I wasn't sure if to post this or not. When this was published in Japan in 1970 there was a great amount of backslash due to the sensitive topic of teenage pregnancy.
Reading it in 2024 it still feels heavy.
When I was a kid, I remember a local scandal about what I considered a big girl at the time (high school) who was pregnant. Her boyfriend was two or three years older than her. Everyone was pushing for them to split (I guess there were also talks about abortion, but since ai was a child ai was probably spared the details). It ended in a huge Romeo and Juliet pantomime, with both of the kids disappearing and later found dead by double suicide. I still think about it, some 40 years later.
The thought of two young people in love being forced to participate in something way bigger than them aches my heart. Nobody obviously knows what would have happened to them or their child, but for grownups not having a single shred of empathy really saddens me.