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Learn moreKanji of the Year
今年の漢字
Each year the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation asks the public to name the single character that best captures the events and mood of the past year. The winner is brushed onto handmade washi at Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto on 12 December and offered at the temple — one year, one character, one collective sentiment.
ユウ／くまYū / kuma
Bear
Why it was chosen
The first year 熊 has won. Bear encounters followed one another across the country, casualties reached a record high, and bears reached city streets — disrupting daily life and the local economy, and prompting a national conversation about coexisting with nature. The return of four giant pandas (熊猫, “bear cats”) to China also put the character in the news.
- 31 characters
- One a year since 1995
- 12 December
- Kanji Day — “ii ji ichi ji”
- 189,122 ballots
- Cast for the 2025 character
- Kiyomizu-dera
- Brushed and offered in Kyoto
Every character since 1995
Read in sequence, they make an unusually honest record of how Japan felt about itself.
Select a year for the story
Chosen more than once金×5(2000, 2012, 2016, 2021, 2024)税×2(2014, 2023)戦×2(2001, 2022)災×2(2004, 2018)
How the character is chosen
The vote began in 1995 as part of the foundation’s campaign to show how much meaning a single character can carry. Nominations open each autumn — online, by post, and through ballot boxes in temples, bookshops and libraries nationwide — and the count is revealed on 12 December, read in Japanese as いいじいちじ (“one good character”).
At Kiyomizu-dera the head priest brushes the winner onto a sheet of handmade washi in a single pass, and the sheet is then offered at the temple: a rite to cleanse the year that is ending and to wish for a brighter one to come.
Characters, readings and selection rationales sourced from the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation. 「今年の漢字」 is a registered trademark of the foundation.
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