The Mainichi Daily News has ceased to exist as a newspaper in print form, but it's still available online and gives perhaps the best indication (though greatly thinned) of what a Japanese daily is actually like in tone and content.
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archive/200204/03/20020403p2a00m0fp002000c.ht ml
Teens busted for bashing
NIIGATA -- Five 16-year-old boys have been arrested for unleashing the vicious gang attack that has left a former classmate in a coma, police said Wednesday.
The boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were all arrested for inflicting bodily injury.
They admit to the allegations, one of the suspect's telling the police they attacked Hirotaka Tazawa because he "was too smart for his own good."
Police said the boys called Hirotaka out to a nearby municipal elementary school on Monday night and unleashed a savage attack on him, kicking and beating him to within an inch of his life. (Mainichi Shimbun, April 3, 2002)
---- Posted by Charles Jannuzi