An 18-year-old father was arrested for killing his two-month-old baby. Of 209 comments, 48 percent of the vote said "a child had a child" — and 6 percent said the courts would go easy on him

First, what happened.

In the small hours of 5 September, police in Hiroshima Prefecture arrested an 18-year-old company employee from the city of Fukuyama on suspicion of murder. According to police, some time between 5:30 and 9 in the morning of the 4th, at home, he put a plastic bag over the head of his two-month-old son, laid him face down, and left him until he stopped breathing. At about 1:30 in the afternoon the baby's mother called the police to say the baby had died at home. The man is believed to be the father, and the three of them lived together.

He told police he had not meant to kill the child: "he was crying loudly, and I thought this would quiet him." He denies intent to kill.

Let me put my own view first. I think this is a good example of how finished Japan's justice system is. An adult man of 18 kills a child, and his name is not even published. Murder is not applied straight away. Everything is soft and lukewarm, and the penalty is treated as something you can do the crime and live through. A justice system that does not have to work as a brake on anyone — that is Japan's.

One thing I will add, having re-read the article. The arrest was on suspicion of murder. What I fear is what comes next: that at indictment or at sentencing, murder becomes "injury resulting in death" or negligence. Why his name has not appeared, I will explain at the end.

With that in mind I went to count. Three hours after the article went up, at 6:30 on the morning of 5 September, I read all 209 top-level comments (240 including replies) and counted the buttons. The thread was still growing, so this is what it looked like that morning.

96 to 4 — the third most one-sided thread I have counted

The comments drew 6,975 presses of "I relate" and 318 of "hmm." 96 to 4. Only seven comments, 3 percent, had more "hmm" than "I relate."

Of the 35 threads I have counted before this one, only two were more one-sided: the one about television licence fees, at 46 to 1, and one that lined up the other way, 392 to 6 on the "hmm" side. Three threads sit at 95 to 5, so this one is only just ahead of them — but it is ahead. A baby has died; I can imagine why a thread faces one way.

A word on the shape of the vote before I go on. The top ten comments took 75 percent of it and the top twenty took 84 percent. Fifty-nine of the 209 comments — 28 percent — had not been pressed once, either way, by the time I counted. That is a smaller share of silence than in most threads I have measured; the thread was young, and people were still reading from the top. It also means the percentages below rest heavily on a handful of comments, which is why, for each group, I say how much of its vote belongs to a single comment.

But when a thread lines up, the question is what it lined up behind. I went in assuming the answer was "the courts are soft." It was not.

A quarter of the vote went to one comment

The loudest comment drew 1,739 presses — 25 percent of this thread's vote, on one comment.

"Anyone can imagine what happens." That is the line at the top of the thread. The man says he did not mean to kill; the thread answers that anyone knows what a bag over the head and a face-down position do to a baby. Comments saying that this was obvious, and that "I didn't mean to" will not wash, came to 43 of the 209, with 3,928 presses — 56 percent of the vote.

Whether there was intent is for prosecutors and a court to decide. The thread had already decided. It is worth noticing what the comment does not say. It does not mention the law, the sentence, or the man's age. It states what any adult knows about a plastic bag, and then guesses at a future that will now never happen. The 1,739 people who pressed it were agreeing with a piece of common sense, not with a legal argument. That distinction runs through the whole thread, and it is the reason my own view — which was a legal argument — came out smaller than I expected.

Second place — "he must not enjoy the privileges of a minor," 1,080 presses

1,080 presses. This is the closest the thread comes to my view. Comments demanding that his youth not soften the sentence, and that he not be allowed the privileges of a minor, came to 15, with 2,038 presses — 29 percent of the vote, and this second-placed comment is the centre of that group. The sixth-placed comment, at 337, hopes that "too young and immature" or "mentally overwhelmed" will not shorten his sentence.

But read it carefully. This person does not say the courts are soft. They say the man must not be allowed to plead soft. The addressee is not the system; it is the 18-year-old. That is where the 29 percent went.

