OFFENSIVE ITEM ALERT

This item is OFFENSIVE and it is also CULTURALLY INSENSATIVE. So, it will have a big entry because these things about it are not instantly recognizable by everyone. Is this the first actually offensive Sonic item? Yes, probably. Some of the things around are dodgy, but nothing has been aggressivly wrong before this one appears.
On the surface it seems fairly normal. It's an all white sweat shirt with black draw string hood and front 'kangaroo' style pocket. The design for it is chest-only, pretty large circle shape. It has an all-red Tails forward-facing-face with lighter red lines radiating out from it. Japanese letters spell out his name beside the face in large font in gray. The circle also has a gray line around it to help out with the border. Tails in all red/white is a little odd, but what's the real problem?

The design (red white Tails face+rays) is meant to look like "The Rising Sun Flag". This flag was used by bad guys in Japan to attack Korea a long time ago. They waved the rising sun flag around and then did war time deeds like burning peoples' house down and shooting them. Obviously, that's all terrible stuff....so when the war ended, that 'rising sun flag' was abandoned because it had come to stand for bad ideals (that war) that nobody agreed with any more. Basically, it got put away into the history books where it belongs.
So, trotting it out here with a cute cartoon face on it & Japanese letters "to Japan-ify it more" is the WRONG thing to do. Learning about it, what it stood for, who used it, and what they did is good--after all, learning about the history of all of Earth is important for everyone to know.....but using its design for clothing is bad. It is in 'poor taste', it disregards history, and it disregards the feelings of anyone who was attacked by such a flag-waving bad person in the past. Or, someone who had a relative attacked by them.
So how did it happen?
Unless someone finds the actual designer (unlikely) we'll never really know but you can hazard a super-EZ guess which is somebody in the Sega Shop went "Oh rising sun is east Japan lets do red/white/Japanese letters and put Tails in the sun dot that's cute weeaboo weeaboo weeb" and that was the end of it. Nobody did any research, nobody looked up history, nobody asked a Korean what they thought. If you even google "Rising Sun Flag" for 3 seconds you'll see that it's problematic because of history and what it got used for and it would be stupid to use it on something for the general public. There are literally-literally millions of designs anyone can think of that aren't problematic.

What will happen to this shirt?
Seems likely enough people may complain that it gets taken out of the shop (good), but it'll get archived here on Gear forever because even if something is a mistake, it should get seen and exposed for what it is. Learning and explaining why items are problematic can turn something bad into a lesson that prevents other such items in the future. 

Update: The sweater has been removed from the shop a day after the complains. It is unknown if people have ordered it and if they did it is unknown if they received it.