FamilyMart, Japan’s 3rd largest convenience store chain, and UNY, the owner of fourth-ranked Circle K Sunkus, merged this week, creating the country’s second-largest convenience store chain. And today, the newly formed company announced it’s new name and logo: FU.

In a press release sent out on September 1, the company stated that the first letters of each company, the F and the U, had been used to create the new entity’s logo. Makes sense. And their corporate philosophy will be “Lifestyle, Fun and New,” which is what we all think of when we hear the word F-U. Maybe the only thing the new logo needs is a large middle finger?

It’s mind-boggling to us that in this day and age a major Japanese corporate is able to label itself FU without anyone raising their hand to say, “Hey guys. I thought you might want to know that, in English, FU can also be short for one of the most offensive phrases there is.” But then again, this doesn’t surprise us because it’s happened time and again and the country doesn’t seem to care. A department store’s “Fuckin’ Sale” and the 2nd-hand cosmetics store Poopdick are just two of the more impressive English-language faux pas. The only question we have is, will their customer service philosophy also be FU?







