Notebook

Will not render properly on screen with width < 800 px.

In Japan, the Ministry of Education requires all students to learn 2,136 standardized Kanji throughout grades 1 to 6. The list was originally formulated as the Tōyō kanji back in the period just after WWII, but has been gradually revised over time into the modern Jōyō Kanji with the latest revision being in 2010.

The list reflects a set of characters that are considered to be important for “regular use” - this can have a number of broad interpretations, but the one I will focus on in this article is Kanji frequency of usage. Since others have already compiled lists of Kanji sorted by usage frequency in newspapers, I was interested in comparing frequency of usage in newspapers to the Jōyō Kanji taught in schools.

So I compiled some data from various sources I’ll detail below then created some visuals.

The first chart below consists of all 2,136 Jōyō Kanji sorted primarily by grade; the alternating highlighted sections indicate the separation between grade 1, grade 2, etc up until grade 7. The secondary sorting seems to be done inconsistently. The Grade 1 Kanji are sorted by Japanese reading (on’yomi then kun’yomi), whereas the grade 7 Kanji seem to be sorted by radical and/or number of strokes.

The Kanji have also been color-coded by rank of their frequency of usage in newspapers (which I will denote as n-rank hereon in). Each color represents a category of 500 Kanji (1-500, 501-1000, etc) up until 2501 Kanji. In particular, Jōyō Kanji not present in the kanji-2501 set are assigned a color of black and n-rank of zero. You can move your cursor over each Kanji to view its exact n-rank.

n-rank 500: n-rank 1000: n-rank 1500: n-rank 2000: n-rank 2501: n-rank 0:

