Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Bad Is Bullying In Japan?
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CheezcakeMe
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It's not just Japan and Anime, the "group of girls ganging up on a single girl because she gained the attention of the local hot guy" is an extremely common trope in English/American YA and NA fiction as well. Girls seem to like stories about girls fighting girls, don't ask me why.
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Freyanne
Posts: 216 |
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I have read some articles in the past about how bad bullying can get in Japan, and will never forget what happened to one particular female character in the series [Shadow Star] Narutaru.spoiler[ IIRC, she was constantly harassed by four girls (main bully and three lackeys) to where they made her eat worms, and at one point, they put a (one of those school) test tube "inside her", and main bully girl threatened to kick her in the stomache while the test tube was still in. I think a male classmate came by and saved her just in time. But gosh, did she get her revenge on the bullies later on, and the main bully got it the worst. One of the most memoriable deaths/scenes in the anime, for sure. ] It had me thinking if what happened to her, actually happened to kids in school.
I've been bullied quite a few times growing up in school (although I got lucky because my sister was one of the most popular girls in the school, so if I got harrased, even though we really disliked each other during that time, she'd find out withint two class periods and chew them out). But some of things my friends went throught were horrible. One of my friends didn't have much money, and the girls in my grade would often harass her for wearing "cheap Walmart clothes". Got to a point where my friend actually left the classroom during mid-lesson (I was in the same class, and went after her immediately) because of the harassment, and the teacher (who was eight then when it was happening) didn't do anything about it. It's even more frustrating if you went to a school where if a bully is beating you up, you (naturally) defend yourself, and the principal/teachers find out, the bully AND you get in trouble for it. Even if other students told them the bully started the fight, you still got punished as if you started it. One thing I did notice growing up, is that if you talked to the bully by themselves, they often were actually pretty nice and cool. But if they were with their friends, they'd do a complete 180 in how they treated you/other people. |
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JDude042
Posts: 261 |
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On the topic of girl on girl violence, I remember my freshman year of high school walking down a hallway and some poor girl on the ground getting her head kicked into the bottom of a locker by another girl who was much larger/fatter than her. Wasn't long before a few teachers nearby were trying to pull away the girl giving the beat down. I don't even wanna begin to think how that scenario escalated to that point. However, to look at bullying in a positive light, this is worth a few good laughs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TBlyr7gUBc |
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Wandering Samurai
Posts: 875 Location: USA |
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From my experiences having been in Japanese school, I found myself the victim of "ijime" on quite a few occasions. I was called "gaijin" out of spite in middle school, and there were two guys quite taller than me who singled me out and needless to say roughed me up a bit. In a bit of a rare turnaround I'm on better terms with them. One of them ended up getting into a motor accident and wasn't the same after that, and one of their friends (who also happened to be my classmate) ended up passing away last year which really had an effect on them (and everybody else who knew him).
On the other side, when I got into high school I didn't suffer the same kind of ijime from classmates as in middle school, but there were some bad sempais on my sports team. Also some of the alumni were pretty infamous too and their actions in their high school days had seemed to have left scars for some of their kohai as well. One sempai treated his kohai so bad that when the kohai had a sports scholarship offer to go to the same college as this sempai, the kohai turned it down and went to another school instead. |
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Parsifal24
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Well, this definitely caused me to have some flashbacks of Middle School but don't think anything as bad as some of the examples I've read. Well I guess that is one of the good things about being an introvert and haveing introverted hobbies I can just escape from human contact.
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Snomaster1
Subscriber
Posts: 2899 |
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This brought back some not very fond memories. I wasn't really beaten up a lot but I was teased a lot for many years, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail but,but to be honest,it wasn't a lot of fun. And,to be honest,I didn't really have much of a social life. I did work on my high school newspaper,but that was about it. Mostly,I was a homebody and a bookworm. I loved the school library as well. After reading this,I'm just glad I didn't get the worst of it. I hate to think of someone who did.
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enurtsol
Posts: 14877 |
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Another thing ya gotta realize about Japan is the strict hierarchy - the ones higher in the hierarchy are supposed to be treated with a lot of respect and obedience and leeway to do almost whatever they want to those lower in the hierarchy, who are taught they just have to accept it as that's how it's always been done (and thus when it's their turn to become the seniors, they treat their juniors the same way they were treated before, and the cycle continues).
And since one is supposed to put the team harmony above all else and not rock the boat, this happens a lot anywhere there's a team environment, from sports to work offices. Coaches bully their players: Japan's female Olympic judokas say coaches beat them Bosses' power-harassment of employees: Labor ministry says 25% suffer 'power harassment' at work Furthermore, Japan is a shame-based culture (as opposed to guilt-based culture); ergo as long as a behavior isn't considered shameful by society, one is not expected to feel bad about it. (In guilt-based culture, one is expected to feel bad about a wrongdoing regardless if it's accepted by society or even if society doesn't even discover it.) So long as bullying is socially accepted, don't worry too much how ya personally feel about it.
