School bullying in Japan has reached a new record high, with 543,933 reported cases at elementary, junior and senior high schools nationwide in fiscal 2018, the education ministry announced on Oct. 17.

The number was up about 130,000 from the previous fiscal year.

Truancy by elementary and junior high school students also broke a record, with 164,528 children absent for 30 days or more during the year.

The ministry conducts the survey through boards of education and other organizations across the nation every year.

Elementary schools reported 425,844 cases of bullying, up 108,723, compared to the previous fiscal year.

Junior high schools had 97,704 cases, up 17,280. Senior high schools saw 17,709 cases, an increase of 2,920.

In 2013, the legal definition of bullying was widened to better reflect the viewpoint of bullied children.

Since then, schools have been on the lookout for even small signs of trouble among students.

Despite this, about 20 percent of schools didn't report any cases of bullying.

Most reported incidents involved children jeering, teasing or talking badly about other students. These amounted to about 340,000 cases, about 60 percent of all the cases of bullying.

Kids bumping into, or hitting other students and then claiming they were just playing accounted for about 120,000 cases.

There were 72,940 cases involving other violent acts.

In 16,334 cases, students used social media to bully their victims online.

Regarding truancy figures, 44,841 students at elementary schools were absent during the year. This was 9,809 more than in the previous fiscal year.

Junior high schools fared even worse, with 119,687 students not showing up for school, an increase of 10,688 from the previous fiscal year.

On average, every class at Japan's junior high schools had one student who skipped.

Nearly 60 percent of the truant students were absent from school for at least 90 days.

One influence on the numbers is that more children are studying at places outside schools, such as at educational support centers.

There was a record 602 cases involving dire situations where bullying was judged to have severely damaged the mental or physical conditions of children or they experienced harm to their belongings. This was up 128 from the prior fiscal year.

Among those, the bullying in 420 cases is believed to have caused the victims to quit attending school.

There were 332 student suicides in fiscal 2018, the highest number in 30 years.

Eighty-two more children committed suicide than in the previous fiscal year.

Though domestic discord, reproach from parents or worries about the future path were the most common reasons cited as influencing children to commit suicide, bullying was cited as the reason that drove nine students to take their own lives.