![]() ![]() The words “swastika” and “sauwastika” come from sanskrit, let’s call it “proto-Indian,” and they basically represent day and night, in Eurasian cultures, as well as well-being, prosperity, luck, the life of the Buddha, and even some kinky stuff with the tantric interests of Kali in Hinduism. To begin with, the one in Tokyo Revengers is not a swastika, but a sauwastika (it’s facing the opposite way). Of course, this is not an excuse to enact censorship, because you are also forcefeeding your own biased ignorance, malice and stupidity into the minority that didn’t have it to begin with, like pokemon changing riceballs into donuts, because “kids are stupid and won’t understand people in other countries eat different stuff, so we need to feed that stupidity, keep them ignorant, and forge a hatred against anything foreign.” They will claim they don’t, but as soon as they see a footnote explaining what the manji means, they will skip it, and brag about how they didn’t read 4 extra lines of text because it was “too long.” Sadly, a vast majority of those who are victims of said censorship (aka, those that consume the censored product) usually want to remain ignorant, malicious and stupid. What do you think? Should the manji symbol be censored or should people be educated about it? Let us know below.Ĭensorship, no matter the shape it takes, is born from ignorance, malice and stupidity, so that’s what it breeds. However, if the proposed solution is censoring instead of educating, it may only breed ignorance, resentment and ironically, more hate. This isn’t the first time that foreign elements were considered ‘‘problematic’’ by a Western audience. In case it wasn’t clear yet, it’s not a Nazi swastika. Despite the facts, the decision was made to censor the manji symbol in the English version. In the end, Westerners are notoriously uncultured, so they immediately jumped onto the hate symbol bandwagon. This is the exact demographic that the symbol would appeal to. The Tokyo Revengers story is about the Tokyo Manji Gang (東京卍會), a Japanese youth biker gang. ![]() As for the actual Nazi symbol, the Japanese use the word haakenkuroitsu (ハーケンクロイツ), or “hakenkreuz,” which means swastika in German. All in all, it became a regular part of the vocabulary, none of which has anything in common with Nazism. ![]() Japanese youth even use the word as a stand-in for maji (まじ), meaning “seriously” as in ‘‘are you for real?’’ in English. The symbol can also mean the embodiment of strength. Similarly, Japanese kids would say manji when smiling for a picture like anglophones say ‘‘cheese’’ or francophones say ‘‘ouistiti’’. It’s the Japanese equivalent of throwing up gang signs or shouting a gang’s name in high school. When the first volume of the manga emerged in 2017, it was during a time when manji had become slang in Japan’s youth culture. The symbol in Tokyo Revengers, which is the left-facing manji, means something very different to the Japanese youth. However, context matters, especially when hate symbols (or lack thereof) are concerned. At the time, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) adopted the right-facing swastika as a symbol of nationalistic pride and Aryan supremacy. The word swastika comes from the Sanskrit and signifies ”conducive to well-being.” Up until the 1930s, people in the West viewed it similarly until WWII for obvious reasons. The symbol is a religious icon in many Eurasian religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. If you ever visited a Buddhist temple or been to Japan as a tourist, seeing the manji symbol could come as a shock. Several Crunchyroll forum members noticed that the English release of Tokyo Revengers would censor the manji symbol from the anime because of its hateful connotations, but is it even a hate symbol, to begin with? What is Manji? ![]()
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