School officials only reported the "possibility of abuse" and failed to take further action, the local child consultation center did not take the alert seriously and believed the case was one of truancy, while neighbors tuned out what they suspected was happening.
On Sunday, a trucker in Kishiwada, Osaka Prefecture, and his live-in girlfriend were arrested on suspicion of nearly starving the man's 15-year-old son to death.
They are thought to have abused him and failed to properly feed him for roughly 17 months.