I was watching an old Saturday Night Live sketch from the 1970s, called Night of the Moonies, making fun of the Unification Church by putting them in the context of the movie Night of the Living Dead.
The video I was watching happened to have Japanese subtitles. I noticed that in the subtitles, when they referred to the Unification Church, which is called 統一{とういつ}教会{きょうかい} in Japanese, they replaced 一 with ◯, so it looks like 統◯教会.
My understanding of the use of ◯ is that it is the equivalent of when in English words are blacked out, to censor them so as not to offend. But I'm a little baffled by this instance of censorship, or even if that's what it is.
[統〇]{とういつ}協会{きょうかい}が私{あたし}の家族{かぞく}
親{おや}は嫌{きら}い
"The Unification Church is my family. I don't like my parents."
Why censor the name of the church? Why block out only one of the kanji?
Answer
You are right that ◯ is used here to mask a letter.
There are several related but different reasons as to why one would do this. The comment section already refers to one such use, where certain words are deemed inappropriate (especially on broadcasting), the equivalent of f*ck. But I don't think that explains this one.
In this case, I think the intention is to poke fun at 統一教会 in several ways.
First, by disgracing their name, by implying that it needs masking, as in the same league of f*ck and such. It also implies that the content refers to them in a negative way, which would actually make it more attractive to certain audience (who despise them.)
And finally, because the masking in this case doesn't really mask anything, for those who do not see 統一教会 nagatively, this sends a signal that they should.
(Perhaps you aren't aware of the controversies surrounding 統一教会, and if so, reading upon it a bit might make it easier to understand this.)
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