One Logo, Three Companies
16 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.
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.
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?
null
tobr
Reminds me of Yamaha, pianos and motorcycles sharing name and logo.
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
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.
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...
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?