One Logo, Three Companies
55 comments
·March 3, 2025soamv
Etheryte
Turns out they used to be one conglomerate, but World War II changed that [0]:
> The Mitsubishi Group traces its origins to the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company that existed from 1870 to 1946. The company, along with other major zaibatsu, was disbanded during the occupation of Japan following World War II by the order of the Allies. Despite the dissolution, the former constituent companies continue to share the Mitsubishi brand and trademark.
abhorrence
The pencil company referenced in the article does not appear to have been part of the Mitsubishi zaibatsu however.
netsharc
I used to think it's cool the same company makes a pencil and an F-16 derivative ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi_F-2 ), but alas, the pencilmaker is not the same company.
Mitsubishi also makes the world's most expensive toaster: https://youtu.be/Lq3iwWaoU7w
tecleandor
I'm tempted to write an small blogpost about this one with some explanations, as that blogpost is a bit old :D but there's a couple things I found in this rabbit hole I fell:
First, as some of you have noted, the 三 kanji means 'three' [0] and Mitsubishi means 'three diamonds' [1]. Hence, the traditional family crest from the Mitsubishi family. The concrete origin can be found around here [2]
Mitsubishi Pencil is the first one registering the three diamond logo, in 1903 [3]. Mitsubishi zaibatsu logo was thinner and a bit different then [4]. During the occupation of Japan after WWII, the Allied Powers (GHQ) ordered dismantling the zaibatsu and stopping using the Mitsui and Mitsubishi brands (among others) [5]. Mitsubishi Pencil was not part of the zaibatsu, but using the same name, it was in risk of disappearing. After negotiations by their president with the GHQ they were allowed to keep it if they indicated that they're not part of the zaibatsu [6]. Back in the fifties you could see "non-zaibatsu" under their logo in their products. [7]
The 'Mitsubishi Cider' made by Konyusha doesn't exist anymore but its trademark was registered by Mazda Kogyo (now Mazda Total Solutions) in 1919. No, not THAT Mazda, a different Mazda (Matsuda/Mazda is a Japanese surname, so, more confusion :D) Mazda Kogyo would have contracted Konyusha to manufacture and sell the product in 1919 [8]. In 2014 Mazda Kogyo transfered the brand to Mitsubishi Corporation while Konyusha was still manufacturing it, and in 2015 they changed their name to Mazda Total Solutions [9]. Haven't totally understood their message, but I think Mazda Total Solutions has ceased operations as of today [10]. Konyusha stopped manufacturing and selling the cider in 2017 [11]. I've seen somewhere that could be related to the Kumamoto earthquake of 2016, as that Konyusha's location.
Fun fact, there's is a cider named "Mitsuya Cider" [12] that has a similar logo, but with "arrows" instead of diamonds. When it started, as a carbonated water brand in the 1880s, it was part of the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, but it was split from the company a couple years later [13].
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0: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89#Japanese
1: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E8%8F%B1#Etymology_2
2: https://www.mitsubishielectric.co.jp/corporate/gaiyo/history/logo/
3: https://mpuni.net/en/company/history.html
4: https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Mitsubishi
5: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%B2%A1%E9%96%A5%E8%A7%A3%E4%BD%93
6: https://www.buzzfeed.com/jp/kenjiando/mitsubishi-pencil
7: https://jaa2100.org/entry/detail/035688.html
8: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%BC%98%E4%B9%B3%E8%88%8E#%E4%B8%89%E8%8F%B1%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC%E3%81%AB%E3%81%A4%E3%81%84%E3%81%A6
9: https://matsudats.com/#history
10: https://matsudats.com/#message
11: https://web.archive.org/web/20171031110949/http://konyusha.co.jp/%e4%b8%89%e8%8f%b1%e3%82%b5%e3%82%a4%e3%83%80%e3%83%bc%e8%b2%a9%e5%a3%b2%e7%b5%82%e4%ba%86%e3%81%ae%e3%81%8a%e7%9f%a5%e3%82%89%e3%81%9b/
12: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuya_Cider
13: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B8%89%E3%83%84%E7%9F%A2%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A4%E3%83%80%E3%83%BCnguyenkien
Not the case here. These 3 corp are unrelated (Excerpt for the name, logo). Did you even read the blog post or the wikipedia article you post?
limitedfrom
These pages[0][1] has more details. The families had three different emblems to start. The zaibatsu came up with the now famous three diamond design in in 1873[2], but there were no trademark laws until 1884, and many companies proceeded to use the logo. The pencil company first registered this in 1903. The zaibatsu finally got to it in 1914, but the earlier filing by the pencil company was honoured.
