I know the swastika is an ancient religious symbol with positive meanings, and but seeing P卍4 really threw me for a loop at first lmao.
That was almost certainly an accident involving making a variant of the PS4 logo, combined with the lack of focus WW2 gets in Japanese schools. The author clearly just took the S from the PS4 logo and added another one turned sideways to avoid copyright issues.
Doesn't make the implications better but I'm willing to chalk it up to poor foresight.
Very dodgy topic, but I don't think countries where a symbol is religious shouldn't use it because of WW2 events. It's also very clearly just a 卍 and not sideways S combined, that's grasping at straws to try to rationalize something that doesn't need to be. Mangas don't shy away from using it, just look at tokyo revengers.
I'd like to point out that it's also the symbol used for temples in Google Maps. Legit search for Japan and start zooming in, you'll start seeing it wherever there's a shrine. The specifically WW2 version of the symbol is supposed to be when it's at an angle. If you see it properly oriented horizontally and with no other context then it's likely not related to WW2 (especially if it's in media from Japan or other asian places that use the original normally).
quick edit: I did look a little more at the maps and there are two different symbols, one is the swastika and one looks like a torii gate. I have done zero research on what the difference is, but I think it's shrine vs temple where the swastika is for temples and the torii is shrines.
last edited at Sep 20, 2021 3:22PM