Japan chooses the Kanji of the Year 2025. How a single character in black ink tells the story of a year of hope, fear, dreams, and disasters.

Every year, Japan chooses a single kanji of the year that encapsulates the hopes, fears and events of the past months. Discover how this choice is made and which characters have told the story of recent years, right up to 2025.

The mastery of minimalism

Every year in December, something very interesting happens in Japan. On 12 December, the chief priest of Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto – that famous temple suspended on a hillside, overlooking the entire city – walks out onto its wooden terrace in purple robes, silently takes an enormous brush in his hands, and with a single, confident movement writes just one character on a white sheet. Not the title of a book, not an advertising slogan, but a kanji that is meant to sum up the entire year that has just passed. In this one gesture, centuries of Japanese calligraphy meet modern TV cameras and a very simple question: if you had to describe the last twelve months with a single character, what would you choose?

The Japanese have an entire ritual and a separate celebration for this – Kanji Day, observed on 12 December. The date is no coincidence: the notation 12/12 can be read as “ii ji ichi ji,” meaning “one good kanji.” Since 1995, millions of people have been filling in cards, forms, online surveys and voting for the character that, in their opinion, best reflects the mood of the year now ending. It may be a kanji associated with disaster, taxes, war, but also with sport, the gold of medals or everyday hope. It may symbolise excessively high prices, or a threat from the north. Everyone has a voice – a school student, an office worker, a grandmother from a small rural town. From these hundreds of thousands of private stories, a single official 今年の漢字 (kotoshi no kanji), the “kanji of the year,” is born – it appears on a huge sheet of paper in Kyoto on 12 December, and then circulates in news programmes, newspapers and social media like a symbolic “cover” for the entire year.

When you look at the list of these characters from recent years, something interesting starts to happen. Suddenly we see that this is not just a linguistic game, but an abridged chronicle of contemporary Japan: the year of 安 (of “peace” and unease), the year of 金 (of the “gold” of medals and money), the year of 戦 (of “war” and everyday struggles), the year of 税 (“taxes”), the year of 密 (the “density” of pandemic crowds). Each kanji has its own structure, etymology, hidden symbolism, and at the same time a very concrete background: politics, natural disasters, the Olympic Games, scandals, but also small, everyday anxieties. In today’s text we will try to read these characters like a map: I will show where the very custom of choosing a “kanji of the year” came from, and then we will go through the last decades step by step, looking at how Japan tries each year to compress its experience into a single black character of ink. I am also curious – with which kanji / Polish word (a single one) would you describe 2025 in order to capture as many key issues as possible? (let me know in the comments)

The ceremony at Kiyomizu-dera – the theatre of writing

At noon in December, the terrace of Kiyomizu-dera looks like a theatre stage suspended above the city. The wooden platform of the temple, supported by a dense forest of pillars, juts out over the slope like a ship of wood, from whose deck you can see all of winter Kyoto – pale light, muted greenery, temple roofs and slightly misty high-rises in the distance. This is one of the most famous places in Japan, a temple inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, dedicated for centuries to Kannon, the bodhisattva of compassion. Yet on this one day of the year it becomes the stage for a performance of a completely different kind – the performance of a single character.

In the middle stands an enormous, snow-white board of washi, almost as tall as a person. Beside it waits a brush that in the priest’s hand looks more like a spear or a mast – a fude in monumental form, dipped into heavy, black ink. When the chief priest of Kiyomizu-dera – for many years now Seihan Mori – steps onto the stage in robes of purple and gold, camera and photo lenses automatically turn towards him. In the air you can feel a mixture of chill, the scent of incense and quiet anticipation: in a moment we will see the one kanji that is meant to sum up the entire year that has passed.

This moment is prepared for many weeks. Since 1995, the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation – Nihon Kanji Nōryoku Kentei Kyōkai, known for its kanji exams – has been organising a nationwide poll in which anyone can nominate a single character: the one that in their view best reflects the mood and events of the last twelve months. Letters sent by post, online forms, votes collected in schools and institutions – from these thousands of proposals, a single character emerges, kotoshi no kanji, the “kanji of the year.” The announcement always takes place on 12 December, Kanji Day (漢字の日), chosen not by chance: the notation of the date 12/12 can jokingly be read as ii ji ichi ji – “one good kanji.” It is a wordplay of the kind the Japanese love, but behind it lies a serious idea: a single character that says how we will remember the entire year. Many weeks in advance, the media, social networking sites and even the evening news on NHK speculate which character may appear on that day and debate which kanji will best reflect what has happened during the year (in other words – which event we acknowledge as truly the most important in the past year).

