Schoolyard bullying has long bedeviled Japan where some students have taken their own lives after being harassed in person or online through emails, text messages and blogs.

Bullying and suicide first entered the nation's national discourse in 1986, when a 13-year-old boy hanged himself in a shopping center toilet after suffering repeated episodes of bullying at school — including a mock funeral that teachers took part in.

One of the latest cases involved a 13-year-old girl who jumped in front of a train after enduring more than a year of bullying by classmates, including being labeled a "pest" and repeatedly told to die.