Line #19 KidsAreCruel/AnimeAndManga


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7	[[KidsAreCruel The cruelty of children]] as depicted in {{Anime}} and {{Manga}}.
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10	* ''Manga/AhAndMmAreAllSheSays'': When they visit Nagoya Castle, Toda tells Tanaka about going there on an elementary school trip, where some kids started hitting her with wooden swords and saying she was a ninja who suffered TongueTrauma.
11	* The first chapter of ''Manga/AkameGaKill'' with Aria, a noble girl who looks sweet and innocent but [[spoiler:is ultimately a sadist who has kidnapped and tortured innocent bystanders ForTheEvulz]]. When Tatsumi finds out what she did to her friends, he kills the girl right on the spot.
12	* Tetsuo from ''Manga/{{Akira}}''. In a scene after Tetsuo, in the full throes of his [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity psychic megalomania]], kills fellow gang member Yamagata, Kaneda reflects on how everyone in his school had teased Tetsuo and tried to make him cry.
13	* ''Manga/BlackLagoon''': Hansel [[CreepyTwins and]] Gretel are probably the most psychopathic examples of this you're likely to find. They kill everyone in a bar (even though they were just targeting two people), tortured a man to death, and being insane sociopaths in general. [[HarmfulToMinors They probably weren't always like this though]].
14	* Sakura's classmates in ''Literature/BludgeoningAngelDokurochan'' are an extreme example of this.
15	* ''Manga/{{Bokurano}}'' has several examples of this trope as well:
16	** The major victim would be Mako Nakarai, who is bullied mercilessly because her mother is a prostitute.
17	** Kodama is a [[VillainProtagonist protagonist]] version. He cares little for other life (he says that if something dies it's their destiny, shoots cats regularly, and in the anime boils a crab alive using a firecracker), to the point where he kills dozens of people while driving the mecha. [[spoiler:He accidentally kills his father, sending him into a HeroicBSOD, right before he dies.]] Ushiro also counts, being easy to anger and quite violent toward his younger sister.
18	* Trans girl Marika from ''Manga/BokuraNoHentai'' suffered homophobic bullying in elementary for being feminine.
19	* Candy's step-siblings Eliza and Neil Reagan in ''Manga/CandyCandy''. They are so utterly cruel, that it's unthinkable to even feel a twinge of admiration or sympathy towards them. Worst is the RichBitch Eliza, whose motivation for making Candy's life hell is: ''[[ForTheEvulz because she can]]''. If that doesn't convince you enough, wait until you see the episode about Eliza getting temporarily grounded, whereas she will make up a monologue that explains that ''she really loves violence'', especially towards people that can be picked on, like Candy. So she not only did it because she can, she also LOVES and takes joy in doing it.
20	* In ''Anime/CodeGeass'', Lelouch was often the victim of this from young Japanese kids in his earliest days there, including his would be best friend, Suzaku.
21	* The oneshot manga ''Cotton Candy Love'' features a young [[UsefulNotes/{{transgender}} transgender]] girl being bullied by classmates for living as a girl and wearing a skirt.
22	* Mad Pierrot from ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' has regressed to having a child's mind from sadistic experiments, and as Jet puts it, there's nothing as purely cruel as a child.
23	* ''Manga/DeadmanWonderland'':
24	** It must be something that in a world of super-powered sadists some the cruelest characters are ''{{muggle}} bullies'' whose victims later became the twisted un-powered (or at least not till recently) playthings/enforcers of the prison. Examples include kitten killing, possible rape, and playing Othello on a kid's back ''with thumbtacks''. And this is ''before'' the devastating earthquake that plunged the land into chaos.
25	** In terms of just plain AxCrazy, [[spoiler: Little Hibana killed a classmate while in kindergarten; Minatsuki killed her mom for abandoning her during the earthquake and her dad just to see if her brother was gullible enough to think their loving dad would try to rape her (he's not, he just has a huge BigBrotherInstinct, which she finds incredibly comforting). Minatsuki's current pastimes are sadism, {{Blood Sport}}s, and gardening.]]
