An old saying goes "Issun no mushi ni mo gobu no tamashi" (even a one-inch worm has a half-inch soul); i.e., even the most humble and powerless creature can put up with only so much before turning on its tormentor.
As if to confirm this aphorism, the media has been abuzz since belatedly learning that last September, a teacher at a public primary school in Gyoda, a city of 85,000 in northern Saitama Prefecture, filed suit against the parents of a girl in her third-grade class.
Reports on the TV wide shows and in the print media invariably referred to the defendants as monsutaa pearentsu (monster parents).