As for the cider company, sounds like they've been selling it like it since 1913[2], but registered it in 1919? My guess is that since it was a regional product with the product type in the name that's already established (like [3]), they allowed it.
[0] https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AA%E3%83%BC%E3... (translated: https://ja-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%E3%82%B9%E3%...) [1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/jp/kenjiando/mitsubishi-pencil [2] https://www.mitsubishi.com/ja/series/yataro/11/ [3] https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9C%B0%E5%9F%9F%E5%9B%A3%...
ghc
Thank you! I knew there must be some logical explanation beyond coincidence.
chychiu
The Kanji for Mitsubishi is 三菱, which literally means “three rhombus”. It is possible that they were independently invented, but the hypothesis on family crest crossovers still feels more likely
madcaptenor
Independent invention seems unlikely to me - there are different colors, different ways to arrange the three rhombi, etc.
giraffe_lady
The design is much older in east asia, I've seen it on 19th century textiles and pottery for sure but I suspect it goes back a lot more than that.
The shape is somehow associated with the name mitsubishi, possibly through visual or phonetic punning that is common in pictogram-based writing systems and tonal languages. Mitsubishi the name is more widespread than this one family or this group of companies, and the symbol appears to have long associated with the name per se rather than this specific mitsubishi. Mitsu sounds like three, I don't know what the rhombus connection is.
That shade of red has a specific proper name in japanese (think like alice blue in english) and has long been associated with japan by the japanese.
I don't think any of this is a coincidence there's a connection between all this stuff. But I don't know what it is and I don't think the article author does either.
userbinator
The Kanji for Mitsubishi is 三菱, which literally means “three rhombus”.
Incidentally, this Chinese brand:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuling_Motors
...has a logo that's rather reminiscent of Mitsubishi's, and literally means "five rhombus".
dmurray
It's mentioned in TFA that it comes from the Mitsubishi family crest. So the logo is conceptually much older than any of their registrations.
yellers
Well I’m glad that TFA really explains the connection between Jinroku Masaki and the Mitsubishi family crest because otherwise I’d still be confused. (Or maybe it’s a westerner thing expecting the name of the founder to match the crests family in name)
suspended_state
The company history page on the corporate web site of Mitsubishi Pencils provides a reason behind the name: https://www.mpuni.co.jp/en/company/history.html
It's not clear why the 3 companies got the right to use the same logo. Perhaps they could each demonstrate that they used that logo before Japanese law required for it to be formally submitted for trademark?
seanhunter
They also didn't. Mufg's logo is like a venn diagram with a dot in it.
killingtime74
Trademarks are for certain product or service categories not blanket economy wide
johng
I first heard the word Kereitsu in the movie Rising Sun with Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes. The movie involves large Japanese corporations and this word is used a lot. It's a great movie, well worth watching -- though I have no idea how accurate it is. It depicts large Japanese corporations vying for an American technology company.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107969/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8...
bitwize
I mainly associate that movie with Sean Connery's lecture on the senpai-kohai relationship in which, being Sean Connery, he pronounced "senpai" like "shenpai".
Rising Sun in both novel and film forms were written in a time of strong anti-Japanese sentiment, in which there was considerable fear that Japanese companies would gobble up American assets (real estate, businesses, etc.) till there was no domestic industry left. Japan really was the China of the 1980s. Of course, things didn't really stay that way; the Japanese economy stagnated but the popularity of Japanese media like anime, manga, and video games helped foster more positive relations between Japan and the West (especially the USA).
Take Rising Sun as a "product of its time" and it's really quite enjoyable.
