Japanese Kanji Symbol Tattoo

Just reading this has probably given you an idea of which style you might like for your tattoo. But don’t stop just yet! Now you know what kinds of Japanese characters there are, let’s move on to…

2. Writing styles

Come a bit closer. Lean forward towards the screen. That’s right.

Now, look at the words in front of you. Take a good, close look at the shapes of these letters. OK? Now tell me honestly:

Would you want a tattoo in Times New Roman? How about Tahoma? What’s that? You don’t want a tattoo by Canon or Epson?

Sure you don’t. And in the same way, you don’t want to have your Japanese tattoo looking like a printout either!

So, now we move on to writing styles. Just like there are three kinds of Japanese characters, there are also three ways they can be written. Don’t worry. This is easy! I know, you are thinking that you can’t even read Japanese, so how on earth will you be able to recognize these different styles? Well, try this:

Kaisho ?

Block letters. You learned to write your ABCs like this, and Japanese kids learn to write their characters in just the same way: Like a Volvo ? boxy but good.

Gyousho ?

Cursive letters. You moved up to middle school and learned you could write faster by letting the parts of some letters flow into the next. Yes, you guessed it - the Japanese do the same thing, and they call it gyousho.

Sousho ?

Super-cursive letters. Ever seen a prescription from a doctor? Then you know what sousho is like in Japanese: Sure, the writer or some other trained person can (probably) read it, but no one else has a clue what it says!

Are you getting the picture? If you want to look like a computer printout, then be my guest and go for the kaisho style. That’s your choice. But I think you probably want to use either gyousho or sousho for your tattoo. My personal preference would be gyousho: It’s stylish, but it won’t leave even native speakers baffled.

3. Real or fake?

Japanese Kanji Symbol Tattoo

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