Kanji of the Year

[matt_in_mito]

Hi all,

I know I talked about this briefly on my previous thread, specifically here, but I thought I’d create this thread and revisit it once per year for discussion about the kanji of the year.

It was announced today that the kanji of the year for 2025 is 熊くま (bear). This is in the wake of lots more bear sightings and attacks - even in urban areas - than usual this year.

The tradition of ‘kanji of the year’ started in 1995. If you want to see the previous years’ kanji, please have a look at this article by Asahi Shimbun.

[bunnypro]

@matt_in_mito

熊

I can’t bear that kanji

[BadgerN00b]

私の好きな熊はアナグマですよ！

[Jacob-Bunpro]

I’ve never felt more betrayed than when I learned 熊本県 doesn’t even have bears… At least not the real variety.

[BreadmanNin]

What do you guys think of that calligraphy? I do kinda like calligraphy, and Japanese calligraphy is often especially cool and graceful. But in this particular instance, I really don’t think I would have recognised the kuma kanji. The radical on the left half is especially… flexible.

熊

[Lycalys]

I see calligraphy as a separate written language tbh. Even in English it’s often hard to read, but Kanji calligraphy is a whole other level of obscurity.

私は1番好きな熊がモノクマです。

[thelizard]

sure it’s AI generated but I loved the idea when I saw it on some random Discord

[Pablunpro]

失礼しますが, really good 書道manship…

[BreadmanNin]

This is too good.

[matt_in_mito]

OK so for those of you who have been here for a while, you’ll be familiar with this format. I thought I’d give it a go, so here we go:

楷書

行書

草書

Of course, the monk wrote in 草書体.

[dfloyd]

I guess that’s a sign I should get back to reading Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

[bunnypro]

It does have Kumamon though, which is way better