一右雨円王音下火花貝学気九休玉金空月犬見五口校左三山子四糸字耳七車手十

出女小上森人水正生青夕石赤千川先早草足村大男竹中虫町天田土二日入年白八

百文木本名目立力林六引羽雲園遠何科夏家歌画回会海絵外角楽活間丸岩顔汽記

帰弓牛魚京強教近兄形計元言原戸古午後語工公広交光考行高黄合谷国黒今才細

作算止市矢姉思紙寺自時室社弱首秋週春書少場色食心新親図数西声星晴切雪船

線前組走多太体台地池知茶昼長鳥朝直通弟店点電刀冬当東答頭同道読内南肉馬

売買麦半番父風分聞米歩母方北毎妹万明鳴毛門夜野友用曜来里理話悪安暗医委

意育員院飲運泳駅央横屋温化荷界開階寒感漢館岸起期客究急級宮球去橋業曲局

銀区苦具君係軽血決研県庫湖向幸港号根祭皿仕死使始指歯詩次事持式実写者主

守取酒受州拾終習集住重宿所暑助昭消商章勝乗植申身神真深進世整昔全相送想

息速族他打対待代第題炭短談着注柱丁帳調追定庭笛鉄転都度投豆島湯登等動童

農波配倍箱畑発反坂板皮悲美鼻筆氷表秒病品負部服福物平返勉放味命面問役薬

由油有遊予羊洋葉陽様落流旅両緑礼列練路和愛案以衣位囲胃印英栄塩億加果貨

課芽改械害街各覚完官管関観願希季紀喜旗器機議求泣救給挙漁共協鏡競極訓軍

郡径型景芸欠結建健験固功好候航康告差菜最材昨札刷殺察参産散残士氏史司試

児治辞失借種周祝順初松笑唱焼象照賞臣信成省清静席積折節説浅戦選然争倉巣

束側続卒孫帯隊達単置仲貯兆腸低底停的典伝徒努灯堂働特得毒熱念敗梅博飯飛

費必票標不夫付府副粉兵別辺変便包法望牧末満未脈民無約勇要養浴利陸良料量

輪類令冷例歴連老労録圧移因永営衛易益液演応往桜恩可仮価河過賀快解格確額

刊幹慣眼基寄規技義逆久旧居許境均禁句群経潔件券険検限現減故個護効厚耕鉱

構興講混査再災妻採際在財罪雑酸賛支志枝師資飼示似識質舎謝授修述術準序招

承証条状常情織職制性政勢精製税責績接設舌絶銭祖素総造像増則測属率損退貸

態団断築張提程適敵統銅導徳独任燃能破犯判版比肥非備俵評貧布婦富武復複仏

編弁保墓報豊防貿暴務夢迷綿輸余預容略留領異遺域宇映延沿我灰拡革閣割株干

巻看簡危机揮貴疑吸供胸郷勤筋系敬警劇激穴絹権憲源厳己呼誤后孝皇紅降鋼刻

穀骨困砂座済裁策冊蚕至私姿視詞誌磁射捨尺若樹収宗就衆従縦縮熟純処署諸除

将傷障城蒸針仁垂推寸盛聖誠宣専泉洗染善奏窓創装層操蔵臓存尊宅担探誕段暖

値宙忠著庁頂潮賃痛展討党糖届難乳認納脳派拝背肺俳班晩否批秘腹奮並陛閉片

補暮宝訪亡忘棒枚幕密盟模訳郵優幼欲翌乱卵覧裏律臨朗論乙了又丈与及乞凡刃

巾互丹乏井冗凶刈勾匂匹升厄双介孔屯幻弔斗斤爪牙且丘丙丼巨仙凹凸占叱召囚

奴尻尼巧払氾汁込斥旦玄瓦甘甲矛伎仰伐伏充刑劣匠企吉叫吐吏壮如妃妄尽巡帆

弐忙扱汎汚汗江芋芝迅旨旬肌朽朱朴缶臼舟串亜佐伺伸但伯伴克冶励却即呂含吟

呉吹呈坑坊壱妖妥妊妨妙寿尿尾岐床廷弄抗抄択把抜扶抑沙汰沃沖沢沈没狂芯芳

迎那邦阪忌忍戒戻攻更肘肝肖杉秀辛享依佳侍侮併免刹刺到劾卓叔呪坪奈奇奉奔

妬姓宛宜尚屈岡岳岬弥弦征彼怪怖拉押拐拒拠拘拙拓抽抵拍披抱抹況沼泥泊泌沸

泡狙苛茎苗茂迭迫邪邸阻附房旺昆昇股肩肯肢肪枕枢析杯枠欧殴炎炊炉采玩祈祉

盲突虎阜斉亭侶侯俊侵促俗冠削勃勅卑卸厘叙咽哀咲垣契威姻孤封峡峠帥帝幽弧

悔恒恨拶拭括挟拷挑洪浄津洞狭狩茨荒荘逃郊郎怨怠怒施昧是胎胆胞柿柵栃架枯

柔柄某柳為牲珍甚畏疫皆盆眉盾冒砕窃糾耐臭虐虹衷訃訂貞赴軌香俺倹倒倣俸倫

兼冥凄准凍剥剣剛剤剖匿唄哺唆唇哲唐埋娯娠姫娘宴宰宵峰徐悦悟悩挨捉挫振捜

挿捕浦浸浜浮涙浪華逝逐逓途透陥陣恣恐恵恥恋恭扇拳敏脇脊脅脂朕胴桁核桑栽

桟栓桃殊殉烈珠祥泰畝畜畔疾症疲眠砲称租秩袖被既粋索紛紡紋翁耗致般蚊衰託

貢軒辱酎酌釜隻飢鬼竜曹乾偽偶偵偏剰勘唾喝啓唯埼堆執培婚婆寂尉崖崎崇崩庶

庸彩彫惧惨惜悼捻捗掛掘掲控据措掃排描堀淫涯渇渓渋淑渉淡添涼猫猛猟葛萎菓

菊菌逸逮郭陰陳陶陪隆陵患悠戚斜斬旋曽脚脱梗梨殻爽瓶痕盗眺窒符粗粘粒紺紹

紳累羞粛舷舶虚蛍蛇袋訟豚貪貫販赦軟酔釈釣頃鹿麻斎亀僅偉傍募傘喉喩喚喫喪

圏堪堅堕塚堤塔塀塁奥媛媒婿尋嵐項幅帽幾廃廊弾御循慌惰愉握援換搭揚揺湧渦

滋湿渡湾猶葬遇遂遅遍隅随惑扉掌敢斑暁晶替普腕椅椎棺棋棚棟款欺殖煮焦琴畳

疎痩痘痢硬硝硫裕筒粧絞紫絡蛮裂詠詐詔診訴貼越超距軸酢鈍閑雇雄雰須傲傾傑

債催僧勧嗅嗣嘆塞填毀塊塑塗奨嫉嫁嫌寛寝廉彙微慄慨慎携搾摂搬溺滑溝滞滝漠

滅溶猿蓋蓄遡遜違遣隙隔愚慈愁暇腎腫腺腰楷棄楼歳殿煙煩煎献禍禅痴睦睡督碁

稚窟裾褐裸継羨艇虞虜蜂触詣詮該詰誇詳誉賂賊賄跡践跳較載酬酪鉛鉢鈴雅雷零

飾飽靴頓頑頒鼓僕僚塾墨奪嫡寡寧彰徴憎慢摘漆漸漬滴漂漫漏蔑遮遭隠慕暦膜概

熊獄瑠瘍罰碑稲端箸箋箇綻維綱緒網腐蜜誓誘豪貌踊辣酵酷銃銘閥雌需餅駆駄髪

魂儀勲舗嘲嘱噴墜墳審寮履幣慶弊影徹憧憬憤撮撤撲潰潟潤澄潜蔽遵遷慰憂慮戯

摯撃摩敷暫膝膚槽歓璃畿監盤罵罷稽稼稿穂窮窯範縁緩緊締縄衝褒誰謁請諾賭賜

賠賓賦趣踪踏輝輩舞鋭鋳閲震霊餓餌頬駒駐魅黙儒凝壊墾壌壇壁嬢憶懐憾擁濁濃

獲薫薪薦薄還避隣憩曇膳膨獣磨穏篤緻緯縛繁縫融衡諦謎諧諮謀諭謡賢醒麺錦錮

錯錠錬隷頼骸償嚇擬擦濯懇戴曖臆燥爵犠環療瞳瞭矯礁繊翼聴謹謙謄購轄醜鍵鍋

鍛闇霜韓頻鮮齢濫藤藍藩懲璧癖癒瞬礎穫襟糧繕繭翻覆贈鎌鎖鎮闘顎顕騎騒瀬藻

爆璽羅簿繰艶覇譜蹴離霧韻髄鯨鶏麓麗懸欄籍譲醸鐘響騰艦躍露顧魔鶴籠襲驚鑑

鬱

Notice all the green at the top? It means that Kanji with lower n-rank are being taught in earlier grades, which is almost certainly a reassuring sign!

Most of these Kanji don’t wander too far into obscure territory. The two exceptions are 汽 (meaning steam, used in the compound for train/steam train) and 蚕 (meaning silkworm, used in the compound for silk). Even though they are not used frequently, the objects they represent may have once been predominant in the culture and lifestyle of the Japanese. Additionally, the character 汽 is very common in Chinese. These may have been influences in selecting them for the Jōyō Kanji, but this is just speculation on my part.

Grade 7 is where the curriculum difficulty increases drastically. In fact, there are almost as many grade seven Kanji as there are 1-6 Kanji! We can see that the characters taught in these grades are composed of a mixture of all the n-rank classes, unlike the green-dominated characters taught in the lower grades. 96 of the Kanji taught have zero n-rank alongside 27 which have sub-500 n-rank and 161 with 500 < n-rank ≤ 1000.

