Indeed, 死 is somehow appealing, like to people sitting back-to-back under a stone, the one on the left with the chin on the chest, the other looking straight ahead.
I also like 麗 quite much, the beautiful deer (鹿) been observed by two pair of eyes. However, the mnemonics with which I learned this kanji is Bender’s face.
Somehow I tend to like kanji that contain water.
My favorite is 流: it’s fun to write, it visualizes it’s meaning perfectly and the meaning itself is also something that resonates with me.
Runner-ups: 漂、海、潮、泉、水
(Other kanji I’m fond of that don’t contain water and I can currently think of: 炎、美、霞、神)
There is also 恊, now mutiple “forces” threatening a heart. In the same line, I also quite like 惚, two hearts falling in love with a thing.
それに, here come the triplets, for which I really do have a weakness: 森, 品, 晶, 姦, 驫, 磊, 轟, 聶 or 淼. I’ve seen there are more, evening my beloved 龍 gets to be doubled (龖) and even tripled, though I still go for the single majestic one.
I must admit that I am not the biggest fan of the simplification of 龍 into 竜 in general, which also somewhat applies to 滝, but I do think that it has a distinct enough shape that makes it easy to remember and somehow even manages to look like a waterfall (but maybe that’s just me being weird, I dunno).
To be fair, my Japanese boss uses 滝 as his nickname and he’s a rather unique character, so that does influence my stance towards 滝…
2023-05-31T07:25:00Z EDIT: as explained by @Asher in his below reply, I seem to have gotten them mixed-up when replying to your question.
Regarding 淹, I can’t say that I have too strong feelings in either way towards it, but I like hot beverages such as coffee and tea, so there’s that going for it.
On a related note, I also like expressions that allude to water such as e.g. 水に流す、水の泡 or 焼け石に水 and so on. If you know a cool or rare one, feel free to always send them in my direction
Solid analysis of the kanji though, I wouldn’t expect anything less from someone such as yourself. It being your boss’ nickname is icing on the cake hahaha.
淹れる is super common when used to refer to boiling a coffee etc. 滝 is the one that takes on the dragon shape for waterfall. They are both super similar. Which one was the one you meant initially? 淹 or 滝?
I like that 淹 uses 奄, which shares the reading of たちまち with quite a few other kanji that mean ‘in an instant’. It also reads as おおう, which is in at least 10 different kanji with the meaning of ‘to cover’. In the case of 淹れる I assume it’s in relation to the steam covering/shrouding the water.