I like the idea of 下 and 上 as icons for minimize and... maximize?

@ninjaaron: in Japanese this character means root/origin/cause/source/base or book. I think it can also be the character for a family name, Moto maybe? What is the brand?

The brand is BBE Inc., which is a California based company run by people who aren't asian at all, as far as I know.  If I were to make a guess, it probably means "origin" in this case, since it is based on the circuit of the Vox Wah, which is the first wah-wah pedal ever created.  Apparently the character is "ben" in Chinese, as this wah is often referred to as the "ben-wah."

So, mystery solved. Thanks!

@ninjaaron: in Japanese this character means root/origin/cause/source/base or book. I think it can also be the character for a family name, Moto maybe? What is the brand?

It looks cool, but I can't read a thing.

So long as I have you all here, I just bought a guitar pedal that has some kind of Asian character on it:

What is it?

/hijack

That's a Chinese character, I don't know what it is but I remember seeing it on the box for my lemote yeeloong, which is a Chinese netbook.

So long as I have you all here, I just bought a guitar pedal that has some kind of Asian character on it:

What is it?

/hijack

Also, switched the window border to a grey I found in the original theme, added font shadow to the title, and moved more of the Elegant brit colors to the red I'm using.  I think it's coming together nicely.

What do you all think?

I am thinking of changing my openbox menu to Japanese too now. I am not so fond of the white/red look but I think it is a good idea so...頑張ってください！

Thanks for the compliments guys, I really appreciate it.  The part I'm wrestling with most right now is the window border style... White works well if you have compositing on, but if not it can really all bleed together.  Black works okay, but it doesn't match the theme as well...  悩んでる。

@awebb RTFT that's a new one. Hilarious

@orion what are you using by the way font wise for kanji/kana glyphs?  I was using shinonome for a while.  Yours looks a lot like the one from the vine linux project.

With only the close button set the window decorations resemble the Japanese flag.  The kanji are representative of their function.  What do you all think?

Still working on making it better and fit into all sorts of desktop themes.