When the priest dips the brush into the ink, the silence thickens. The movements are slow, ceremonial, but you can see the physical effort in them: the first strong vertical, a broad horizontal, a sudden curve of the line – in a few breaths, a character more than a metre high is born before the eyes of those gathered. The ink soaks into the paper, still gleams, still drips in heavy drops as photographers take the first shots and TV commentators repeat aloud: “This year’s kanji is…”. It is a contemporary form of ritual calligraphy: a gesture that links the old craft of temple writing with the media spectacle of the Internet age.

The finished character then stands like a black, silent protagonist of the year’s end. For some time it is displayed in the temple – tourists queue up to take photos, children point at it, trying to read it, and the elderly nod their heads, commenting: “Yes, it truly was a year of [this and that].” At the same time, its image immediately begins to circulate throughout Japan: it appears on news sites, in newspapers, in evening news programmes, is reproduced in infographics, magazines, brochures, and even on gadgets. On social media someone turns it into a meme, someone else posts their own version written in a child’s hand, or writes: “For me this year was more 年 than 金” – and a small, grassroots discussion begins about what in fact was the most important.

From the perspective of an average resident of Japan, Kanji Day is not a public holiday – it is rather a fixed point in the December landscape, like forecasts of holiday traffic or the first commercials for osechi. In the morning, the kanji of the year flashes in the news ticker at the bottom of the screen, during the day it scrolls past on news portals; at schools, teachers use the occasion to talk with pupils about the year now ending, in offices someone jokingly asks over lunch: “And what would you choose?”. On social media, an informal festival of alternative characters is in full swing – users put forward their own candidates, revealing a little of their personal stories. In this way, a single character written in thick temple ink spills out into thousands of small, private meanings. The official kotoshi no kanji becomes only a starting point: a pretext to pause for a moment in the rush of the year’s end and try to name what was most important.

What are Kanji Day and the “kanji of the year”?

12 December in the Japanese calendar is not a day off work, but it has its own small, distinctive status: it is Kanji Day, kanji no hi. In the slogan used by the organisers lies a simple wish: that every Japanese person should at least once a year truly remember a single character, understand it more deeply, bend over its hidden meanings, not only those that are obvious in everyday writing.

Behind all this stands the aforementioned Nihon Kanji Nōryoku Kentei Kyōkai, or simply Kanken for short. They are the ones who organise the famous kanji exams, taken by children, students, adult enthusiasts and retirees – from the basic level for primary school pupils up to the highest level, covering many thousands of characters for highly advanced candidates. The foundation was established in Kyoto in the 1970s precisely in order to counteract the gradual “disappearance” of traditional characters, rarely used characters, and the disappearance of knowledge about the symbolism and meanings, the history and structure of individual kanji. Over time, the Kanken exams have become a serious educational tool, recognised in applications to schools and universities, but the organisation very quickly realised that the machinery of testing alone was not enough. Hence the idea for a softer, symbolic-cultural initiative – such as Kanji Day and the accompanying choice of the “kanji of the year.”

The “kanji of the year,” or kotoshi no kanji (今年の漢字), is an annual poll for a single character that is meant to sum up Japan’s mood over the last twelve months. The government does not decide, so it is not merely a positive, propagandistic confirmation of the correctness of the policies of those in power. On the contrary, it often carries a negative overtone – because everyone who wishes to can vote. Since 1995, Kanken has been collecting proposals from all over the country: by post, via online forms, in schools, libraries, on special slips handed out in various institutions. From these votes a single character is chosen, the one that in a given year has gained the greatest support. It is this character that is proclaimed the “kanji of the year” and that appears on 12 December at Kiyomizu-dera on a great sheet of paper.

