I have some Japanese friends who are good at japabese and Korean friends who are reasonably good at japanese. Do you have any pics of it??

And I am kind of okay with traditional chinese characters (they are the same)

Hi , yes I have pics…. not sure if I can post them here on this site or email them direct to you ?
any ideas ?

Use a free image hosting site then link it here.

Yeah, use Photobucket or something like that. I don’t know that much about kanji, but I’d like to take a look and see. I could also ask my Japanese friend if he can read it.

@frigate1985 Interestingly, Japanese kanji and Chinese characters are slightly different. Just as handwriting and spelling have evolved over time, the way characters are written has changed. My Chinese friend told me that the Japanese way of writing kanji is much closer to the ancient Chinese writing style that was originally introduced to Japan in the 5th or 6th centuries AD. You may still be able to read this old kanji, though!

I know some Japanese and Traditional Chinese, and I have a rather comprehensive kanji dictionary at my disposal, so, if I could see some pictures, I am sure that I could make at least some of it out.

OK EVERYONE I HAVE LOADED SOME PICS ONTO PHOTOBUCKET… YOU CAN CHECK THEM OUT BY FOLLOWING THIS URL.. THANX
http://s899.photobucket.com/albums/ac191/bouldo13/japanese%20ww2%20flag/

CLICKING ON THE ABOVE LINK TO PHOTOBUCKET DOES NOT SEEM TO BRING YOU TO THE PHOTOS…. YOU MUST COPY AND PASTE THE URL….
THANKS PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT U THINK..

@ParaParaYukiko Yes. Japanese Hiragana and Katagana both differs from trad chinese characters. Japanese utilizes only a few Chinese characters and the rest is used to represent a sound (or something like that). Therefore, even if you only know traditional chinese characters, you can understand much of Japanese.

@ParaParaYukiko but its terribly difficult!

Rod, was successful in returning 2 flags similar to this, and am still searching for a family on another. Can you provide any information on how you received this and who was the person to first “aquire” the flag? I will be out of town tomorrow visiting a WWII vet on a personal letter he retrieved from a Japanese soilder which he wishes to have returned to Japan. Please do not post any private or personal information here. If you wish for me to try to help, let me know yes or no here. I will get you a contact email if you do.

Hi thanx for ur attention…
yes any help that you can provide would be appreciated.

Please send an email addy to av8r1701@yahoo.com.
These flags were given to the soldier’s to wish them good luck and honor as they left to war. Usually these came from family, but in small villages, the villagers would also “sign” the flag. Yours is a bit unique in that the writing is symmetrical along the borders. I have downloaded the photos you posted and have sent them to a researcher I know.
Will tell you more when you contact me at the above email.

@av8r Just some advice: you’re probably safer giving out your email in a private comment in the future, instead of on a public forum where anyone can view it. I’d like to think we’re all good people here on Fluther, but you never know!