Japanese university in Kansai stops being “kinky,” changes name to Kindai

We all know that college students have a lot of sex (if they’re lucky) and that it’s an age when you explore things. After a few drinks you might even try some kinky stuff with your new partner.

Well, that’s all going to stop at one Japanese university.

Kinki Daigaku used to call itself “Kinki University” in English, an apparently harmless reference to the name of its region. Well, maybe they were more innocent times back in 1949 when the university was founded and the English name decided.

However, being pronounced “kinky” and spelt almost the same, the name naturally causes a lot of mirth and embarrassment for staff who speak English or when pictures of the name appear online. And an away game for any of its sports teams in foreign countries is basically out of the question.

“The word kinky also means perverted,” university dean Hitoshi Shiozaki told reporters. “We have no other choice than to change the English name because we are serious about pursuing a more international school culture.”

So in other words, they were literally advertising themselves as the university of hentai.

Apparently they worried that they were becoming a figure of fun — and that potential students were even being put off by the name. What? Going to a university called kinky or hentai would have been top of my list if I had known about it back when I was applying for college places!

The new English name is going to be the more innocuous Kindai, a contraction of Kinki (the Kansai area) and Daigaku (university).

This has actually been proposed for some time now but was finally confirmed this week. It will take effect in 2016 when the university’s international studies faculty opens.

The government has made a lot of money available to Japanese colleges willing to make “international drives” in the near future. There is a scramble for the funds at the moment, with lots of colleges seeking to rebrand themselves as global institutions with international faculties ready to welcome armies of exchange studies and overseas researchers. This will no doubt lead to some cultural clashes, much more interracial sex, and the occasional issue of naming like this.