A or kabushiki kaisha, commonly abbreviated K.K. or KK, is a type of defined under the Companies Act of Japan. The term is often translated as "stock company", "joint-stock company" or "stock corporation". The term kabushiki gaisha in Japan refers to any joint-stock company regardless of country of origin or incorporation; however, outside Japan the term refers specifically to joint-stock companies incorporated in Japan. Usage in language In Latin script, kabushiki kaisha, with a , is often used, but the original Japanese pronunciation is kabushiki gaisha, with a , owing to rendaku. A kabushiki gaisha must include "" in its name (Article 6, paragraph 2 of the Companies Act). In a company name, "" can be used as a prefix (e.g. , kabushiki gaisha Dentsū, a style called , mae-kabu) or as a suffix (e.g. , Toyota Jidōsha kabushiki gaisha, a style called , ato-kabu). Many Japanese companies translate the phrase "" in their name as "Company, Limited"—this is very often abbreviated as "Co., Ltd."—but others use the more Americanized translations "Corporation" or "Incorporated." Texts in England often refer to kabushiki gaisha as "joint stock companies". While that is close to a literal translation of the term, the two are not precisely the same. The Japanese government once endorsed "business corporation" as an official translation but now uses more literal translation "stock company." Japanese often abbreviate "" in a company name on signage (including the sides of their vehicles) to in parentheses, as, for example, "." The full, formal name would then be "". is also combined into one Unicode character at code point , while the parenthesized form can also be represented with a single character, as well as parentheses around . These forms, however, only exist for backward compatibility with older Japanese character encodings and Unicode and should be avoided when possible in new text. History The first kabushiki gaisha was the Dai-ichi Bank, incorporated in 1873. Rules regarding kabushiki gaisha were set out in the Commercial Code of Japan, and was originally based on laws regulating German (which also means share company). However, during the United States-led Allied Occupation of Japan following World War II, the occupation authorities introduced revisions to the Commercial Code based on the Illinois Business Corporation Act of 1933, giving kabushiki gaisha many traits of American corporations, and to be more exact, Illinois corporations. Over time, Japanese and U.S. corporate law diverged, and