The idea is very simple, and at the same time elegant: instead of long reports, public opinion polls and complex analyses – a single character that becomes a symbolic "cover" for the year that has just passed. This character always comes with an official interpretation (the organisers explain what associations it evoked in those who voted), but just as important is what it sets in motion in the minds of ordinary people. The media present the ranking of candidates, commentators wonder whether the mood of society has been accurately captured, and viewers at home start to play their own private poll: "If I had to choose one kanji for this year, which one would it be?". In this way, the "kanji of the year" combines a very pragmatic goal – promoting the study of characters – with something much subtler: a shared attempt to name the year that is now coming to an end.

We can learn the contemporary history of Japan from kotoshi no kanji

If we look at the list of kotoshi no kanji from recent years, it looks a bit like a miniature chronicle of contemporary Japan. Instead of hefty reports and multi-page analyses, we have a row of single characters, each of which is like the title of a chapter: at one time speaking of disasters and fear, at another of sport, money or hope. A single kanji can contain within itself an entire range of emotions – from the official slogan of the year to the private associations it evokes in people’s minds.

We can also see a characteristic tension here: on the one hand, “heavy” characters related to earthquakes, typhoons, the pandemic, politics, taxes; on the other – more "bright" choices whose popularity is owed to sporting successes, pop culture or the symbolism of "gold" and victory. This leap between catastrophe and the Olympic Games, between crisis and medals, is very Japanese: it shows how society tries to name not only what hurts, but also moments of pride and joy. The kanji of the year thus becomes not so much an objective summary as a collective self-portrait – a condensed record of the moods, fears and dreams of a given time.

Let us take a closer look at the last decade of Japan through the prism of these very characters, the kotoshi no kanji.

2015 – 安
an
"peace, safety"

The kanji 安 is one that Japanese people see very often: in words such as 安全 (anzen – safety), 安心 (anshin – peace of mind, relief), 安い (yasui – inexpensive). On the level of basic meaning, it lies somewhere between a sense of safety and comfort or relief – but at the same time, in compounds such as 不安 (fuan – anxiety), it reveals its darker side: the desire for safety is always born out of a sense of threat. Graphically, the character consists of the "roof" 宀 and the woman 女 – traditionally interpreted as the image of a woman under the roof of a house, a vision of a place where one can finally rest and feel safe, a home. A modern reader does not, of course, have to accept this patriarchal metaphor literally, but the structure of "something fragile and human sheltered under a roof" remains intuitive: 安 is the world we want to cover with a protective layer, even though we know that it may always turn out to be too thin.

In 2015, 安 was chosen in the nationwide Kanken poll. The official justifications are full of words such as 「不安」「安全」「安心」 – anxiety, safety, relief. On the one hand, there were discussions and protests around the new security legislation (anpo hōan), which changed the role of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces and reopened the traumatic topic of war. On the other, there were waves of global fear related to terrorism (among others, the kidnapping and murder of two Japanese citizens by the so-called Islamic State, attacks in which Japanese tourists were killed), reports of construction fraud and seismic shocks that undermined faith in a "safe Japan". Tellingly, echoes of pop culture also appear in the commentaries: a popular comedian at the time kept repeating the phrase 「安心してください、穿いてますよ。」 ("Don't worry, I am wearing pants"), in which 安 flashed every evening from TV screens. The year 2015 was thus a paradoxical mixture of 安心 and 不安 – the desire for calm and the experience of constant threat – and the kanji that was chosen captured precisely this ambiguity: both peace and the lack of it fit into a single character.

2016 – 金
kin
"gold, money"

金 is a character that appears often among the kotoshi no kanji. In dictionaries it means "metal," "gold" and "money" – it appears in お金 (okane – money), 金属 (kinzoku – metal), 金曜日 (kin’yōbi – Friday – the day of metal), 金融 (kin’yū – finance), and in sport, of course, in 金メダル – gold medal. Its original form was a pictogram showing lumps of metal or ore with radiating marks, suggesting something shiny and valuable. In calligraphy, 金 contains both weight (thick, strong verticals) and sparkle – the strokes reach "outwards," as if the character were spilling beyond its own frame. That is why it is so well suited to describing moments when society is simultaneously rejoicing over "golden" successes and obsessively thinking about money: 金 always plays in two registers at once – radiance and hard economics.

