2-yr-old boy drowns in drain while parents are in comic cafe

Tuesday 03rd June, 02:40 AM JST

MIYAZAKI —

A 2-year-old boy apparently drowned in a drain along a street in Osaki City, Miyazaki Prefecture, on Sunday afternoon, while his parents were in a comic cafe, police said Monday.

Riku Endo, 2, was found drowned in the drain by his parents around 3:20 p.m. after they lost sight of him while they were in the comic cafe. Police said the family came to the game center where the cafe is located and believe Riku wandered off while his parents were reading comics in the cafe. Riku is believed to have accidentally fallen into the 70cm-wide and 55cm-deep drain. He was taken to hospital but died about two hours later.

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Latest 15 of 80 Total Comments Show All

Zen_Builder at 01:06 PM JST - 3rd June

I have also used a Harnes/Leash with my son. But we lived in kichijoji and the area gets crowded on the weekends and lots of traffic too.
laconic at 01:07 PM JST - 3rd June

This case is pretty cut & dry imo, the ONLY aceptable excuse for this family to be in a manga cafe is if they went in to read TO their kid, clearly they were there for their own reading pleasure, therefore this is very clearly a case of parental neglect,

GW, I am sorry but when I decided to have kids no one told me that I had to give up any and all personal time and devote 24 hours a day to them. I take my kids to the library, stick them in the kids corner with a few pop up books and then go and find some books to read. Keeping one eye on them. Is this neglect? Just because it is a manga cafe why do you presume it is sleazy?
GW at 04:08 PM JST - 3rd June

laconic

i take it you have never seen japanese people reading manga, if you did you wud know where I am coming from, this poor 2yr old died because of neglect by his parents, I am not asking parents to give up life but surely a little common sense isnt asking a lot, unfortunately for some it is.
LFRAgain at 06:25 PM JST - 3rd June

I feel for this couple in what is certainly a catastrophic tragedy. Having never gone through this kind of loss myself, I can only empathize, but even in doing that, the sheer horror of contemplating such loss personally, even hypothetically, makes me queasy. But . . . I’m going to have to side with Romulus and Damax6 to some degree on this (minus most of the histrionics).

According to a slightly more detailed Japanese news site article on the same story, this isn’t a situation of parents who just lost track of their child in a busy moment or a crowded shop. The couple went into a Comic Café with their child, and left him playing unattended in a provided Kid’s Area near the “game corner,” while they headed off to play the slot machines and crane-grab games nearby. The Kid’s Area isn’t visible from the service counter and there apparently was no staff watching the children in the Kid’s Area. Subsequently, no one noticed the child had wandered out of the store until 3:00 PM. It was 20 minutes before they found the poor child in the ditch.

Now, certainly, the couple might have a valid complaint were they to ask why there was no adult supervision in the Kid’s Area, an area where ostensibly parents can leave their children in safety while they relax. And they may also have a valid complaint about the flooded water channel not having adequate protection, like a grate, covering it. But neither point raised erases the fundamental truth that these parents did indeed leave their child unattended in the Kid’s Area while they played the slots.

Let’s be honest here. This wasn’t a situation of a couple sitting around a cup of tea and small talk while the children played nearby, within eye- and earshot. They were devoting their attention to slots and games in the Game Center of a Comic Café. Not shopping. Not walking through a crowd, a festival, a shopping center, or a train station. They were playing slots in a game center and left their child to a tragic fate. Slots.

Something that some posters here are confusing is the difference between those dangers that 2-year olds experience on a day-to-day basis that are preventable versus those that aren’t. Getting hit by a car driven by someone negligent or nuts? That’s an entirely different premise and it’s foolish to use such an example of a clearly unpreventable tragedy as a supporting point for what happened with the 2-year old in this story. A 2-year old simply should NOT be in a situation where he or she can wander off unattended and fall into a drainage ditch. It should never have happened.

Before leisure, before relaxation, before taking a time-out, the first and foremost responsibility for a parent, particularly the parent of an incredibly inquisitive, incredibly mobile two-year old, is to ensure that child’s safety. Everything else is secondary, including, yes, a personal life, and yes, leisure time.