The centre of the thread — "a child had a child," 48 percent

Third place, at 767 presses: this is what happens when children make children and try to raise them; without knowledge or life experience they cannot understand what their actions lead to.

Comments in that shape — seeing the 18-year-old as a child, saying he had no business being a parent, was too young, ignorant, should have used contraception — came to 63 of the 209, with 3,363 presses — 48 percent of the vote. That is where the centre of this thread was. Many of the comments quoting the old Japanese saying that "crying is a baby's job," to remind him that babies cry, fall into this group too.

Words of mourning for the baby — poor thing, pitiful, may he rest in peace — came to 35 comments, 3,549 presses, 51 percent. The loudest comment and the third-placed one both end on that note.

One more thing about the thread's shape. Comments telling the man to try it on himself — put a bag over your own head, lie face down for four hours — came to 28, which is 13 percent of the comments by count. But they drew 200 presses — 3 percent of the vote. Many people in this thread wrote revenge; few pressed the button for it. I have seen this pattern before in threads about violent crime: the comments that describe a punishment in detail are numerous and short, and they sit low in the vote. The comments that rise are the ones that state what happened plainly and then mourn. Readers here seem to press for the description, not for the fantasy of retribution.

Two smaller groups — the mother, and somewhere to turn

Two things were said in this thread that a reader from outside Japan might expect to see more of.

The first is the mother. Fifteen comments, 465 presses, 7 percent of the vote, asked what she had been doing between 9 in the morning and half past one, when she called the police. The fifth-placed comment, which I quote below, opens with exactly that question. One comment, at 7 "I relate" and 16 "hmm," pushed back — why, even in a case like this, are people blaming the mother? — and lost. So the thread did glance at her, but it did not dwell on her. The vote stayed on the father.

The second is help. Ten comments, 253 presses, 4 percent, wished there had been somewhere to turn: a public health nurse, a relative, a place that takes a baby for a night when a parent says "I cannot." One asked for a 24-hour drop-off for parents at the end of their rope, while admitting it would be abused. These are the comments that treat the case as something a system could have caught. They are 4 percent of the vote. The thread, by and large, did not think a system was the missing piece. It thought the missing piece was the father.

I note both numbers because they are the ones I would have expected to be larger. In a country that talks a great deal about its low birth rate, the comments about supporting young parents were the smallest group I counted.

The comment I shared came fourth

This is the comment I shared on X.

392 presses, fourth in the thread. "At 18 his name should be published" — the thing I wanted to say is in there.

Comments demanding that his name be published, or asking why it was not, came to 11, with 595 presses — 8.5 percent of the vote. But let me be honest about that number. 392 of those presses are this one comment. Take it out and the group is 10 comments and 203 presses — 3 percent. The name was not a big subject in this thread.

And this comment drew 32 "hmm" presses — the most of any comment in the top ten. I suspect the idea of a licence to have children is what some readers baulked at.

Doubting the courts — 6 percent

The comment closest to the core of my view — "he will get off lightly anyway" — is this one, fifth in the thread at 364 presses.

"The verdict will probably be — you didn't mean to, reflect and start over — it won't even be murder." Comments in this shape — predicting a lighter charge, injury or negligence instead of murder, a suspended sentence, a soft Japanese judiciary — came to 12 of the 209, with 408 presses — 6 percent of the vote. And 364 of those presses are this one comment. The other eleven drew 44 presses between them. One, at 8 presses, wrote that in America this would draw a heavy sentence, but in Japan it would be injury resulting in death, a first offence, a minor, about two years, possibly suspended. Another, at 12, predicted a verdict of negligence "with a suspended sentence thrown in."

So there were people who thought what I thought. There were twelve of them. The vote that saw the 18-year-old as a child outweighed the vote that doubted the courts eight to one.

There was also a comment written in the language of the law.

