Aku

Just a quick question for y'alls ...

Is "aku" the name of the symbol, or is it a word in itself (such as the kanji for "ebisu" is one symbol, and it is both the symbol and the word)?

Maybe that should have gone in the Misc. forum, but I think I'll get better results here ...

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Hold my breath as I wish for death ... PLEASE GOD HELP ME!

 

My Japanese to english Dictionary, which is always by my side to remind me to do my homework, says that Aku is a word meaning evil. The kanji for aku is also part of the kanji compound - akuma meaning devil. ˆ«

 

I also think it's a name of a symbol, just don't know what.

 

If you set your encoding to Japanese auto-select you'll see the Kanji in question at the end of my last sentence in the previous post.

 

The Kanji on Sano's back is slightly different from that one. Im not sure which one it is tho i am not sure what its meaning is. Its probably another word for evil. Anyway I think Sano wears it on his shirt as a representation of the Meiji. Does anyone know if I'm right?

 

"Aku" i kanji, i'm VERY sure! Aku means evil or bad(at least they said that)...
Sano has this word on his back, cause he thinks he cary a kind "burden"... He wear that because some how he feels guilty about what happend with sekihoutai... Aku is written on his back to remember him that he can do whatever he want, but he will never forget what they did to him and his group, wakata?!
Like kenshin, kenshin could be, after the Bukumatsu no doran, whatever he wants, but he will always be a hitokiri, okay?!
BTW, did you guys whatched the chapter where they showed sano's past?! The one where he fought with ken-sama?! If you didn't i, watch it! You will understand much more of rk, like who tsunan really is...

hugs

 

BTW, meiji era was like 148 years or more ago, ne?! I think japanese expanded and changed a lot on this time, don't ya think?!
I calculated 148 by ken-sama b-day ^.^;;;
Sorry also for writing this thing on a lot of "squares")...

 

The meaning of Aku Soku Zan is in my sig. Aku is a letter of the Japanese language which means evil. Akuma is called devil.

 

Enter UK to increase confusion

Just thought I'd pop in and offer a few points of random knowledge relating to the topic...

The symbol on Sano's back is the un-simplified chinese character, the one printed out in Akit0s post is the modern simplified Japanese version, I'm not sure when it was changed. On another note with that kanji, it's not immediately apparant to most that the 'simplified' version really is. After all, it has more ink, right? I could go into a discussion of kanji and strokes here, but I won't, just rest assured that it is simplified.

On the 'name' of the character.. it has more than one reading, like most kanji. the Onyomi (chinese reading) being Aku and the Kunyomi (Japanese reading) being Waru (part of the adjective warui, or the compound warugi, for examples)

On a further note, here's some years of recent eras in Japan. I started out with Meiji as the oldest among them. Enjoy!

Meiji era
1868-1912

Taisho era
1912-1926

Showa era
1926-1989

Heisei era
1989-

-UK
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Always good for a chuckle, or perhaps even a snicker

 

Yeah, the Version on Sano's shirt is the Chinese version, but it might not have changed *from* the chinese version at that time in history, I'm not sure.

Actually... 'koi' and 'ai' are two entirely separate kanji...

Wrongness is ok, I do it all the time.

-UK
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Random useless trivia expert- "if you're asking a question about it, it must be useful."

 

That's mostly true, there have been a number of simplifications from the characters as they were in Chinese and how they are in Japan now. The 'Chinese' readings aren't even all chinese, the readings are altered to fit the Japanese speech system. That's an expected change though, everyone pronounces things differently, and when you go from a 5 tone pronunciation system to the two tone of Japanese...

But yes, the kanji have the same meanings, for the most part, between Chinese and Japanese, I've seen speakers of both languages communicating with each other by tracing kanji on their hands to explain more difficult words.

The 'Aku' vs 'Waru' discussion might prove interesting in some reguard with the following in mind... assuming Japanese simplifications were in place by that time. He used the Chinese unsimplified version on his shirt to represent the Chinese meaning of 'evil'. I'm not recalling specifically whether he referred to the character on his back at any time or not... time to break out the DVDs and see if he did, and also look at Kenshin's reference to it.

-UK
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ah, warukatta...

 

The meaning of Sano wearing the character.... "If its white, but they say its black, its black. If its good, but they say its bad, its bad. If its good, but they say its evil, its evil. That is the power of the Meji government."