Hey Everyone! 
なんか、急に涼しくなったね！みんなが住んでいるところも涼しくなってきたかな？
Today I will be covering a phrase that I totally forgot existed! I was actually watching Tokyo Revengers and watching that reminded me of the phrase マジ卍.
Any guesses on what this one means or how it is used?
いつものように, let’s do a word breakdown.
マジ 
Most of you probably know what this means, but for those who don’t, this word can mean many things such as ‘for real’, ‘seriously’, ‘very’, and many other things depending on when and where it is used.
Since we are talking about マジ anyways, I’ll just give some information about this word. Many of you may have an image that this is a new slang since it is used mostly by younger people, but this word is old and it is used across generations.
Because younger people use it more often, in phrases like マジやばい, it seems like a newer slang, but it actually is very old. Not 80’s or 90’s old, like OLD old. The 日本国語大辞典 states that this word was (probably) first used in a novel written during the Edo Period. It is speculated that まじ is short for まじめ, but since まじめ was also a word that people started to use during the Edo period, no one knows for sure if it actually is an abbreviation, since no one knows for certain that まじめ came before まじ.
卍
Don’t worry, this is not what you think it is, most of you on here probably know that this is a symbol used in both Hinduism and in Buddhism. In Sanskrit, this symbol is known as the Svastika, and in English it is known as a Swastika, however, in Japanese, it is called a まんじ, which is the 訓読み of the kanji 卍.
Why is it read as まんじ and is 卍 actually a kanji? 卍 was originally not considered as a Chinese character, but the Chinese adopted this symbol from India, and started to use it in place of the kanji 万. Due to this, 卍 officially became a kanji. 卍 is read as まんじ because it was used as a 字 used to mean 万, or a 万字.
まじ卍 
Back in the days, younger people added an adjective after マジ.
Examples:
マジ辛い
Seriously spicy.マジ嬉しい
Really happy.
But after a while these adjectives got replaced with ヤバい, a more versatile adjective.
Examples:
マジ辛い→マジヤバい
マジ嬉しい→マジヤバい
Since Japanese is already a high context language, removing specific adjectives was not really a problem (especially in conversation), and using ヤバい gave more emphasis to what was being described.
Examples:
マジ暑い
It is really hotマジヤバい
It is unbearably hotマジ嬉しい
I am really happyマジヤバい
I am so flipping happy that you did this for me, I can’t believe it!
And as more time passed by, some young people started to replace やばい with 卍.
You might be asking why 卍?
The answer to this is quite simple, it’s because it sounds similar to マジ and the kanji looked unique and cool.
Since まじ卍 flows out of your mouth like butter and can be used in basically any situation, younger people started to use it a lot, and I mean A LOT on social media such as Instagram.
What kind of situations can this phrase be used? Lets take a look at some of these situations:
- When you want to emphasize the sentence that comes before it.
- Bunproって神アプリじゃない？まじ卍
- Don’t you think Bunpro is an amazing app? IT’S SO GOOD!
- When you want to express that you are on a roll, or that you are unbeatable
- 先週の試合で優勝したし、今の俺はまじ卍。
- I won in the tournament last week, I AM A GOD (I’m unstoppable right now).
- When you want to express that someone else is on a roll or that they are in a good mood
- 昨日は売り上げ一番だったし、今日の田中さんまじ卍だね。
- Tanaka-san, you placed first in sales yesterday, so you must really be on a roll!
Examples with furigana
- When you want to emphasize the sentence that comes before it.
- Bunproって神（かみ）アプリじゃない？まじ卍（まんじ）
- Don’t you think Bunpro is an amazing app? IT’S SO GOOD!
- When you want to express that you are on a roll, or that you are unbeatable
- 先週（せんしゅう）の試合（しあい）で優勝（ゆうしょう）したし、今（いま）の俺（おれ）はまじ卍（まんじ）。
- I won in the tournament last week, I AM A GOD (I’m unstoppable right now).
- When you want to express that someone else is on a roll or that they are in a good mood
- 昨日（きのう）は売（う）り上（あ）げ一番（いちばん）だったし、今日（きょう）の佐野（さの）さんまじ卍（まんじ）だね。
- Sano-san, you placed first in sales yesterday, so you must really be on a roll!
Since 卍 can basically replace any adjective, it can be used with a negative nuance, but it is usually used positively.
Although this phrase was extremely popular a few years ago, it is now considered a 死語, and using it is considered ‘uncool’ by the younger generation. Although I found it annoying when this was being used constantly on every post I saw, I kind of miss it now, maybe we can revive it and make it cool again. Maybe you guys can start using it with your Japanese speaking friends, and remind them how useful this phrase was.
今日も勉強サボらせてごめん。いつも読んでくれてありがとう。まじ卍。
Fuga
If you missed the previous posts, you can check them out here!