26	* ''Manga/DeathNote'' has Teru Mikami, whose childhood involved having to deal with asshole kids. As a result, when Mikami gets his hands on the titular ArtifactOfDoom in the second half of the series, he develops the philosophy that past middle school, anyone who commits a cruel act is basically unredeemable and should be, to use his favorite term, "deleted." By the end of the anime, he's become the most psychotic of all the Kiras, with the much-contested title of "Craziest Character in the Series."
27	* ''Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba'': Two members of the Twelve Kizuki, Lower Moon 5 Rui and [[spoiler:Upper Moon 6 Daki]], were turned into demons as children and have the cruel nature and body count to show for their positions.
28	* In ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' Grand Zeno, the Omniking, behaves like a small child and has been known to wipe out entire universes on a whim, seemingly not caring for the trillions of lives he destroys.
29	* Majin Buu of ''Anime/DragonBallZ'' had the mentality of a child without a conception of right or wrong, so he quite cheerfully obliterated anything that wasn't entertaining. After Mr. Satan befriended him, Buu slowly began to evolve a sense of morality. Taken even further when Buu's pure form is revealed: Kid Buu. This form is hinted to only have as much power as Super Buu, but lacks any of the restraint displayed by his other incarnations. He's a complete psychopath, as demonstrated when he ''[[EarthShatteringKaboom destroyed the planet he was standing on]]''.
30	* ''Manga/DriftingClassroom'' is a prime example of this. When the school is transported into a CrapsackWorld and the kids get more and more desperate they start doing horrific stuff such as killing each other with spears and knives for food, burning a fellow student on a cross, and even ([[spoiler:EATING A DEAD STUDENT'S REMAINS.]])
31	* ''Manga/ElfenLied'': Lucy gets a {{backstory}} like this, where she gets tormented by cruel kids because of her "cute little horns" and her [[EmotionlessGirl emotionlessness]]. Their [[MoralEventHorizon most despicable act]] was to [[spoiler: force her to watch as they beat the little puppy that she had started caring for to death, just to get any kind of reaction from her at all]]. They get a ''lot'' more than they bargained for -- Lucy [[spoiler:[[BewareTheNiceOnes snaps and]] [[YourHeadAsplode splatters everyone all over the room with her powers]]]].
32	* Episode 10 of ''Anime/ExcelSaga'' had Menchi get chased by a mob of kids all trying to pelt her with rocks, apparently for no reason other than the fact that she was there. Not to mention that the only one that talks is a little potty-mouth.
33	* ''Manga/FlameOfRecca'' is all over this trope. For most (if not all) of the characters with tragic pasts (such as Fuuko, Kaoru, Kurei, and many others), a good part of said past was being tormented by other kids, who take it to extreme heights for seemingly no reason other than the fun of being evil little bastards. One of the tormented kids ([[spoiler:Kaoru]]) was even driven to attempt suicide, and a few others considered it.
34	* Shows up a lot in ''Manga/FruitsBasket''.
35	** Tohru was bullied by a bunch of boys as a child, and was apparently ignored by the girls, just for being a bit odd. Eventually, she just got used to being an outcast.
36	-->"After all, [[TearJerker a riceball doesn't belong]] [[TitleDrop in a fruits basket]]."
37	** Akito was pretty cruel to Yuki as a child, and actually invoked this in some of his [[BreakThemByTalking Breaking Lectures]]. [[DomesticAbuse Not that he grew out of it too soon]].
38	** Most of the Members of the Zodiac with ImplausibleHairColor got teased or bullied for it at some point. Most of them found ways to retaliate and stick up for themselves, but poor little [[{{Kawaiiko}} Kisa]] was so traumatized, she stopped talking for a long time.
39	** And then there's Hana. She was an {{Empath}} with PowerIncontinence, and so she'd [[EmotionlessGirl hide her emotions]] just to get through the day. For some reason, other kids took this to mean that she was a witch (not that it was too far from the truth), [[BullyingADragon so they forced her to eat a live newt]]. Suffice it to say that she discovered her PsychicPowers that day.
40	* [[MeaningfulName Wrath]] from ''Anime/FullmetalAlchemist2003'' is an extreme embodiment of this; his childish, emotionally underdeveloped nature makes him a vicious tool of destruction, as seen when he sadistically kills [[spoiler: Lust]].
