Nazi symbols on Japanese wrestling poster
May 12th, 2009 by James
A poster that was produced for New Japan’s upcoming “DOMINION 6.20″ pro wrestling event in Osaka:
According to WrestleZone.com, New Japan has “careless” in making the poster and plans to redesign it.
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WTF? It even has SS, iron cross and crooked swastika! Just realized even the faces are in swastika formation. I’d be ashemd to be in that.
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Actually, the top part is facing the wrong way for a Nazi Swastika. But the bottom part is unmistakably playing with the SS logo and other Nazi imagery, so this is pretty damn awkward to look at.
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1. The lightning-bolt “SS” was made infamous by the Schutzstaffel, but then again I don’t recall anyone making a fuss about Kiss using it…
2. The Iron Cross has basically nothing to do with the Nazis. The design predates them by a few centuries, the Iron Cross medal was first issued in 1813, and the Iron Cross is the current national marking applied to German military vehicles – as it was prior to WWII. The Nazis actually broke with tradition by not using it as a military marking.
3. There are “swastikas” in the poster (or “Manji” in Japanese), but there are no Nazi “swastika” (correctly “Hakenkreuz”) in the poster.
4. There are also several Fleur de Lis in the poster – is it celebrating the French Monarchy?
Japanese would not see the “Nazi imagery” in this poster as there really isn’t any to be seen – aside from the “SS” and that is something the vast majority of people would not get anyway.
Some other people will probably see “Nazi imagery” in the poster because, quite frankly, they don’t know what the hell they are talking about.
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Well that argument may convince your neo-Nazi friends at your weekly meetings as you laugh at all the people who aren’t as “Nazi” as you evidently are, however, anyone with some common sense can see that they were plainly trying to recreate a Nazi motif.
1. Yes, they used the Buddhist swastika which may have been a mistake, or an effort to create deniability since most people wouldn’t know the difference at first glance anyhow (yes, I had to look it up just to be sure), but the way it is portrayed (blood red background, screaming faces some streaming with blood) would certainly be more associated with Nazism rather than Buddhism.
2. You may be right about the Iron Cross, however the design is clearly supposed to continue the Nazi motif. Just look at the red flag with another swastika inside a white circle. It’s clearly trying to imitate the huge flags Hitler would often have draped behind him at rally’s etc.
3. The skeletons doing the Nazi salute (top right corner)…
I mean I could go on, but your argument is already on pretty thin ice so I don’t think I have to.
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Actually, there WAS a big stink about Kiss using the lightning bolt double-S. But there are enough slight differences between the ones made infamous by the Nazis and those used by Kiss in a side-by-side comparison that people eventually stopped fussing or caring.
The sad thing about this (and many other Nazi-esque advertising in Japan) is that you’re right: “…that is something the vast majority of people [in Japan] would not get anyway.” You’d have a hard time going anywhere else in the world where the Nazi symbols would not be recognized and evoke extremely negative emotions and reactions. I am constantly confounded how such an advanced nation as Japan can continue to deny or tap-dance around not just their own WW II atrocities, but those of their fascist ally, Nazi Germany.
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MrSatyre – perhaps if you learned to understand spoken and written Japanese you would cease to be “confounded”. The Japanese do not, and have not at least in the 20 years since I first came here, deny their war time atrocities or those of the Nazis. Although you would never know that from most of the foreign press. I recall years ago when the Western press “rediscovered” Unit 731 and wrote a series of articles about it – at the time some of us joked it was “news” only because the CNN Tokyo office staff had just found in the foreign book section of Kinikuniya the then-new English-language translation of the previously-released Japanese book of survivor testimonies. Of course the whole part about the Japanese examining and discussing their own past was largely glossed-over or just replaced with “the Japanese won’t talk about this…” If the Japanese won’t talk about it, who in blazes wrote the book?
“You’d have a hard time going anywhere else in the world where the Nazi symbols would not be recognized and evoke extremely negative emotions and reactions.”
Euro-centric much? I dare say you could go to a whole lot of areas of the world where the symbols, while perhaps being recognized, would not “evoke extremely negative emotions and reactions” – most of Asia, probably about all of Africa aside from South Africa (and even then it would probably only be the whites) and large chunks of South and Central America.
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Remember, it’s a different culture. The Nazi symbolism doesn’t have the knee jerk negative reaction as it does here (USA). Also Japan was basically on the ’same side’ as Germany in the second world war. Oh, how do the train/subway maps indicate a temple in Japan?
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Those maps use the manji mark, an old Buddhist swastika. Japanese don’t have a negative reaction to it because it has been used in Japan for many centuries.
One really can’t compare that to the obvious Nazi-inspired images (swastika inside white circle on red banner, SS logo, nazi-era font) in this poster.
Um, James, look again – the mark used on the poster is a Buddhist Manji. It is not a Nazi Hakenkreuz.
