All About “Maru” (Circle) in Japan

The current anime season in Japan continues to impress with its great lineup, which forces me to reschedule other activities in order to keep up with all the shows. We’ve got an outstanding “moe horror” tale (Another), a sequel to Bakemonogatari (Nisemonogatari), plus what appears to be the marriage of AnoHana and Please Teacher, called Ano Natsu de Matteru (aka Waiting in the Summer), which I’m a big fan of. Another breakout show has been Rinne no Lagrange, the story of a cheerful girl named Madoka (no, not that Madoka) who likes helping people and, this being Japan and all, piloting a giant robot. There’s a strange gesture she makes whenever she does something good, drawing a circle in the air with her finger. This is called maru (no, not that Maru), Japanese for “circle,” and to the Japanese it means “good,” “correct” or “yes.” It’s actually a potential source of confusion, since circles have no deep cultural meaning in the West, and the first time I got a test back in Japanese class with red circles drawn all over it I thought I’d done terribly…but of course circles indicate correct answers. The Japanese maru causes confusion when playing Japanese PS3 or PSP games since the function of ⚪ and ✕ are reversed (the first one is “yes” to the Japanese while the second is “execute” to us). Similarly, our American coffee maker vexes new Japanese employees, who see a 1 and a 0 by the power switch and assume the latter is the “on” position.

A circle (maru) means “good” or “correct.”