A man who was “fed up with everything” has been accused of trying to kill a group of schoolchildren in the Japanese city of Osaka.

The 28-year-old man deliberately ploughed his car into the primary school kids, injuring eight of them, local police say.

The children were aged between seven and eight years old and were on their way home from school and carrying school bags.

The driver was arrested and charged with attempted murder.

“I was fed up with everything. I tried to run down the children and to kill them,” the Kyodo news agency reported the man as saying.

Television footage showed ambulances parked on a narrow back street with medics giving first aid to the children.

School bags were lying on the bitumen.

All of the children were conscious on being taken to hospital.

A 7-year-old girl suffered a broken jaw and the others — reportedly six boys — were slightly injured.

Local media reported that police were handling the case as attempted murder rather than reckless driving.

The scene of the alleged ramming in a back street of Osaka. Photo: AAP

CTV news named the suspect as Yuki Yazawa, 28, an unemployed man from Tokyo.

He reportedly told investigators that he was “sick and tired of everything” and drove his car into the children to kill them.

A witness told NHK public television that the children were screaming and the driver stayed in his seat until police arrived.

Japan has a generally low rate of violent crime but there have been notable incidents.

In 2019, a 51-year old man armed with a knife killed two people and injured 15 school children waiting for a bus in Kawasaki.

-with AP/AAP