In 2016, 金 won the poll for the third time in history (previously in 2000 and 2012). Official comments immediately emphasised the "dual nature" of this character in that year. On the bright side, there was the shower of gold medals at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics: a record number of medals for Japanese athletes, "golden" achievements such as another milestone by Ichirō Suzuki, described even with the term 金字塔 – golden monument. On the darker side were political scandals involving money – especially the financial scandal surrounding former Tokyo governor Masuzoe Yōichi and further reports of abuses of political funds – as well as the rising costs of preparations for the Tokyo Olympics and budget problems for new venues. Added to this was a "symbolic golden noise": the introduction of negative interest rates (金利), the victory of Donald Trump, whose 金髪 – golden hair – often appeared in Japanese commentary, and the worldwide success of the viral song "PPAP" performed by Pikotarō, in his characteristic gold outfit. The choice of 金 clearly shows how the Japanese, in a single character, try to fit both pride in sporting achievements and a very concrete anxiety about where the money is flowing – and whether the gold really shines equally for everyone.

2017 – 北
(kita / hoku)
"north"

Most people associate the kanji 北 simply with a direction of the world: the north on a compass and in the weather forecast. In Japanese it appears in words such as 「北海道」 (Hokkaidō – "the land north of the sea"), 「東北」 (Tōhoku – "north-east") or 「北風」 (kitakaze – north wind). Its old, pictographic form depicted two figures turned back-to-back – hence the old meanings "to turn away, run away," "to turn one's back." To this day you will find this duality in etymological dictionaries: on the one hand, the calm, geographical "north," on the other – a symbol of separation, tension, standing "back" to someone or something. In the structure of the character, we can see two almost mirror-image parts that seem to be fleeing from each other – it is easy to attach to this a metaphor of two sides of a barricade, two diverging directions.

In 2017, this seemingly neutral character became a capsule of very concrete fears. "North" in Japanese news then meant above all "North Korea": successive missile tests, a sense of threat, rockets flying over Japanese territory and J-Alert system announcements waking people up at dawn. At the same time, the word "north" evoked associations closer to home – heavy rains and floods in northern Kyūshū, problems with crops in Hokkaidō, images of flooded towns in regions that had previously been regarded as peaceful. By choosing 北, the Japanese thus pointed not only to a specific direction on the map, but also to the direction of their fears: towards the "top" of the globe, where political tension mingled with the feeling that even one’s own land, one’s own city, were no longer as safe as they had once seemed. The two figures turned back-to-back suddenly began to look like a metaphor for the entire year.

2018 – 災
sai
“disaster, calamity”

The character 災 greets us immediately with a heavy association: “disaster.” In Japanese, we see it in words such as 災害 (saigai – natural disaster, calamity), 火災 (kasai – fire), 天災 (tensai – natural catastrophe). In the traditional forms of the character, you can discern fire and something like writhing lines – streams, waves, gales; the whole suggests an unbridled element forcing its way into the human world. Graphically, 災 is “open,” with no protective roof or frame – it is an energy that spills beyond the edges. In a culture that has lived for centuries with the constant experience of earthquakes, typhoons and floods, this character is a shorthand not only for the dictionary “disaster,” but for a deeply rooted sense that human construction is only a thin layer on the surface of something far more powerful.

The year 2018 in Japan was almost a textbook year of 災. A strong earthquake in Osaka, deadly heatwaves, record-breaking rainfall and powerful typhoons, including the devastating Jebi that ravaged Kansai, images of Osaka’s airport flooded and turned into an island in the middle of a lake – all these events contributed to the feeling that nature was once again making itself felt in a brutal way. One evacuation notice after another, landslides, inundations – the word 災害 seemed to appear in the media almost nonstop. Choosing 災 as the kanji of the year was therefore more than just noting “many disasters”: it was also a kind of silent question about how long a country can function in a mode of permanent readiness for the next calamity. In this single character was inscribed not only weather statistics, but also exhaustion – the awareness that disaster had ceased to be an exception and had become something almost built into the rhythm of everyday life.

2019 – 令
rei
“order, law, but also: orderliness, auspiciousness”

The kanji 令 has an intriguing, ambiguous personality. In the classical sense it means “order, command, decree” – we see it in words such as 命令 (meirei – order), 法令 (hōrei – laws and ordinances), 令状 (reijō – warrant). Its ancient form depicts a kneeling figure under something like a roof – a scene of giving a command, receiving an order, or proclaiming a law. At the same time, 令 also has a positive nuance: in combination with other characters it can mean “good, fine, admirable” – and it was precisely this aspect that was brought to the fore when it was chosen as the first character of the new era “Reiwa.” In the shape of the character itself, one can make out a certain clarity: a symmetrical, orderly structure in which everything has its place. It is no surprise, then, that 令 became a symbol not only of “command,” but also of “new order,” an attempt to give shape to the future.