Call me draconian, call me holier-than-thou, but this was a wholly preventable accident, not on the part of the café or the city, although there are areas for improvement there, but on the part of the parents. At the risk of verging on histrionics with the use of all-caps, NOTHING else matters. If this comes across as preaching, that’s because it is: Parents need to watch their children, full stop. Any parent that can’t understand this has no business raising kids, IMO.

Leashes? Hell yeah. I see nothing wrong with them. Like Greensatindress points out: Which is better, demeaning or dead? Two-year olds don’t know demeaning, just like they don’t know that ditches full of running water are dangerous. I plan to have a leash for every day of the week in designer colors.
Damax6 at 12:24 AM JST - 4th June

STILL this was a clear cut case of neglect.. what is their purpose in a manga kisa, anyone been to one.. do you see 2 yr old kid there???NO!!!!
pinga at 08:53 AM JST - 4th June

Im with you Cleo. I used a leash with both my children. My son is now 2, he is not old enough to understand dangers when they are explained to him, and he is too energetic and too strong now to make him hold my hand.

I found a cute leash with a teddy backback, the leash attatched to the bears tail. He loves wearing it, and I always have my hand on him. Its not demeaning, its just a safety measure.

RIP little Riku kun.
keshii at 10:07 PM JST - 4th June

My question is how the kid got completely outside without the shopkeepers noticing, or doing anything.

I'm an advocate of child care centers for this reason - when Americans want to go somewhere without having to look after their kids, they can drop them off in a store-provided outlet! Japan could benefit from the concept.
TheguyNextdoor at 10:14 AM JST - 5th June

Keshii- I think japan is getting there. IKEA in the Yokohama area provides that service for parents for up to an hour I believe. There is progress, but still those parents where responsible enough to place their kid(s)in such a space. The parents in this situation, did no such thing. Its was an avoidable accident, if and only if they had given their child the attention.
zzonkerr at 10:42 AM JST - 5th June

I had to use a harness on my daughter - she was quick. She could escape in a blink of an eye. When she was 2, I was in a grocery store and checked a label once - 5 seconds, if that...literally - she wandered away and I spent 10 minutes looking for her. We bought the harness that afternoon and had no problems until she understood it is safer to hang close to Mom and Dad.

A harness is not humiliating. It is a common sense safety measure for your young kids/toddlers, especially in a crazy urban environment.
greensatindress at 09:46 AM JST - 6th June

I am glad to read that there are some safety conscious, open-minded parents out there using the so-called "demeaning" harness. Thank you for watching over your kids.
karesenbe77 at 01:30 PM JST - 6th June

mom and dad are a couple of idiots. having a 2 yr old is enough entertainment as it is. I thought the purpose of going out is to enjoy it with your kid not rid of him.
asdfghjkl at 04:54 PM JST - 6th June

Are these parents in their early teens......you just don't leave a 2 year old to wander about ANYWHERE!
Blue_Tiger at 11:50 PM JST - 6th June

Can't say I'm surprised by this. I get to see up close and personal how most children are treated: they are left at hoikoens or yocheins, and rarely given any kind of physical contact, especially from their fathers. As others have posted in here, parenting is a full-time thing, and it takes a Mom and a Dad, not either or. This is a pathetically sad story. Hopefully, these parents will be tried for negligence....
SpanishEyez37 at 02:46 PM JST - 8th June

I used a kiddie harness with my kids and I am glad I did. I really don`t see a problem with it.

I am not sure about the kid corners here. Are they supposed to have staff watching the kids? I would think they would. And seriously, if you have a 2 year-old and you still have the need to go to manga cafe and read comics, you have no business having kids. What part of ``your life changes after you have a child, do people not understand?
BlueEmbers at 05:35 AM JST - 9th June

I don't know why people are so opposed to the kid leash.

If people would just smack their kids when they wandered off, they wouldn't need a leash and the kids wouldn't die/get napped by pedos/etc.