Re: What's your favorite Kanji and why?

My favourite one is 鼠, because the radical 臼 means a mortar. So ever since, a rat/mouse is a mortar with legs and a tail in Japanese haha

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I’m a big fan of 災, 我, and 鏡!
災 just looks exactly like a disaster. It’s, like… a thunderstorm, a volcano, and an earthquake all at once. The vibes are immaculate.
I’m a fan of 我 because despite not really representing a physical thing it stuck in my head instantly. I remember われ as a first-person pronoun precisely because I heard it was pretty archaic, and I like archaic things!
鏡 is a favourite of mine because to me it looks like someone looking into a piece of metal, which is what a 鏡 is at the end of the day. It’s also complex enough to look like more than a super-elementary simple kanji, but is actually totally trivial to remember, so it’s good for the ego too :see_no_evil:

I don’t mix them up per se, but I can never get the stroke order right. For some reason, they both require you draw the bit at the top-left in a different order, despite looking visually identical in most fonts :sob:
For meaning, I usually just remember that the one for right looks more ‘open’, and most people are right-handed, so that’s the hand that’s usually open and doing stuff. It may not actually make any logical sense, but if it works… :skull:

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Mmm, though I suspect unless you’re doing calligraphy you can get away with getting it wrong :slight_smile: My mnemonic for these was that the first and third strokes of the kanji are always in the same direction. This works for almost all the kanji with that radical, though I think there’s one uncommon one that’s backwards for some reason.

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幽 looks a bit like a black metal logo.

Every kanji with the 鬼 radical is fun. 塊魂かたまりだましい! Also the WK-favorite obscure word 魑魅魍魎ちみもうりょう is just a beautiful string of kanji.

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I remember first one i liked was 藤 because of 鬼滅の刃.
But now i started to like the kanji for old numbers 壱弐惨肆etc…

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I love 虫. It’s the cutest kanji!

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You may like this anime studio logo that uses it and makes it even more bug-like then:

(It was sort of the precursor to Madhouse, Shaft, Kyoani and Sunrise, among others)

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Oooo! It’s amazing how in Japan, everything that’s cute needs to be made CUTER and CUTER.

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That’s a seriously good use of 虫。 I love how they gave it little eyes and a かわいい face!

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My favourite kanji is aesthetic, easy to write and remember:
東 - east
Kun’yomi ひがし
On’yomi トウ

Most people would first think of the 東宝 entertainment company logo they see at the beginning of Japanese movies, but not me.
I really like the fantasy genre and my favorite fictional world is 幻想郷 from the 東方 game series.
The main reason why I love Touhou are the numerous doujins (fan circles) from manga, fan-animations, comics, games… to music arrangements!

You’ve heard of Bad Apple!! and the iconic animation… right?!
Last year at Reddit’s r/place, while countries were struggling to keep a flag clean, Touhou fans (with the help of Osu!) coordinated a whole video animation and it was amazing XD

Just look at it yourself! :yin_yang:

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月 (Tsuki) is my favorite kanji, because it means moon. I really love this kanji because its easy to remember, and pretty to draw.

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melancholy

I really like this one. It summarizes everyday adult life.

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How about 蟲? It’s got three of them. :slightly_smiling_face:

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リュウ、 ル
It means “precious gem” or “lapis lazuli”, and it’s used in 琉球, the Ryukyu chain of islands which include Okinawa.

I chose it for my hanko which I sign artwork with.

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So it would be the artwork that ル made.

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True - but the overall effect is less cute somehow. The top one in particular looks kind of sinister.

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So we can settle in the middle : there is also 䖵 …

As for my own favourite, it is 柳

なぜ?

なぜその漢字?
僕の名前んだよ

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Can i cheat and have two? these two make a word : 凸凹: でこぼこ: unevenness.
They look so striking together don’t they.

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And of course, 凹凸: おうとつ: unevenness

I’ve seen Japanese struggle to remember which is which

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From 参 onwards there tends to be other meanings/readings of the 大字 as well. Some of my favorites I’ve seen are さばける (捌 is 8), する (伍 is also probably the most unchanged one), andほしいまま.

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