It's not uncommon for Japanese high schoolers to live on their own apartments in order to be closer to the school they attend, instead of doing long daily commutes. That's already in addition to J-fathers being largely absentee fathers due to stupidly long "work hours." Also, J-teachers are expected by J-parents to "raise" the kids more than, say, how it's expected in the West. When students get in trouble in Japan, often the first person that's called in is their homeroom teacher. More responsibility is put upon them.
That's the school not wanting the bad PR that bullying happens within its walls and thus become less attractive to prospective student applicants. Instead of doing something about it, they sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesn't exist.
Ah, kokuhaku........ ya should watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMnZ_l5YXjs&t=360 A British reporter asked several Japanese couples about kokuhaku and how they feel that things are done differently in the West. The results, generally the guys can go either way about it - but the girls, man, the girls............ Ya better do it, or they'll never let ya forget about it!
The more ya know............ |
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AJ (LordNikon)
Posts: 513 Location: Kyoto |
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I remember when my youngest was being bullies in Jr High years back for being a foreigner in a public school. Except for the poor idiots who were doing the buying, she fought back, and beat the crap out of the "ring leader"
Got called in from my work at the time and was told she would be suspended. I inquired about the bullies and was told they were the victims, I demanded to know my "the victims" parents were not present only to be informed it was not needed; and "that's just how things work here". I squarely looked the principal in the eye and laid it out, that my child would be reinstated immediately and that a conference with the bullies parents now, or else, a well placed called to the US Embassy and a rather large op-ed piece naming the school would be running through the Kyodo wire by the end of the day. The matter was settled before I made it back to the office, and my daughter had no further issues with bullying through the rest of her school career. Japan's victim blaming culture is the one aspect of life here that I adamantly refuse to conform to and sickens me to this day, and that's with close to 40 years here now. |
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TarsTarkas
Posts: 5915 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Bullying is allowed to go on in the American public school systems, because for the most part, school systems and districts don't want to deal with it. They don't want to investigate or be judge and jury. So they punish the bully and the victim equally, if the victim defends themselves. They don't want to constantly monitor the situation, so they don't protect the victim from reprisals attacks from the bully or his friends/henchmen. And as some have said, sometimes bus drivers and teachers just turn a blind eye.
Seems Japan has their own form of bullying. Whether it is here or abroad, bullying is a cancer that society has turned a blind eye to, despite fairly recent media attention. |
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ResistNormal
Posts: 117 |
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It's still better not to water the hate tree with hate, you never know what it will grow in to. |
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SaitoHajime101
Posts: 285 |
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This happens due to similar circumstances why teachers and principals don't assist students in Japanese schools. Typically overcrowding, other "more important" work-related issues to work on, or students not speaking out. Most reasons why bullying occur appear to be similar across both countries and how it's typically dealt with, however the act itself is completely different due to society and culture structures. |
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CANimeFan88
Posts: 346 |
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I know what I'm about to say may be off topic but...Doesn't the female anime character on the right side of that image sort of look a little bit like Momo Velia Deviluke from the "To Love Ru" series? I absolutely love that character. I wonder if the manga (as well as the anime) will have the conclusion it deserves.
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18405 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Um, no. Just no. As someone who has worked in public schools in the U.S. for more than 20 years, I can assure you that this is patently not the case on the whole. Might this be true in some cases in the States? I suppose so. However, I guarantee that the truth far more commonly is that the teacher/administrator either genuinely isn't aware of what's going on or else doesn't know what to do about it. Even with the rigorous training teachers get on bullying (required yearly by state law in some states), they can't do anything if they don't see it happen or it isn't brought to their attention, and most bullies are at least clever enough to not blatantly do it in front of adult witnesses. Even when teachers do see it, being able to thwart it is more difficult than you might think. I was substituting in a middle school Health class one time where a good chunk of the class was relentlessly picking on one disabled kid despite my efforts to discourage it, so I eventually had to send him out of class and call for an assistant principal's help. (And boy, you didn't want to be in one of those student desks when he started laying into those kids, as he had a disabled son himself and so was more than ordinarily hot under the collar about it. There were at least a couple of kids practically in tears by the time he got done.) |
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Heishi
Posts: 1345 |
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Even so, that's really sad to hear. Poor kids. |
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Clyde_Cash
Posts: 376 |
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What the hell is wrong with Japanese people? It's 2016! Bullying has no place in any civilized society! A technologically advanced nation like them should know better!
[EDIT: Link deleted for being irrelevant. - Key] |
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