Watching anime (yeah yeah I know) I used to laugh at the absurdity of the bullying and how sexual it all was. I had no idea that bullying is really that bad in Japan. That's extremely sad.
The frequency of how much of what appears to be outlandish bullying gets portrayed in Japanese shows could be an indicator of how normalized it has become there. I have watched some anime too, and I cringed every time they showed those cartoonishly evil bullying scenes. They appeared so unrealistic to me, but reading this discussion it seems it might have actually been a quite relatable theme for Japanese audiences.