I actually speak some Japanese and those symbols do not stand for Japan. I’m going to have some of my coworkers who speak japanese take a look at them, the problem is if it is an artist name or factory location it may be very difficult for someone to translate because often their Kanji are stylized. I am not sure how old they are. I will try and get a hold of my grandma and see if she knows anything about them, but they came from my grandfather’s belongings so she may not know where he got them. He was known for buying things at yard sales, and a bit of hoarding but I thought they looked like nice so I took them after he passed before everything was cleared out by someone. No where on the plates does it have a stamp for nippon or japan (In Kanji they are the same, nippon is the japanese word for japan).