This picture taken on May 7, 2024 shows Masaki Kubota, whose wife vanished with his two sons a year ago, speaking during an interview with AFP in Tokyo. Japan enacted laws in May allowing joint custody after divorce, replacing a decades-old system where it was granted to only one side, and almost always to the mother. (Photo by Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP)

TOKYO, Japan — Masaki Kubota's delight at reuniting with his two sons gave way to heartbreak when the younger, two years old, stared at him uncomprehendingly as if to say: "Who are you?"

It was their first encounter since his wife left with the boys a year earlier — the kind of painful separation that Japan's new parental custody rules aim to prevent.

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