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42	* While usually not apparent in ''VisualNovel/HigurashiWhenTheyCry'' it appears a few times. Such as [[spoiler:in the "perfect world"]] where ''Satoko'' is a bully. [[spoiler:Rika beats her up with a chair for it. Note, Rika is usually [[PseudoRomanticFriendship extremely close best friends]] with Satoko so that just shows how angry she was.]]
43	* Shiori, a female [[HalfHumanHybrid half-demon]] from ''Manga/{{Inuyasha}}'', was beaten and thrown into the mud by the other children. Simply for the reason [[HalfBreedDiscrimination that she is a hanyou]].
44	** It is implied that Inuyasha was similarly treated in his childhood by the other children.
45	* ''Literature/KazeNoStigma'': Kazuma was born into [[PlayingWithFire a prestigious family of fire users]] yet had no talent in the arts at all, not even the standard immunity to fire that even the weakest branch members had. Consequently, as a child, he was regularly beaten and tortured with fire by the other children, ranging from 5 year olds to teenagers. At least one time, they were ''seriously going to kill him''.
46	* Sentarou from ''Manga/KidsOnTheSlope'' suffered bullying growing up because he's biracial. He began fighting to fight off his bullies. His curly, light brown hair was frequently made fun of until he cropped it short.
47	* ''Manga/TheKurosagiCorpseDeliveryService'': The smartest kids in a cram school mercilessly pick on the girl with the lowest grades, eventually causing her death by drowning. Her father prays to a god of vengeance that transforms her into a hasshaku. Her only friend is the bullies' next target, and she rescues him from them by ''eating'' them. The Kurosagi crew gets involved, learning that the only way to stop her would be to rebury the bone that was sacrificed to the god, but this would kill the person doing it. When they next try to stop the girl from going after the rest of the cram school, they find the father's hanged himself, when the girl collapses, vomiting up her latest victims... it turns out the friend went and dug up her bone, sacrificing himself so she could move on.
48	* ''Manga/{{Lady}}'': Thomas and Mary Waverly are children. Their rap sheet includes heavily injuring toddler-age children, abusing their own pets, abusing other people's pets, repeated theft and causing Lynn hypothermia (though, Mary did feel bad for that one - not that it stopped her from contuining to bully Lynn in the future).
49	* ''Manga/LycheeLightClub'' combines this with AmbiguousInnocence to produce nine [[{{Bishounen}} rather androgynous]] eighth grade boys who commit ColdBloodedTorture on a regular basis.
50	* In ''Manga/MarchComesInLikeALion'', Rei heavily implies that he was bullied in his younger years both in a passing statement about his school life in comparison to his home life and in his insistence to Hayashida-sensei to not spread the fact that he's a professional shogi player to his new classmates.
51	* ''Anime/MidnightHorrorSchool'': [[TerribleTrio Tubee, Usop and Yumyum]] come off as this, but some of the time the other students at the school are (sometimes) no better. I.E. Half of the students cornering them complete with Docky using his whirlwind on them in 'Noisy Noisy', Liddy lashing out at Yumyum for faking his wonder in 'Yumyum's Wonder' causing the latter to run up to the roof ''crying'' and [[SmartGuy Genie]] and Vincent also tried curving the behavior of [[BabyOfTheBunch Kabo]] in one episode, which got them scolded at by ''the Bullies''.
52	* Izuku Midoriya suffered this in ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia''. As the only [[UnSorcerer Quirkless]] kid in his neighborhood, he was relentlessly bullied for his desire to become a Hero. His former ChildhoodFriend, Katsuki Bakugou, led the crowd in putting Izuku down, calling him "Deku", a [[MaliciousMisnaming deliberate misreading]] of his name that has connotations of being worthless. Bakugou would also chase Izuku around the playground while shooting explosions from his hands and beat Izuku up when he dared to stand up for someone else.
53	* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': Both [[TheHero Naruto]] and [[EvilCounterpart Gaara]] suffered this from other children and [[WouldHurtAChild adults]] growing up, because both contained [[{{Kaiju}} Tailed Beasts, the local equivalent of magical nuclear weapons]] in their bodies. Naruto is explicitly stated to be much better off because [[TrueCompanions he had at least a few friendly people helping him out]], whereas Gaara had essentially nobody who trusted or properly loved him. What makes Gaara's AllOfTheOtherReindeer [[BullyingADragon far stranger]] is the fact that everyone in Gaara's village knew that Gaara contained Shukaku, whereas nobody in Naruto's class (including Naruto himself) knew that Naruto contained the Fox.
