Woman, ex-partner arrested for forcing cicada onto crying child's face

How traumatising for the kid, the mother sounds like a bit of a loonie, like the troll who commented above.

How bizarre. The strange things they do to children here. In relative terms this is a good news story.

As messed up as that is, I don't know if it's serious enough to warrant an arrest.

Putting a bug on your kid. I mean, come on.

Someone's been watching too much prime-time TV.

Japanese have a saying, "Nakizura ni hachi" (a bee stinging a crying face), meaning when it rains, it pours. Certainly seems to fit this situation.

The real story is what their punishment will be, and how will it compare with punishments for other crimes (and "crimes").

What the hell crazy ppl, they make fun on the crying boy.

Well, not as bad as some of the abuse you hear about, but abuse is still abuse, regardless of the degree of severity, and the fact that the parents were filming it as a kind of fun thing makes it all the more heinous and hateful. It's good they were caught and will be punished NOW before the level of abuse was elevated. While I don't see the authorities taking the child away from his parents over this, given that they often don't for far worse, I hope the parents are warned at least that they child COULD be placed in social services and the parents prosecuted, and I hope they have to do some community service and spend the rest of their lives making it up to the kid.

Why the hell?

Horrible people... not members of the human race, I think, but where would they get a cicada at this time of year?

I take it you did not read the article and are just commenting on the title. There is more to this story than what is being reported here, because of first when it happened and second for the lack of information on how the police found out about it.

Insect critters creep me out so I sympathize with the child. Cicadas look frightening because they are so large but luckily they are harmless.

Wow, the kid must've been semi conscious.

Ugh, that's just nasty. Poor kid.

Having said that, I hope the police never get their hands on a old video of my father sneaking up on me and pushing me into a swimming pool. He'd be arrested for sure!

Don't forget the baby sumo contest, in which sumo wrestlers hold terrified little babies up and compete to see which one can make the baby cry first.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/japan-sumo-wrestlers-force-babies-cry-centuries-old-ritual-good-health-1466513

I see two paragraphs plus a sentence, but yes, I did miss the "last July" part, if that has been there all along. I still don't see anything that justifies doing this. If you have a link to more info, though, why not provide a link?

The "last July"part was there from the start. So let's be real, you commented without reading the article and are now attempting to cover your butt on your last comment.

Consider this, kids all over this country try and catch cicadas during the summer months, and what the people here are being accused of leaves quite a few questions rather than answers.

There is TOO much missing to make a valid judgement about what happened.

This is one of those things that just shouldn't be happening in the human race, so it shouldn't technically have to be designated as illegal, since human beings normally wouldn't concieve of doing this. But some ridiculous couple has to go and do this and make us all question our humanity. Who the hell would traumatize their own children; or any three year old child?! But the fact that the child is being protected by the authorities is actually something I am happy about. I wish someone would punch these parents in the face. But on deeper thought, they probably went through the same bullying themselves when they were young. At least no one was raped or killed. But Still, prosecute these a-holes, please. Any decent human being should know the correct response to a child crying. Or at least what NOT to do.

Not a nice thing to o to a kid at all, especially if he's crying but surly there are a lot more important parenting issues that should be dealt with that this, maybe more to follow with this story...

Where did they find a cicada at this time of year?

I see two paragraphs plus a sentence, but yes, I did miss the "last July" part, if that has been there all along.

Thank you for clarifying that you didn't read the article. The information was there all along. It helps to read before commenting.

Where did they find a cicada at this time of year?

Please read the article!

@Speed

Putting a bug on your kid. I mean, come on.

This is actually quite serious abuse. The boy was restrained while this large insect crawled on his skin. There's a high probability that this child will have a deep life-long phobia because of this single incident. That's no joke. Nor is having these two vermin for parents.

We used to do the same to our mates when we were in elementary school, but this pair of twits are supposed to be adults and doing it to a three year old kid is just plain cruel! I'm wondering if they were doing it for some weird kind of discipline or just for fun.

That poor cicada. That thing must have been scared to death.

People keep asking "Where did they find a cicada this time of year?". The article clearly states this happened in July. Plenty of cicadas in July.