CATDOLL: Japanese elementary school girls are obsessed with "bullying" comics. What's wrong with this world?

The phenomenon of school bullying is not uncommon around us. In various countries around the world, school bullying incidents occur every day, and there are reports of school student violence from time to time, some of which are quite serious. The cruel methods used by the twisted children in the cases are shocking. School bullying is a more difficult problem in Japan. There have been cases where students killed or committed suicide because they could not bear the bullying of their classmates. I don’t know when it started, but the "bullying" theme comics became popular among elementary school girls in Japan. The reason for the popularity is that many elementary school girls regard it as an "anti-bullying textbook."

The "Bully" comic series for elementary school girls, which is currently being serialized in Shogakukan magazine, is widely popular among elementary school girls in Japan. Since 2005, 10 single-volume comics and 10 novels have been published, with a total sales of 2.3 million copies. When asked why these elementary school readers like this comic work, the elementary school students gave the answers that "you can learn what bullying is through this comic" and "you can infer whether you are bullied in real life from the plot of the comic." In the comic, the heroine is often called "ugly girl" and "go to hell", and her classmates dump garbage on her head. The heroine's shoes are also deliberately placed in the toilet by her classmates. The plot that may make some adults uncomfortable is like a textbook to elementary school girls. The editor of this comic also said, "Many children don't know what bullying is, so they have a great interest in this comic. The creation of this comic is also based on real cases and artistic processing. The theme of the comic is actually to tell readers that even if you are bullied, you will not be alone forever. Even readers who have experienced bullying wrote to us saying that their psychological burden has been reduced a lot after reading the comic."