Help me identify these kanji

[DawnTheFawn]

I’ve been reading this manga called Noragami and on one page encountered this and I can’t tell what they are. I assume they’re either really old or really stylized kanji. Would anyone happen to know what they are and if there is anything that could help me identify them myself if I encounter these again in the future

[Naphthalene]

It says 野良神. That’s the literal title of the book from what you said

That version of the kanji is called 小篆 I think.

[DawnTheFawn]

Omg thank you so much I didn’t realize. I feel so dumb now lol. Everywhere I had seen the title previously it was in katakana so I hadn’t made the connection and I’m bad at stylized kanji.

[sergiop]

@DawnTheFawn

stylized kanji

「stylized kanji」と言うか… Nowadays we see seal style in anime (say, Jujutsu Kaisen) but I’d not exactly call it stylized kanji since it came to existence before the modern 漢字 that we see nowadays, Small seal script - Wikipedia

[Jonapedia]

@DawnTheFawn

I’m bad at stylized kanji.

In this case, it’s a matter of knowing how those old kanji transformed into modern ones, so don’t worry about it. Even native speakers would probably have a hard time without experience and relevant knowledge. I’ve been speaking Chinese since I was a toddler and I couldn’t tell the middle kanji was 良. (I might have guessed if I had read your post in full, but I just wanted to see if I could recognise the kanji. ) I guessed the rest because of visual similarity to modern kanji and because I have some calligraphy and etymology knowledge. It would have been tons harder otherwise.

[raindrops]

I’m not sure if this topic is for public use (I couldn’t seem to find a general forum for people posting kanji they can’t identify) so I hope y’all don’t mind me asking…

I’m reading a manga and am struggling to identify:

the full sentence is below where is the above character:

いらっしゃいませ。。。晩ご飯は引つ越し ばです。。！

[NicoleIsEnough]

Looks like そ to me? If that doesn’t fit, it would be helpful if you could post a pic of the whole phrase so that we can see the fonts and stuff in context.

[raindrops]

そば does make sense!! (they go on to talk about wanko soba!) I’m shocked I didn’t work that out through context haha but I thought it was the horns radical! ありがとう！

here is the full phrase just for interest’s sake:

after some browsing, this seems like a common way of writing そ - fun to discover one of those things u can only learn through reading japanese in the wild !

[NicoleIsEnough]

Yeah, when I started to read I was very confused about how different hiragana looked in books compared to textbooks

Happy reading!

[Wildjinjer]

This is how I was taught to write そin handwritten font.

Sort of like the difference between 言うin different fonts-- sometimes there’s a flat line, and sometimes a dash.

[raindrops]

@Wildjinjer

Sort of like the difference between 言うin different fonts

this just made me do an audible ‘ahhhh’! that makes so much sense !

[Jonapedia]

@raindrops

I couldn’t seem to find a general forum for people posting kanji they can’t identify

There actually is this thread:

Let's decipher stylized kanji!

I hope this isn’t too similar to other topics, but what I was thinking for this thread, is that people post screenshots or photos of Japanese writing (signs, packaging, etc.) that use non-standard fonts or calligraphy/handwriting. My thinking is that native Japanese people are able to read these easily, but we poor Japanese learners are often not. So post a picture and your best attempt at deciphering it. Or if you can’t decipher it, others can try. Could be fun? Anyway, here’s my first entry: …

But I don’t think anyone minded your posting it here either!

[raindrops]

Oh thank you for posting that! I’ll defo use that thread in the future