are forms of

Kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

particular to the ''

Asahi Shimbun is one of the four largest newspapers in Japan. Founded in 1879, it is also one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. Its circulation, which was 4.57 million for its morning edition and ...

'' newspaper. Unlike

Simplified Chinese Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to: Mathematics Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example * Simplification of algebraic expressions, ...

, where simplifications apply to all characters, the general custom in Japanese publications is to print Jōyō/

Jinmeiyō Kanji are a set of 863 Chinese characters known as "name kanji" in English. They are a supplementary list of characters that can legally be used in registered personal names in Japan, despite not being in the official list of "commonly used characters ...

in simplified

Shinjitai are the simplified forms of kanji used in Japan since the promulgation of the Tōyō Kanji List in 1946. Some of the new forms found in ''shinjitai'' are also found in Simplified Chinese characters, but ''shinjitai'' is generally not as extensiv ...

forms, and to print Hyōgaiji (, characters outside both lists) using their original, unsimplified

Kyūjitai ''Kyūjitai'' ( ja, 舊字體 / 旧字体, lit=old character forms) are the traditional forms of kanji, Chinese written characters used in Japanese. Their simplified counterparts are ''shinjitai'' ( ja, 新字体, lit=new character forms, lab ...

forms. For example, the Jōyō Kanji are printed in their Shinjitai forms , but the Hyōgaiji (also containing , making simplification possible) remain unsimplified. The ''Asahi Shimbun''’s policy, however, is thoroughly to simplify Hyōgaiji in print on the model of Shinjitai simplifications, and so in Asahi Shimbun newspaper publications, (''heso'', "navel") would be printed as (), and (''sogo'', "discord") would likewise be printed as (), and so these simplifications are known as "Asahi characters". This policy is also said to have been adopted because in the age of

typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...

-based printing, more complicated Kanji could not be clearly printed. This newspaper also is currently the only publication using this simplification practice. These simplifications are not used in other publications by the Asahi Shimbun company. Some of these Asahi simplifications have been included in the

JIS X 0208 JIS X 0208 is a 2-byte character set specified as a Japanese Industrial Standard, containing 6879 graphic characters suitable for writing text, place names, personal names, and so forth in the Japanese language. The official title of the current ...

and above character sets, and even more (although lesser supported) are included in Unicode. Some Asahi characters have become the de facto standard forms as a result of their inclusion in the JIS standards (likely because the simplified forms are easier to display at lower sizes and resolutions), for example in (''sekken'', "soap"), the Kyūjitai form not being included until later versions. The character (''kuzu'', "arrowroot") has become a source of controversy, as only the simplified form was included in the JIS standards; the Kyūjitai form (using ) being added as a result of protest from people living in areas or with given names using this character. Simplification of the and radicals is also observed by other newspaper companies.

See also