122 presses, ninth in the thread. "Article 199" is the murder article of Japan's Penal Code. "I want the media to publish his name once he is indicted" — this person knows that under current law an 18-year-old's name can be published after indictment, and writes accordingly. I had written that his name "is not published." The accurate version is "not yet." This comment corrected me.

One comment where "hmm" won

Of the seven comments where "hmm" outnumbered "I relate," this is the one where the most votes moved.

42 "I relate," 44 "hmm." Someone who had their own child as a teenager, with a teenage husband, writes that a newborn crying is just a sign it is alive; that they agree as far as "he was crying loudly" and understand nothing after that; and that cases like this are why teenage parents get told "children having children, no wonder." Comments asking people not to judge by age came to four, 78 presses, 1 percent — and this one lost.

In a thread that gave 48 percent of its vote to "a child had a child," the one voice that had actually been a teenage parent was pushed back. I record that as it is. Three other comments made a similar point more mildly — there are plenty of young fathers who do the job well, do not judge by age — and drew 9, 2 and 25 presses. Between them the four comments in this group hold 1 percent of the vote. A thread that agreed 96 to 4 left very little room for the people who could have said, from experience, what being 18 with a newborn is actually like.

Checking my own view against the count

"An adult of 18, and his name is not even published" — 8.5 percent agreed that the name should come out. But most of that was the one comment I shared; without it, 3 percent. And as the ninth-placed comment says, the law now reads "after indictment, it can."

"Murder is not applied straight away" — the arrest was for murder. My fear is that the charge is lowered later. Twelve comments, 6 percent, predicted that, and 364 of those presses were one comment.

"Soft, lukewarm punishment" — 30 comments, 30 percent, demanded a harsh sentence; 15 comments, 29 percent, said his youth must not soften it. Here the thread and I face the same way. But what the thread blamed was not the system. It was the 18-year-old.

"A justice system that does not have to work as a brake" — one comment, one press, said that heavier penalties would deter. This thread did not think the penalty failed to stop him. It thought he was a parent who did not understand what anyone should understand. "Anyone can imagine" took 56 percent; "a child had a child" took 48.

I looked at the courts and got angry. The thread looked at an 18-year-old man and called him a child. Whether you think this happened because the courts are soft, or because a child became a parent, decides what you would fix. The thread chose the second. I still think it is the first. But that is not how the buttons were pressed.

For readers outside Japan — an "adult of 18," and a name that has not yet appeared

Finally, a few things to take home.

In April 2022 Japan lowered the age of majority from 20 to 18. The voting age is 18 as well. But under the Juvenile Act, 18- and 19-year-olds are a separate category — "specified juveniles" — and in some respects they are still treated as juveniles. One of those respects is the name. At the arrest stage, police do not release the name of an 18-year-old. Once he is indicted, the law no longer forbids publishing it. That is what the ninth-placed comment meant by "after indictment."

The penalties, for reference. Murder (Penal Code article 199) carries death, life imprisonment, or a minimum of five years. If a court accepts that he did not intend to kill, the charge becomes injury resulting in death (article 205), with a minimum of three years. When an 18- or 19-year-old is accused of a crime carrying a year or more in prison, the case is in principle sent back from the family court to prosecutors and tried in an ordinary criminal court, as an adult's would be. So whether "youth" softens anything is decided less by the shape of the law than by the judges.

On this site I once counted the thread about five high-school students arrested for a badger game in Shibuya, where 67 percent of the vote went to the Juvenile Act. That thread blamed the law. This thread blamed not the law but the immaturity of one 18-year-old. Two cases involving "juveniles," and the thread faces in two quite different directions.

And then the mood on Japan's side. The saying "crying is a baby's job" appears again and again in this thread. It is old household wisdom: babies cry, let them. Did the 18-year-old not know that, or did he know and reach for the bag anyway? Fifty-six percent of the thread pressed "he cannot not have known." Whether that is right, a court will now decide. That the buttons were pressed that way — that much, counting made clear.