I lived in Japan for 8 years (not in Tokyo), and this sort of stuff was very rare and often newsworthy. I imagine it does happen, but more often than not at ur

I lived in Japan for 8 years (not in Tokyo), and this sort of stuff was very rare and often newsworthy. I imagine it does happen, but more often than not at urban school, at schools that are less academically oriented (e.g., construction high schools), and overall in lower socio-economic areas. The abusers are probably from abusive families. If you’re in the burbs or the provincial parts of Japan, bullying at this extreme level is very unlikely to happen. The more common type of bullying is verbal abuse — still bad, but not like the examples you gave. All that said, there is a form of hazing that is common in Japan that would probably be considered abusive, and that’s with high school baseball clubs. The new players on the team sometimes get boot camp-like treatment, and some folks (and sometimes coaches) take it too far. It’s theoretically all in fun and/or character building, and there are often checks and balances in place by the senior players, but I’ve heard some stories. That said, I don’t think that there are many baseball players who would not do it again.