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In _Buso Renkin_ , Kazuki, the protagonist, wears a red shirt with three odd
symbols placed on the chest area:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/D6F50.png)

They're not Latin characters and appear too simple to be Japanese or from
other Oriental languages. What are these symbols? Do they mean anything in the
story (or, if not, real life)?


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2013-06-19T01:47:11.490
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2013-06-19T22:28:20.397
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buso-renkin
Do the symbols on Kazuki's shirt mean anything?


It's said that the symbols stand for '963' and is probably a callout to his
wife and novelist Kaoru Kurosaki, who collaborated with the author, Nobuhiro
Watsuki, on the story for the manga.

There are many ways to read these numbers in Japanese, some that makes sense
are:

  * 9 → ku, 6 → ro, 3 → san = Kuro-san 
  * 9 → ku, 6 → ro, 3 → sa + (ki) ~= Kurosaki 

His wife's Twitter handle is **@kaworu963**.

As a side note, one of the ships in the Alchemist fleet also bears this
number:

![Mai waifu?](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WqpJF.jpg)


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2013-06-19T22:21:57.197
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