Never before has a motorcycle captured so many flashes at the Manga Barcelona show. It's not just any motorcycle, of course. It is that of Manjiro Sano, better known as Mikey, one of the protagonists of Tokyo Revengers, the manga by Ken Wakui that has become one of the best-selling and most borrowed in libraries in the last year. However, it is not only the vehicle itself that draws the attention of the hundreds of thousands of visitors who have come today – and will continue to do so until Sunday – to the Fira Gran Via de l'Hospitalet de Llobregat venue, but the symbol which is inscribed: an inverted swastika.
“That shouldn't be there,” says a woman when she sees her.
"It's not a swastika," a group of cosplayers who are taking pictures at that moment answer in unison. The woman looks at them bewildered.
One of the young women, dressed as Sakura, the famous card hunter, confesses to La Vanguardia that “in the last ten minutes we have repeated it three times. Those who don't know the franchise are a little surprised. People go fast and don't notice, but as soon as we explain to them what it really is, their expression changes. The series talks, among other things, about criminal gangs, yes. But not these types of criminals.”
Days before opening its doors, the organization already imagined that situations like this could happen. “The same thing always happens,” Meritxell Puig, general director of Ficomic, acknowledged yesterday to a group of journalists. For this reason, next to the vehicle, on the side, there is a sign specifying that it is a Buddhist manji.
“It is an auspicious symbol of good luck and good values that is not only popular in Japan, it is also in countries where Buddhism is an important religion, since it is said to represent the footsteps of Buddha,” reads the text, signed by Luís Rodríguez, one of the directors and founders of the website Japonismo, specialized in Japan and its culture.
But that has not exempted the famous anime from controversy, which has seen many businesses criticize its merchandising for this very reason, especially in Germany, where Nazi symbols are strictly prohibited.
Companies like Crunchyroll, focused on the distribution and licensing of anime, films and television series, and who once brought Tokyo Revengers to the general public, have also been involved in the matter, since the symbol disappeared from some scenes, which opened a debate. The company was quick to clarify on its French Twitter account that they are not authorized to make such changes and that the series was already edited by the Japanese studio itself, which surely made this decision after sensing how this symbology is perceived in the West.
