Starting to Add Illustrations to Radicals

WaniKani Announcements
1

We’re going to start adding artwork to radicals, hopefully starting this week!

With this artwork, we’re hoping to make it easier to associate the radical name with its shape. If you’ve ever seen Tofugu’s hiragana and katakana guides — it’ll be a lot like the artwork in those, but for radicals instead.

The team is actively working on creating the artwork as we speak, so we’re planning to release a handful of images each week, as they are finalized. We’ll keep a record of radicals that we’ve added artwork to at the bottom of this post.

If you want to learn more about radical artwork in the meantime, please read this. We hope you love the artwork as much as we do!

:artist_palette: Radicals with illustrations so far…

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Level 5

Level 6

Level 7

Level 8

Level 9

80 Likes
2

This is a great news!
I love WaniKani and am very glad to see it’s getting even better!
Thank you! love2

24 Likes
3

Are these going to replace the radical images on the lesson page, or supplement it?

I think it’s not a bad idea to supplement it. If it’s going to the be the primary display of the radical, you may want to tinker with the saturation on the image and/or the level of transparency on the radical - I think the sample images on Notion have the background images too prominent, to the point that it’s kind of hard to see the shape of the radical.

EDIT: I’ve checked them out on the radicals page and I think you have adjusted them when displayed there? https://www.wanikani.com/radicals/big

image
image1279×395 60.1 KB

6 Likes
4

The illustrations will be in addition to the main radical characters / images!

14 Likes
5

This is great! The kana illustrations helped me a lot when I was first starting out :slight_smile:

3 Likes
6

I’m assuming that this will solely be a feature of the website and not something provided via the API for third party apps to use?

2 Likes
7

Excellent question - would love to see this available for Smouldering Durtles to use (for example), if feasible!

1 Like
8

Hi @Joeni! You’re right, I’m afraid this isn’t in the API.

1 Like
9

Sorry @araigoshi I missed your edit earlier! All the images should be the same opacity.

1 Like
10

This is so cool! Love it

2 Likes
11

Since the images aren’t in the API, will the API be supplying the new (revised) mnemonics or the old ones (or both)? If you can’t/don’t show the images via API, only being able to show the new (revised) ones in mobile apps, etc. will be confusing to the end user if they don’t visit the website, as they will reference images in a way that doesn’t exist outside the website.

(This of course depends on how the mnemonics are written. If they don’t directly reference the images…it should be OK…? :slight_smile: )

4 Likes
12

Do you plan to eventually add illustrations to all radicals even on the later levels?

1 Like
13

Hi @Deadpikle! We’re being careful not to reference the images directly in any updated mnemonics, so that the mnemonics still all work independently too. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
14

Hi @hiyyo_wo! Yes, the tentative plan is to add illustrations to all radicals, except any where we don’t think artwork is helpful for remembering the radical name. We haven’t come across any like that yet, but it seems likely we might do in higher levels.

15

@TofuguJenny Are you planning to add the Illustrations to Kanjis too? Or just Radicals?

1 Like
16

NICE :smiley::smiley::wink:
Great addition to facilitate learning.
And in the future, it can be extended to Kanji…

Consider including suggestions from users :wink:
That would surely speed up the task.

17

This is a really cool idea.

@Mods, I’d just like to point out that when using the Dark Reader browser extension, the underlying image can be hard to see.

image
image309×389 28.2 KB

Whereas, if I set this CSS before the page loads, it propagates to the child elements and Dark Reader is able to appropriately modify it along with the rest of its changes.

wk-mnemonic-image {fill: #000}

Resulting in the following:

image
image315×380 29.6 KB

#000 is just an example color, but it’s essentially what the default is. However, the important thing is that by having it set, Dark Reader can adjust it. Feel free to pick whatever works best overall. FYI, for me, Dark Reader adjusts #000 to rgb(232, 230, 227).

10 Likes
18

Maybe have a slider at the bottom which transitions from the radical alone to the illustration overlayed on top.

1 Like
19

If anyone wants an opacity slider for the illustration then I made a very quick little user script for it:

Code 
// ==UserScript==
// @name         Image Mnemonic Opacity Slider
// @namespace    http://tampermonkey.net/
// @version      2025-01-19
// @description  try to take over the world!
// @author       You
// @match        https://www.wanikani.com/radicals/*
// @icon         https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?sz=64&domain=wanikani.com
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

(function()
{
    'use strict';
    const mnemonic = document.querySelector("section.subject-section__subsection:nth-child(2)");
    const imageMnemonicG = document.querySelector(".opacity-50");
    const slider = document.createElement("input");
    slider.type = "range";
    slider.min = "0";
    slider.max = "1";
    slider.step = "0.001";
    slider.value = "0.5";
    slider.style.width = "275px";
    slider.id = "image-mnemonic-opacity-slider";
    mnemonic.appendChild(slider);
    slider.addEventListener("input", e =>
    {
        document.documentElement.style.setProperty("--opacity-25", e.target.value);
    });
})();
3 Likes
20

the script description is great haha !