The year 2019 in Japan was remembered above all as the year of the transition from the “Heisei” era to “Reiwa” – the abdication of Emperor Akihito, the accession of Naruhito to the throne and the announcement of the new name of the era. It was precisely in the context of proclaiming “Reiwa” that the character 令 flared across the media, newspapers, posters and souvenirs; it suddenly became an everyday character, present on every official document. In the background, there were also very down-to-earth “令”: legal changes, discussions around the increase in consumption tax, disputes over new regulations. The choice of 令 as the kanji of the year can be read in two ways. Officially – as a celebration of the new era, of the “beautiful harmony” promised in the name “Reiwa.” More critically – as a reminder that every new era begins not only with a poetic slogan, but also with concrete decrees and political decisions that will shape daily life. In this one character, the pathos of imperial ceremony met the very mundane reality of living under the rule of successive “ordinances.”

2020 – 密
mitsu
“density, crowding, closeness, secret”

The character 密 is normally associated with “density” and “secrecy.” It appears in words such as 秘密 (himitsu – secret), 密室 (misshitsu – closed room), 密閉 (mippei – airtight sealing), 過密 (kamitsu – overcrowding, excessive concentration). Graphically, it is something fragile hidden under the roof 宀, tightly packed and deprived of air – a character that practically begs to be interpreted in terms of “too close, too cramped.” In 2020, the Japanese got to know it, however, in a new context: as part of the slogan “3密” (san-mitsu), the three types of situations to be avoided – enclosed, poorly ventilated spaces (mippei kūkan), crowds (misshū jōkyō) and close-contact settings (missetsu ba). A character that had previously lived mostly in dictionaries and formal expressions suddenly appeared on posters, on television, and on everyone’s lips.

The pandemic year 2020 made 密 a shorthand not only for “density,” but for an entirely new lifestyle: avoiding crowds, keeping distance, obsessively thinking about how many people are in a given room. Television repeated warnings against “3密” like a mantra, local authorities published colourful infographics with three icons, and Tokyo governor Koike Yuriko repeated the slogan in almost every speech. At the same time, 密 also came to signify something opposite – the loneliness and isolation that came when we started to avoid such “dense” situations all too thoroughly. Choosing this character as the kanji of the year captured perfectly the paradox of 2020: the threat of “too much closeness” forced people into radical distancing. One small character became a label for everything we suddenly regarded as dangerously “crowded” – from train carriages to our own offices.

2021 – 金
kin
“gold, money”

In 2021, 金 returned as the kanji of the year once again, in another Olympic year, but with a very different mood from previous Games. Tokyo finally hosted the postponed “Tokyo 2020” – with empty stands, under sanitary restrictions, but with a shower of gold medals for Japanese athletes. The media spoke of a “golden summer,” and the faces of swimmers, judoka or skateboarders briefly became bright points in the grey of the pandemic.

At the same time, 金 was a reminder of the financial side: the enormous cost of the Olympics, debates about whether it had been worth holding them at all, new banknote designs and the introduction of a new, more technologically advanced 500-yen coin. In the background there was ongoing economic uncertainty, aid packages, conversations about money that “had to be found somewhere.” The choice of 金 was thus like a year-end balance sheet wrapped into a single character: a bit of Olympic shine, and a bit of hard talk about cash.

2022 – 戦
sen
“war, battle”

The character 戦 belongs to those that sound serious at once. In words such as 戦争 (sensō – war), 戦い (tatakai – battle), 挑戦 (chōsen – challenge), it always carries tension, conflict, struggle. In its structure, one can see traces of old weaponry: the element 戈 once meant a spear, a tool of combat, and the whole character is like a combination of movement, sound and armament. This is not a calm, closed kanji – on the contrary, it is full of sharp angles and diagonal lines that suggest movement, clash, impact. Interestingly, in modern language 戦 can also mean “match, game,” a contest that is not necessarily bloody, but still charged with emotion: someone “fights a battle” – in a stadium, on a field, in the league tables.

