IfI had to guess, Japanese Imperial Marines Flag??

[TP Alexander]

Here are 2 flags. They both measure roughly 3 & 1/2 to 4 feet across & 3 to 3 & 1/2 feet high. The first one is just a prayer flag. The second one puzzles me. I would like to think that it has something to do with the Japanese Imperial Marines Landing Forces, but I am probably just dreaming.
So, what the heck is it and do the Japanese characters mean anything more than the usual "Good luck!"?
Thanx,
Tim

[TP Alexander]

2

[gunto]

Its not NLF , but the symbols of the japanese military.

[Stu W]

This is just a guess but I'm thinking it's a flag for a veterans group.

Regards,
Stu

[juoneen]

Appears like art to me....very nice , maybe possibly artist signed on the left. Strange how many people speak the language here , but are silent. I have a flag similar to the first one inalmost the samy type frame. i bet youll find out, but they are both nice regardless.

[Paul G]

This is just a guess but I'm thinking it's a flag for a veterans group.

Regards,
Stu

I am with Stu, can't read it, but looks like a Veterans association type flag

PG-

[Nick Komiya]

The first flag is not an original, done by a non-Japanese. The only writing that makes sense says "Destroy Japan".

[Ryukyutunnelrat]

The first flag is not an original, done by a non-Japanese. The only writing that makes sense says "Destroy Japan".

I can also see "okinawa" written on the bottom left
Corner of the flag. The last character is unreadable.

[Nick Komiya]

Yes, now that you mentioned it, I can now see that it says Okinawa. And the top right one is trying to say, "Unity of East Asia".

[TP Alexander]

Thank you for the many responses.
Tim

[Papa Nambu]

Here are 2 flags. They both measure roughly 3 & 1/2 to 4 feet across & 3 to 3 & 1/2 feet high. The first one is just a prayer flag. The second one puzzles me. I would like to think that it has something to do with the Japanese Imperial Marines Landing Forces, but I am probably just dreaming.
So, what the heck is it and do the Japanese characters mean anything more than the usual "Good luck!"?
Thanx,
Tim

On things like this and all the reservist organization emblems it seems everyone notices the navy anchor but doesn't know that's the army's star on top of it, automatically assuming it's a navy item. As Gunto pointed out, it is representing the entire Japanese military. I didn't try to read the whole thing for reasons stated below, but it does have the 祝 "congratulations" kanji there at the top left, so it's some sort of commemorative gift.

Strange how many people speak the language here , but are silent.

For me, translating anything involves a substantial investment of my time, since I'm not fluent and have to look up a lot of words. Looking up a kanji in a kanji dictionary is a lot more difficult than, say, looking up a German word on google.

Nick K. is the only regular here fluent in both Japanese and English. If he started translating everything for everybody, he'd be quickly overloaded with requests.

Chen, who has helped out a few times seems to speak Chinese and knows the meaning of the kanji characters, but their use in Japanese is not always the same as the original Chinese.

We do have a very few collectors in Japan who occasionally post here, for them the English part may be difficult. In any case they rarely post.

[chen]

The Kanji meaning:
1.Loyal
2.Brave
3.Dedicated
4.Yokohama City
5.?
6.Club chairman
7.Mayor of Yokohama city
8. Name of the mayor

[chen]

Oh, Papa is correct for item 3 which means "congratulations", not " dedicated".

[Nick Komiya]

I stopped translating some time ago for reasons I will not repeat here, but you can always get translations from professionals. Instead, I try to limit my assistance to matters of research or to help interpret things within the context of those times, which you simply cannot get as a service from translators. Once you start with translations, it snow balls, as collectors join the freebie frenzy and go pull out things they never really cared about, making it a increasingly unrewarding experience . Of course, there are also serious collectors who really want to research what they got instead of just fishing for a free caption to their sales ads, so for those cases I try to offer something deeper than a translation. However, it's all on a good will basis and we all have other things that demand the limited resource of our time.

[TP Alexander]

..would like to think that it has something to do with the Japanese Imperial Marines Landing Forces, but I am probably just dreaming.
........do the Japanese characters mean anything more than the usual "Good luck!"?

I would like to thank everyone for their help here. I realize that learning a foreign language shouldn't automatically make you a translator for everyone in the neighborhood. It's kind of like being the only guy in the neighborhood with a pickup truck. Everyone wants to borrow it to go get something. But they ain't going to buy one!
You'll notice in the quote above that I figured that I was wrong about it being Imperial Marines & that I also thought that it was just another variation on the theme of "good luck, get a big body count" kind of thing.
I've got another 'prayer flag' sitting in a drawer, but seeing as how I know what it is, I really don't need the "good luck" translated. It's nothing unique.
I currently don't own these & if I buy them (with a bunch of other Japanese & Third Reich stuff), I'll probably throw them on the E-Stand but I also wanted to put them on the Japanese Forum for the possible edification of someone seeing something that might turn out to be a real turn on, intellectually speaking.
Thanx,
Tim