This story made me legitimately uncomfortable. No not because of the kid that was just silly, but because if I had had to do this when I was a small child, I would have been traumatized.
It's possible you would have, but when I lived there, lots of people did that and it wasn't traumatizing at all for the kids, that I could see. Yes, Japanese kids, for whatever reason, are more prone to painful shyness, but somehow that didn't translate to trauma. I mostly didn't go to bath places where it was all ages and with kids on both the men's and women's sides - as the doujin says, mostly the women's side - nor did I mostly go to mixed bath houses, but I did go to some. The attitude and atmosphere were very friendly - I would compare it to sauna culture in Russia or Finland.
In this case, I would guess Niko just said "Don't worry Kotarou, Maki is not used to baths and was just being silly," and that would be that, Kotarou is so young he's got no attention span.
Source: I lived for years in rural Japan.
last edited at Nov 6, 2016 7:25PM