The year 2022 brought the word “war” back into everyday conversation. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, images of bombed cities, refugees in the news – all this meant that even in Japan, geographically distant from Ukraine, the word 戦争 stopped being something belonging only in history textbooks. On top of that came further missile tests by North Korea, rockets flying over Japanese territory, discussions about strengthening defence capabilities.

But 戦 in 2022 did not end with geopolitics. People spoke of the “fight” against rising prices, against the record-weak yen, against electricity bills, against yet another wave of coronavirus. In sport, the year was full of 熱戦 – “heated battles”: the Winter Olympics in Beijing, the World Cup in Qatar, record-breaking achievements by Japanese baseball players. The character 戦 thus became a kind of umbrella for very different struggles – from fronts with real weapons to quiet, everyday battles in the household budget. The “year of war” did not mean only conflicts between states, but also a year in which most people felt they had something to fight against.

2023 – 税
zei
“tax”

At first glance, 税 seems cold, technical, accounting-related. It appears in words such as 消費税 (shōhizei – consumption tax), 所得税 (shotokuzei – income tax), 住民税 (jūminzei – resident tax), 税金 (zeikin – “taxes” in general). Etymologically, the character combines grain 禾 with the element 兑, associated with exchange, giving up – originally, it referred to the portion of the harvest that a peasant handed over to the ruler as tribute. This is highly telling: 税 is something that detaches itself from our “yield” and goes somewhere else. Graphically, we have here a vertical structure that seems to separate the top from the bottom – it can be read as a symbol of the channel through which resources flow from the individual to the state. It is a kanji in which the age-old tension between what is “mine” and what is “shared” is inscribed.

In 2023, the Japanese were surrounded by the word 税 from every side. There were discussions about tax increases for defence, debates on changes to income tax and corporate tax, and the adoption of the 4 man en – 40,000 yen – “permanent tax deduction” as compensation for earlier rises in government revenue. On top of this came the introduction of the invoice system “inboisu,” which changed the way entrepreneurs file their accounts, the tightening of rules for the famous “furusato nōzei,” the system of directing part of one’s tax to a chosen municipality in exchange for local gifts, and yet more changes to alcohol excise tax. In short: anyone with any income at all felt that their relationship with the state was increasingly channelled through 税. The choice of this character as the kanji of the year reflects not only the technical debate on the fiscal system, but above all the emotions – a mixture of anxiety, fatigue and hope that “maybe some of it will come back.” The year 2023 went down as a year in which the question “how much and to whom do we pay?” became one of the main topics of conversation.

2024 – 金
kin
“gold, money”

In 2024, 金 returned once more – to such an extent that many commentators joked it had become a “regular patron” of the kanji-of-the-year list. This repetition is meaningful in itself: it shows how strongly Japan lives to the rhythm of gold medals, stock prices and debates about money. This time, the character 金 carried a double image: on the one hand the glint of triumph, on the other the weight of the coin that is increasingly hard to stretch far enough for everyday life. Formally, it is the same ideogram that denotes metal and wealth, but in people’s minds it now resembles a lens concentrating both dreams of “golden moments” and a shadow of suspicion that behind some “golden” stories lie very murky flows of money.

The year 2024 was full of events that naturally adhered to 金. On one side, it was the year of the Paris Olympics and another wave of sporting euphoria: gold medals for Japanese athletes at the Olympics and Paralympics, Shōhei Hōtani’s record-breaking performances in MLB, and the successes of other sportspeople spoken of as a “golden generation.” Added to this were “golden” symbols in a more literal sense – such as the inscription of the Sado gold mine on the World Heritage List, or preparations for the introduction of new banknotes, which once again fired the imagination of collectors.

On the other side, “dark money” dominated the front pages: scandals surrounding the secret funds of ruling-party politicians, robberies committed by so-called “invisible temp workers” recruited online, the stubborn adherence to the 1.03 million yen income cap for many part-time employees, and, in the background, relentless price increases. In such a context, 金 became a character that would not let anyone forget that behind each “golden” success stands a very real question: who pays for it – and what price are we truly paying?

And with what character will we describe the year 2025?