And “Nazi-era font”? Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot, over? Since when is German calligraphy (in use long before the Nazis, and still in use long after) the property of the Nazis?
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LB:
I am aware the swastika within the red banner is not facing the correct direction to be a proper Nazi swastika, but in is placed within a Nazi context (within a white circle on a red banner, right below the SS logo), making it pretty much impossible to claim that the imagery is not Nazi-inspired. The artist probably wasn’t even aware of the error made copying the typical Nazi banner.
There’s nothing “Nazi” about the font itself, but when it is placed alongside the Nazi-inspired imagery, it adds to the Nazi German feel of the poster.
Of course, the makers of the poster probably didn’t know much about Nazism and just wanted to use some cool-looking symbols. Similarly, most Japanese probably won’t recognize the Nazi imagery in the poster.
Still, it seems that somebody was offended by the imagery used in the poster – hence the announcement of a redesign.
People always draw the Nazi swastika incorrectly.
But hey, I’m sure it’s all just a coincidence that a swastika, SS insignia, iron cross, Nazi-era lettering, skulls in the upper right, barbed wire fencing, and a swastika on a Nazi-esque banner all in the Nazi colors red and black are just random events that are not connected in any way to the Nazis.
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Oh and I’m sure the skeletons in the upper right doing the Nazi salute means nothing at all either.
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“Still, it seems that somebody was offended by the imagery used in the poster – hence the announcement of a redesign.”
Yes, that would seem to be the NWA in the US, the parent organization. They saw it, or someone told them about it, and they told Shin-Nihon to redo it.
I am reminded of the story of Nintendo Pokemon cards – cards for the international market never carried the Manji. Cards for the Japanese market did. Of course, fans being fans “real” Japanese Pokemon cards fetched a premium and found their way overseas – where parents complained about the “swastikas” on them. In the article I read, they interviewed a Jewish kid in Seattle (of course the wire service had to go out and get a Jewish kid, no such thing as overplaying an angle in journalism) who said, and I am not making this up, “I know it is not the symbol of evil, but it is close enough.” Close enough. Sorry, close enough counts in only three things: horseshoes, hand grenades and thermonuclear weapons. Any other time it is wrong.
The poster may have certain “nazi-like” elements, but it is not a Nazi poster. Rushing out to redo a poster because it offends the uneducated is every bit as bad as doing a truly blatantly pro-Nazi poster in the first place. Trying to eliminate anything that even looks “Nazi-ish” won’t make Nazis disappear. France bans all displays of the Hakenkreuz – and yet still has some serious problems with anti-Semitism. Well, that ban obviously worked…
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So if it’s not a poster inspired by Nazis, just how did they come up with so many coincidentally similar Nazi symbols?
I mean if I wanted to make a poster that WAS based on the Nazis, I don’t think I could make it any more obvious than this thing, other than putting some Hitler mustaches on the wrestlers.
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I guess the japanese don’t have to swallow Shoah propaganda night and day, it obviously means nothing to them.
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Don’t break your back trying to twist yourself into a pretzel excusing this.
Your only argument is that it’s Nazi imagery, but somehow doesn’t matter. I think that’s incorrect, but attempting to say it’s a Buddhist inspired poster is silly.
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The cross IS a Buddhist symbol. It was there way before the nazi came.
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the wrong side swastika originally came from Mongolia then the Romans and Nazis. but I believe Mongolians never used the swastika as a symbol of power
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Haha, that is pretty badass.
Keep in mind you stereotypical westerns(from a japanese pov)”big reaction” people. This whole nazi imagery does not pack a punch in japan like in the west. That is why it is OK to use it, because the imagery does not represent genocide, pain, war, death etc etc. And japanes have not been fed with anti nazi propaganda like westerns
If it hurst your feeling and provoke “big reaction” then close your eyes and leave. From a japanese pov, there is not a single thing unethical about it.
There is one single reason why they picked this imagery, and that is because it looks pretty darn badass. They did not pick it to insult you crybabies.
And before you go boohoo RAGE!!! Who dropped the bombs? You should feel lucky that we don’t rage every time we hear “american” or “cola” and other american things, we have all the reason in the world to rage at you, yet we don’t. You are so narrow minded, so i don’t really expect you to understand and look at things from another perspective, after all, if we mention that we think it is disgusting that you cut the skin of a babies penis, you go mad, failing to see things from another side
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What a nonsense.
Japan lost the war so USA had the right to turn Japan into an american colony, yet the USA gave your freedom back and turned you into the 2 largest economy.
Don’t anger them, Japan surrendered unconditionally to USA, so USA still has legal authority over Japan and can claim war debts if they want.
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“And before you go boohoo RAGE!!! Who dropped the bombs?”