The keiretsu are actually groups of related companies that cooperate, often around a central bank which is the core of the keiretsu. They are usually descendants of zaibatsu, which were the huge dynastic companies that were broken up after WWII, although some "new keiretsu", like Seven & i Holdings which administers, among other things, 7-Eleven's Japanese locations, have emerged.
phonon
> Seven & i Holdings
Which is about to be bought out by Canada's Alimentation Couche-Tard (Circle K)!
airstrike
Love that movie!
camillomiller
It’s confusing to just say that Nikon or Kirin are Mitsubishi companies. It has to do with how keiretsu-style conglomerates operated.
https://www.dslrbodies.com/newsviews/nikon/about-nikon/nikon...
tobr
Reminds me of Yamaha, pianos and motorcycles sharing name and logo.
decimalenough
Nokia was originally a rubber company, meaning at one point you could find the same logo on cellphones, car tires and rubber boots.
(If you're wondering how you get from rubber to phones, they had rubber-coated cables and wired telephone switches along the way.)
dmoy
In that case, they used to be the same company, and one was spun off. In the Mitsubishi case, there were at least 2 or 3 separate companies that were never really related
bsimpson
Husqvarna can be either a motorsports marquee or mowers and chainsaws. Each descends from a gun company, hence the barrel-and-sights logo.
Piaggio is both aerospace and motorbikes - each having descended from a common corporate ancestor.
Philips can be two different brands of smartbulbs. They spun off the original as Hue, and then developed another line more recently.
I'm sure there are American examples too, if you look at century+ old conglomerates like GE or Boeing. NBC (formerly of GE) is about to be its own example, when CNBC and MSNBC get spun off.
Suppafly
>Husqvarna can be either a motorsports marquee or mowers and chainsaws.
Those are all motors at least, similar to Honda making a bunch of things with motors.
bsimpson
Yes, but still splintered into a bunch of different conglomerates.
KTM has the motorcycle brand, but it's going through it's own restructuring/bankruptcy at the moment.
petesergeant
> I'm sure there are American examples too
Hemingway shot himself with a gun he bought at ... Abercrombie & Fitch
6stringmerc
I simply love how it’s three tuning forks - I had a Toyota Celica GT-S with the Dual cam motor that spun to 8,200 redline and the sound it made was amazing and I’ve always had a feeling Yamaha’s motor division still values their music heritage when they can. That engine sang…
Lio
I beleive that Yamaha Motor Co was spun out of Yamaha Corp. So they share the same logo because they were once one company.
This is not too unheard of even in the West.
Rolls Royce Motor Cars is owned by BMW but they just bought use of the name.
The old Rolls Royce Motors who used to make the cars was sold to VW (but not the name).
Rolls Royce Holdings Plc., the defence and aerospace firm, actually own the name but don't make cars.
Clear as mud.
bitwize
Remember TV Guide? About 20 years back, Macrovision spun off the print magazine but kept the name, logo, and digital-media assets; these changed hands a few more times and are currently a subsidiary of Fandom. Meanwhile the print magazine is currently published by a separate entity, TV Guide Magazine LLC, which licenses the name and logo from the Fandom digital-media company.
Hamuko
With the motorcycles having tuning forks in the logo, despite having nothing to do with motor vehicles.
tobr
Motorcycle forks look rather similar, though.
netsharc
Apparently both products need high quality steel (for piano wires and engines), and that's how the company diversified (I can't remember which one started first).
Toyota was a maker of cotton looming machines before cars, and Nokia was a pulp mill and rubber manufacturer...
nxobject
They briefly had a living room and kitchen furnishings company, too – YAMAHA Livingtec – but the heritage was clear there: they expanded from wooden piano housings to other wooden furnishings.
null
aqueueaqueue
Does Mitsubishi have the sort of political influence and lobbying that you might expect from a big company in Western countries?
decimalenough
MUFG, a part of Mitsubishi, is Japan's largest bank with around $1.5 trillion in assets. So, yes, absolutely.
edu_do_cerrado
Probably yes, the Mitsubishi conglomerate is about 150 years old and it's spread across many industries, they where especially influential during the world wars (look up for 'zaibatsu'), so one can suppose that they are very indluential.
brnt
Is your airco unit by Mitsubishi Electric or Mitsubishi Heavy Industries? They are unrelated!
This leaves me with more questions than answers, how did these three companies come up with the idea of using that logo? Did they just independently arrive at same design (seems unlikely)? And how did the trademark registration process go for the second and third companies that registered it?