54	* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', the children of Ohara hated Nico Robin for being a 'monster' because she had eaten her admittedly weird devil fruit that allowed her to grow human body parts anywhere in sight. When she was quietly reading by herself, they would throw rocks at her. When she retaliated, the other kids would tell their parents, who would yell at her, though they could do little else. This in itself is not really her core psychological issue, but it ''is'' just one more example of how the vast majority of people judge her immediately for things she has no control over and either ostracize her or betray her. Those who don't generally wind up dead thanks to her many enemies or just bad luck.
55	* ''Manga/PeachGirl'': Momo is bullied by Sae throughout the course of the story, because Sae is jealous of her for getting more attention and hates her, though Sae often lies to people about this, trying to convince people that [[WoundedGazelleGambit it is Momo who is bullying her.]] And she succeeds for a while before she finally gets what's coming to her. Also Momo is put down by her classmates and other people for having tan skin and bleached blonde hair, because they believe that she is a major ''party girl'' who spends all her time tanning at the beach; they also sometimes insulted her by calling her a slut because Sae tricked them into thinking that Momo stole Toji from her when [[spoiler: it was really Sae who was trying to steal Toji from Momo]], which, in reality, is entirely wrong, as Momo is actually a really nice girl, it's Sae who's the ManipulativeBitch.
56	* In ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'', [[TheRival Kenny]] looks this way when we find out the backstory of "Dee Dee", the EmbarrassingNickname he hung on Dawn. Especially since he got the entire class hooked to that nickname where the entire class calls her by that very name he coined. He and Dawn ended up friends eventually though.
57	* Toyed with in ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf''; when [[TheRival Ryoga Hibiki]] and [[ArrogantKungFuGuy Ranma Saotome]] were kids, they went to the same all-boys Junior High, which had a policy of simply flinging out the stuff from the lunch shop and letting the students fight over it. Ranma would consistently beat Ryoga when they went after the same piece of food, but otherwise got on with him okay enough that he would regularly [[NoSenseOfDirection lead Ryoga to and from his home]], to the point Ranma still remembers where Ryoga lives better then Ryoga does. Eventually, Ryoga got sick of Ranma beating him in combat and challenged him to a duel; when he took four days to get there and found Ranma had left, he set off after him to try and get that match. Initially, however, he didn't seem to really be mad at Ranma, more wanting to settle the score. When he wandered into Jusenkyo, however, he fell into the Spring of Drowned Piglet in an incident involving a girl and a panda, and he promptly blamed Ranma for it, becoming much more furious and even declaring he wanted to kill Ranma. Things kind of peaked when he found out Ranma was actually at fault, but it quickly petered out; much as they squabble and bicker, the two watch each other's backs and save each other's lives on a regular basis.
58	* ''Manga/RosarioPlusVampire'': Moka Akashiya was teased and bullied because of her vampire origins when she was a kid.
59	* The first episode of ''Anime/SailorMoon'' had a bunch of little brats who were [[BadPeopleAbuseAnimals physically torturing Luna the Cat]], until [[NiceGirl Usagi]] came and fended them off.
60	* Saori Kido in ''Manga/SaintSeiya'' was quite the SpoiledBrat as a child, as was willing to beat up the orphans into playing horse for her, with the leash and all. Fortunately, she grows out of it as a teenager.
61	* ''Manga/ShadowStar'' contains [[AlphaBitch Aki Honda]] and her GirlPosse, who manage the rather impressive feat of turning schoolyard bullying into a monstrous act when they [[spoiler:''rape'' one of the side characters, Hiroko, ''[[{{Squick}} with a test tube]]'']]; and as if that's not nasty enough, [[spoiler:the original plan was to ''kick Hiroko in the stomach'' while the test tube was inside her!]]. Once [[spoiler:Hiroko]] obtains her [[{{Mon}} dragonet]], she gets her revenge... in ''very'' bloody fashion.
