'I told him I was so sorry': Father of boy abandoned in bear-infested forest in Japan

The father of a seven-year-old Japanese boy who he abandoned on a mountain road for misbehaving has admitted what he did was wrong.

Apologising in front of reporters after being reunited with his son, Takayuki Tanooka decried his own actions as "excessive".

Yamato Tanooka did not shed a tear when he was discovered alive and well by a soldier on Friday after spending nearly a week sheltered alone on a military base just a few kilometres from where he was forced out of his family's car for misbehaving.

His parents had returned several minutes after telling him to get out of the car but couldn't find him.

Mr Tanooka and his wife originally fabricated a story that the child got lost on a family outing in the mountains, not wanting to own up to having meted out such a harsh punishment.

His disappearance triggered a massive manhunt, which included 180 people and search dogs, who found no trace of him. The soldier who later found him had not been part of the search effort, but the boy identified himself as Yamato.

READ MORE: 'I'm hungry': Seven-year-old boy who went missing in bear-infested forest]

Appearing outside the hospital where Yamato was flown in by helicopter, his father thanked everyone involved in the rescue.

Asked what he had said to his son after he was rescued, he replied: "I told him I was so sorry for causing him such pain."

The abandonment has sparked a national debate, with some expressing anger over the couple's "abuse" and "stupidity" and others sympathy for the pressures parents face in disciplining their children.

Among the most notable opinion leaders critical of the parents was prominent education expert Naoki Ogi.

"The parents who put him in this situation must be harshly condemned," Ogi wrote earlier this week on his widely followed blog.

"Surely, they will be arrested soon," he added.

But he also said that many adults had told him they too as children were abandoned by their parents as a form of punishment.

"This is apparently not unusual!!" he wrote.

While many social critics, television personalities and others have condemned the parents, some were quick to sympathise over frustration related to child-rearing and discussed their own experiences of tough parental love.

"Should we call all forms of strict disciplining abuse?" said one tweet.

Another Twitter user expressed sympathy with the father, whose impulsive decision to momentarily punish his son turned into a nightmare.

"Many say the father in the Hokkaido abandonment case is scum, but he was not going to go home without the child."