anime portrayal of high school

Is most anime portrayal of Japanese high schools sugarcoated bullshit?

I was watching All About Lily Chou-Chou, which I heard from doing a minutes worth of research is a fairly realistic portrayal of Japanese youth, and thinking how Japanese kids are fucking assholes not the well-mannered, old-fashioned teenage characters in most anime.

I think it's interesting how in the past most of the representations of Japanese school life you'd see was the stereotypical "sugoi kawaii pantsu ^_^" nonsense.  But in recent years I've noticed a growing trend of painting school as a nightmarish and bleak experience where the student body is pretty much divided evenly between bullies and victims and the teachers are either useless, apathetic, or bullies themselves.  Is this a more realistic reflection of life in Japan?