62	* ''Manga/ASilentVoice'' is all about the cruelty of children and the main focus is on a character who has been driven to suicidal edges by a mix of the treatment he receives from his fellow students and the memories of the way he constantly attacked and abused a deaf girl in his class when he was younger. The story focuses on his attempts to redeem himself with the girl as a teenager and somehow makeup for his actions.
63	* The kids of {{Manga/Soil}} [[UncannyVillage New Town]] aren't as [[StepfordSmiler perfect]] as they appear. "She was our friend" is actually "we talked occasionally but she was a weird outsider and then [[spoiler: she fell into a narcoleptic sleep so we left her in the middle of the road to be almost raped]]" while another group of boys ID their mysterious leader from [[spoiler: the burn where they set his hair on fire]]. Then again the boys have an excuse, considering they're all [[spoiler: ''current'' victims of their pedophile rapist dentist (their real leader, a high schooler, is also a victim, as are the slightly older rapists who raped his friend), although they don't know the connection, they just want [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds to destroy this lame world]].]]
64	* ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'':
65	** This is Rosa's justification for her treatment of Maria (or what she tells people anyway; in Maria's backstory we find out that [[spoiler: Rosa hates her a good deal for just existing]]). Her excuse is basically, "All the children make fun of her! Don't you see?! Beating her will obviously make her stop whining!"
66	** [[spoiler: Bern and Lambda]] as well.
67	** Not to mention Ange's classmates.
68	** Due to the nature of the series though, [[spoiler: some of these examples may be subverted. An important theme in the series is differences in point of view, so what a character perceives may not actually be true and can't be trusted. For example, there are a few hints in-series that suggests Ange's bullying was all in her head or over exaggerated.]]
69	* Marie's classmates in ''Manga/TheUnforgivingFlowersBlossomInTheDeadOfNight'' call her a ''youkai'' to her face, boys flip her skirt up, and she's usually forced to do all the cleaning herself. One scene has a girl stab Marie's hand with a pencil for mumbling "Oh, really?" during a group discussion, [[SlasherSmile saying "Youkai shouldn't talk."]]
70	* In ''{{Manga/Uzumaki}}'', several members of the "Dragonfly Gang" ([[spoiler:people who ride tornadoes through the ruins of Kurozu-cho]]) are children orphaned by and under the influence of the Spiral.
71	* How cruelly children treat those they deem inferior to them is a recurring theme in ''Anime/VividStrike''. The first scene of the season involves Fuka and Rinne getting bullied for being orphans, and Episode 3 shows that [[spoiler:this did not stop for Rinne after she was adopted. In fact, it appears to have been worse since she became an adopted child from a poor background who was now all alone in an elite school full of students eager to [[BreakTheCutie have fun with the outcast]]. Episode 4 explores the kind of bullying that Rinne Berlinetta underwent in school. It goes as far as her bullies beating her up and destroying her phone, [[NeverGotToSayGoodbye during the very day her adoptive grandfather died]], while her mother was trying to contact her. What follows is a ''massive'' NoHoldsBarredBeatdown against the bullies.]]
72	* A reoccuring theme in ''Manga/WanderingSon'' is this:
73	** Nitori in particular gets bullied. She is a trans girl and gets a lot of bullying from Oka and Doi in particular for being girly. Doi develops a crush on Nitori nevertheless. [[spoiler:Nitori ends befriending Oka and Doi come high school]].
74	** Trans woman Yuki was forced into a female school uniform in middle school. The incident caused her to drop out and become a {{hikikomori}}.
75	** Saori has NoSocialSkills and ends up acting rather cruel to her former friends Nitori and (especially) Takatsuki for most of middle school, after suffering a falling-out with them due to their LoveTriangle. She becomes friendlier by high school.
76	* Another disability-related example, ''Manga/WithTheLight'' gives a [[SarcasmMode lovely]] example of kids mocking Kanon because she has a "stupid" autistic brother, not stopping even when lectured until Kanon fought back.
77	* Episode 11 of ''Anime/YuriKumaArashi'' shows that the humans tendency to exclude anyone they see as different from the group extends to the children as well, with the children [[spoiler:forming a lynch mob to savage Kureha as a child when they learn that she treats a [[FantasticRacism bear]] as her friend]].
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Context KidsAreCruel / AnimeAndManga