As I write this, the year is not yet over, and the great brush at Kiyomizu-dera is still waiting for its December performance. The official voting for 今年の漢字 – the kanji of the year 2025 – runs until 9 December, and we will learn the result, as always, on 12 December on the temple terrace in Kyoto. It is an interesting moment: all of Japan is already tired of this year, but no one yet knows which single kanji will be “pasted onto its cover.” Online, however, a parallel, unofficial celebration is already underway: dozens of blogs, portals and users on X are having fun predicting their character.

If you look at Japanese ranking sites, you can clearly see a few favourites. In a large online poll on kanji-jiten online, 熊 – “kuma,” bear – is in the lead, clearly ahead of 高 (“high”) and 米 (“rice / America”). This is not pure fantasy on the part of internet users: 2025 in Japan has been marked by news of bear attacks and increasingly frequent encounters with bears on the outskirts of cities. The Ministry of the Environment and nature conservation organisations are sounding the alarm. In this sense, 熊 would be a very literal kanji – a character of fear of wild nature, which is literally entering human space. But on a deeper level, it is also a symbol of a Japan torn between environmental protection and residents’ safety, between the image of “beautiful mountains” and the reality of the countryside.

The second character often tipped is 米 – at once “kome,” rice, and “bei,” an abbreviation of “America” (we write more about this character here: Rice Instead of Gold – The Currency of the Samurai, the Shogun’s Rice Exchange, and the Sacred Ritual of Emperors). In 2025, both readings resonate with unusual force. On the “rice” side, people speak of the “令和の米騒動” – “rice riots of the Reiwa era”: of prices that have shot up, of a strained supply–demand situation, of government intervention and the release of rice reserves, of speculation on the market and of the fact that a five-kilogram bag of rice has suddenly become a luxury for many families.

On the “America” side, there is an entire political and economic layer: changes in the White House, the dollar exchange rate, the end of QT and cuts, trade tensions, the entry of Wall Street and other tradfi participants into cryptocurrencies, and of course sport – Hōtani and other Japanese baseball players stirring emotions in the American leagues. A single kanji that simultaneously describes the contents of a bowl and grand geopolitics would be a painfully accurate choice for 2025.

Further down in the rankings, 高 – “high” – keeps appearing. It is a simple and very capacious character: it gathers into itself 物価高 (high prices), 賃上げ (wage increases), 株高 (high stock prices) and 暑さの高まり – the “heightening” of temperatures that until recently would have seemed implausible. In comments on X, the phrase “今年の漢字は『高』じゃないか” – “surely it will be 高” – appears frequently, with a brief note: because everything today is “too high.” In blogs, more personal choices are also visible: someone who has finished paying off a loan and, after many years, has come out of debt declares that their own “kanji of the year” is 了 – “end, closure.” In this mosaic of voices, the Kanji of the Year in the official sense – the one from Kiyomizu-dera – is just one among many.

A curious counterpoint is provided by surveys that do not ask “what was this year like?”, but “what do you want the next one to be like?”. In marketing and consumer research, characters from a different register often come out on top: 楽 (“joy, ease”), 穏 (“calm”), 和 (“harmony”), 幸 (“happiness”), 安 (“safety”). These are not predictions, they are wishes – a record of collective fatigue with successive years of “disasters, wars and taxes” and a longing for ordinary, unheroic stability. A certain pattern is visible here: when “hard” reality pushes people towards the hard and threatening 熊, 米, 高, the “inner” kanji of the year, chosen somewhere between the lines of a survey, tends more often to circle around gentle dream-words.

Which character will ultimately be used to describe the year 2025, we will therefore only learn when the ink on the huge sheet of paper begins to slowly seep into the fibres of the washi. Perhaps it will be 熊 – the year in which bears reminded us that we live in a country of mountains and forests, and that they are not the intruders here at all. Perhaps 米 – the year of rice and America, in which the contents of a bowl and the dollar exchange rate became entangled in a single character. Perhaps 高 – the year in which everything was “too high”: temperatures, bills, tension. Or perhaps something completely different – one of those characters that for now appear only in blog comments on the margins. Regardless of the result, the question stays with us longer and is worth asking ourselves: what would your own kanji of the year be? For Japan, for Poland, for your life. Ultimately, this poll is always decided not only in Kanken’s ballot boxes, but also closer, much closer…

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