On November 13, 2020, Hong Kong Police Facebook page posted an image of its anti-fraud mascot. The name of the mascot is “The Little Grape”. It carries a black sword and wears a checkered outfit. Sounds familiar? Probably because the mascot itself looks like Kamado Tanjiro from Demon Slayer. Not only that, but some of the Chinese characters on the graphic are the same as Japanese names of “Tanjiro” and “Kimetsu no Yaiba”. Thanks to that, the post has attracted an awful lot of criticism on both Twitter and on Facebook.
You can see the image of said Demon Slayer-like mascot below:
Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Agnes Chow commented on the situation on Twitter. “The other day, Hong Kong police posted an image of a character resembling the Demon Slayer protagonist on social media. Although it was criticized by Hong Kong citizens due to the issue of creative rights, the police claimed that it is not Tanjiro but ‘The Little Grape,’ and therefore it is not a Copyright violation. It makes me sad to see Demon Slayer become a PR tool for the Hong Kong police.”
What’s more, Hong Kong media reports say that the police insists that it’s their original creation.
Source: NHK
