A record 769,022 cases of bullying were reported in the 2024 academic year ending March 2025, up 4.9 per cent over the previous year.
The actual numbers are likely higher as many victims suffer in silence. While some children manage to transfer schools to escape their tormentors, many find themselves trapped.
This has driven a surge in prolonged absenteeism. In 2024, a record 353,970 elementary and junior high students were classified as chronically absent, meaning they missed at least one month of school for reasons other than illness or financial hardship.
While reasons for truancy vary, bullying-induced anxiety and depression are known to be a leading cause.
For some like Sato, the trauma persists well into adulthood, turning victims of bullying into hikikomori, or extreme social recluses.
At a tearful press conference on March 26 after the release of the probe findings, Sato confessed he had contemplated suicide on more than one occasion.
“I want children who are suffering from bullying to somehow find the strength to live,” he pleaded.
Tragically, many do not. In 2024, a record 529 children across elementary, junior high and senior high schools died by suicide, with “school problems” identified as the most common reason.
What appears to be a systemic failure has led to a wave of litigation, with bereaved parents across Japan suing school authorities for their inaction.
In Nagasaki, a verdict is expected on June 8 over the 2017 suicide of a 16-year-old boy. His school had flatly refused to acknowledge his plight as bullying, dismissing the findings of a third-party probe as “incomprehensible and containing logical leaps”.
Turning a blind eye
Japan’s Act on the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying defines a “serious incident” as any case where a child, or his or her parent, claims there is significant physical or psychological harm or property damage suffered, and/or if a child is absent from school for more than 30 days in a school year.
Once this threshold is met, the school or local education board must establish a third-party probe to clarify facts and remedy the situation.
The problem is, however, that such guidelines are toothless and perceived as lip service when educators turn a blind eye to the complaint and sweep it under the carpet.
In one striking instance of institutional denial, a 15-year-old girl in Koriyama, Fukushima prefecture, was ordered by her principal to rewrite her graduation essay, which had detailed her suffering from bullies who vandalised her items and told her to “die”.
“There must have been at least one thing that was fun. What will people from other schools think when they read this?” the principal said. The essay was published as it was after her parents intervened.
Worse still are cases where educators become the perpetrators, like in Saitama prefecture, where a teacher was found to have mocked a student’s stutter, encouraging other children to join in the ridicule.
These cases are only the tip of the iceberg in a wave of bullying incidents documented in media reports.
In 2025, a boy in Gosen, Niigata prefecture, passed off sodium hydroxide as candy and gave the chemical to two of his juniors, who suffered burns in their mouths.
In 2023, a girl in Hita, Oita prefecture, suffered injuries when her classmates put thumbtacks in her shoes.
In 2021, a 16-year-old boy in Fukuoka prefecture died after he felt humiliated when bullies restrained him with adhesive tape, stripped him naked and subjected him to indecent acts that were posted on social media.
That same year, a 14-year-old girl in Hokkaido died after enduring severe bullying, having been coerced into sending inappropriate images. She sought help, only for her school to dismiss her pleas as a “prank”.
Vigilante justice
Victims and their families who face official apathy are increasingly turning to a controversial new weapon: vigilante justice on social media.
This comes as many bullying cases are being documented on camera, whether by bystanders, or by the bullies themselves as a way to prove their superiority.
Rather than hiding in shame, some families are seeking out and leaking unredacted videos of assaults online, exposing the identities of the bullies to the court of public opinion.
One such account on X that boasts a million followers thrives on propagating such video clips. It is run by 37-year-old Masato Kosaka, who told the Asahi Shimbun in an April interview that public shaming is necessary to trigger the outrage to force negligent authorities into action.
He posts videos obtained from whistle-blowers after receiving proof that the victim has suffered harm.
Kosaka told the newspaper that he himself suffered chronic bullying as a child and sees himself in the victims of the videos he posts.
He said: “Schools and even the police have been covering up bullying for decades. I’m going to cause a commotion if that is what it takes to force them to take action.”
But his videos have resulted in the alleged perpetrators and their families being publicly identified, slandered and doxxed online.
Education Minister Yohei Matsumoto cautioned against such tactics, warning that this could lead to “new human rights violations against minors”.
Yet there is some evidence that digital exposure works. Since January, police have made arrests in at least four cases after bullying incidents went viral in the prefectures of Kumamoto, Oita, Osaka and Tochigi.
A mother in Kumamoto said she is glad for such an avenue. Her son came home on Jan 6 with a bloodied face after he was punched and kicked as onlookers cheered his assailants on.
Her assessment was reportedly blunt: “If the clip hadn’t been leaked and gone viral, the perpetrators wouldn’t have suffered any repercussions.” - The Straits Times/ANN