Not to be narrow minded, but Japan did first. It’s just that the bombs dropped on Japan thereafter were far more powerful. It’s not eye for an eye, it’s you took my eye by surprise so now I’m going to take your eye and everything else.
If the wrestling poster has done anything though, it has promoted the event incredibly well. We can argue whether the poster is simply a “cool design” or was meant to “evoke reactions” but I think we can agree that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
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The Buddhist sign of progression has its corners pointing in a clockwise direction. That’s why the clocks move in the direction we currently call “clockwise”.
The Nazi symbol is the reverse, with the points going counter-clockwise showing destruction rather than progression.
Before you complain about something, know what you are complaining about. This is no big deal.
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does it mean they will follow Hitler into suicide too?
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Bah. Nazi imagery isn’t a problem, nazism is.
Bickering about pictures only serves to obscure the issues and lessons we should learn from it.
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Well, even though I do think that this is distasteful,I agree that there’s nothing wrong with using this kind of image. I’m for free speech and all, and if New Japan wants to use it (and live with the neg. reaction from a lot of people) then kudos to them.
But to say that this poster isn’t suppose to invoke a nazi image like LB is saying is pretty silly. Nazi colors, SS, iron cross, nazi salute, red banners with swastikas in a circle, gothic font. These elements didn’t come together by pure luck, and it was obviously the artist’s intend to give this impression.
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You guys have it all wrong!
The badass “nazi” image is used by the 高田総統 of Hustle(wrestling federation). I think they have the good guys and the villan. And the villan is portrayed by 高田総統 who wears a hat that resembles Nazi hat.
They are obviously using NAZI image to portray the evil characters that they are suppose to have.
End
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Damn! This is the most bad ass wrestling poster ever!! It makes WWE look like a bunch of sissies.
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Gaijin: Nuclear explosions on tv
Japan: ….eh?
Japan: Nazi theme poster
Gaijin: ZOMFG WHAT THE FUCK? FUCKING ADSIFJWOIEJALDSKJGA
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I’m sorry, but this kind of tasteless, offensive and puerile imagery goes against everything Pro Wrestling stands for.
It used to be that Pro Wrestling meant something. It was about throwing garbage at people pretending to be Iranian, or watching someone pretending to be a communist forced to wear a dress while people chant “U-S-A! U-S-A!”.
Nazi imagery in a wrestling poster. What would Abdullah the Butcher say?
For shame.
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ROTFLMAO – good one.
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Calm Down guys, it’s Pro-Wrestling! The nazi motif used, while being tasteless, is probably not aimed to offend Japanese Pro-Wrestling’s Jewish fans. But rather refer to one of the wrestler’s character.
Slightly Off-Topic but, the thing I don’t get it is, why is it OK to show grown men and women beating the crap out of each other using all kinds of weapons and violence. And men gesturing towards their genitals and shouting “Suck It”. But they have to censor a middle finger!?
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I find the US flag to be just as provocative as this poster. Well, I find American waving the US flag to be more provocative actually. At least Japan has apologized for their atrocities unlike USA. Their people are brain washed with propaganda believing the myth that US never does any wrong.
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you got to be kidding.
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like Starbucks you mean?
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*LOL* and Disney!!! Why, without Mr. Disney, how would we have known how to live happily? How would we have truly learned the difference between Good and Evil??
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What has the whole poster got to do with Kamen Rider Decade anyway? *points to bottom left corner*
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1. The intention is clearly not to evoke associations with the Buddhist symbol. I dare say the mirroring of the Hakenkreuz was just an accident or because the Buddhist symbol is the known version to Japanese people.
2. The typeface is called Fraktur in German, which is a blackletter typeface. The Nazis banned it from most of their official documents and wanted to get rid of this (“old and archaic”) typeface and introduced/forced the modern fonts. The association of Fraktur with Nazi Germany is based on a lack of historical understanding. Even if Fraktur was used e.g. on posters for political elections, the use of modern typefaces was strongly supported.
3. The SS-runes are very unambiguous.
4. Today the Black Cross is the official signet of the Bundeswehr. It’s an old symbol (coming from the Coptic Christians), used first in this form by the Knights Templar. The current black version, Schwarzes Kreuz (Black Cross) is in German use for around 600 years now. The first Iron Crosses (the medals in this shape) were endowed in 1813, and the other years were 1870 and 1914.
The Nazis reintroduced the Iron cross (date 1939) but Iron Crosses were now endowed to combatants only, in contrast to the previous Iron crosses.
Again another historically incorrect but widespread attribution of this medal/symbol purely to Nazi Germany.
I’m surprised how much Japanese seem to have forgotten and/or repressed their own history during the time of WW2 and that of their axis “partners”. Although, thinking a bit longer, I’m not surprised. That’s what actually practiced in Japan. So for me this poster is just a sign for the need and urgency of an honest confrontation of the Japanese with their own younger history.
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