The two lowest sub-500 Kanji taught in grade seven are ranked ~270. They include 歳 (counter for age) and 企 (scheme, plan). Both seem to be very common terms to me, and I was surprised to learn they are not taught sooner. But overall, it is quite reasonable to expect that some of these common characters get pushed back to the later grades; it’s just a fact of statistics and scheduling conflicts.

It appears that the n-distribution of Jōyō Kanji is very skewed towards common Kanji in the lower grades and abruptly becomes quite mixed in the middle grades. This system seems like it would work well in preparing students to consume physical media. But with the history surrounding its creation, one may wonder if the modern Jōyō Kanji are simply a revisioning of an artifact of the past.

The natural thing way to test this is, then, how do these trends extend to a more modern case such as Kanji usage over the internet?

I wanted to collect a large set of Japanese internet conversation data but wasn’t very familiar with many Japanese content boards. There were of course the Japanese equivalent and namesake/inspiration of 4-chan, 2ch (2ちゃんねる), and the popular video sharing site niconico (ニコニコ), but setting up a scraper for these was needlessly difficult. So I looked elsewhere for a relatively active, recent and diverse Japanese community with easily-scrapable public comments. And where else could I have found such a thing, but on reddit?

So I extracted this list of subreddits and left it on for a night to collect comments on posts in these subreddits with the help of reddit’s nice API. I scraped comments based on the following criteria:

The comment must be made after January 1, 2016
Comments should be extracted from no more than 5000 posts in any one subreddit (a post may contain multiple comments)
If there are more than 5000 posts, the most recent 5000 are selected

My goal was to capture these characters being used in a recent and natural context. Even though it is unavoidable, there seems to be enough variety in these subreddits to not have to worry too much about a few small subreddits dominating with their spam of certain exclusive characters.

At the end of this I managed to collect 324,273 comments over 305 subreddits (actually, even fewer than this, considering some subreddits had no posts that satisfied my criteria), which amounted to 33,244,229 characters in total. There were only 5,835 unique characters across all of these comments. Through this, the internet usage frequency ranking (which I will now denote as the i-rank) can now be found by sorting the characters based on their usage frequency.

Unsurprisingly many of the 5,835 characters were not Kanji. In calculating the i-rank, I filtered out many common non-Kanji characters (hiragana, katakana, roman characters, arabic numerals) but sadly I didn’t have the whole day to pick out all the creatively used emoji characters hidden within the ranks of less-popular Kanji. Therefore, almost all of the characters will have inflated i-ranks, but probably not by more than a few dozen within the sub-2500 i-ranks. Moreover, in the very high i-ranks (~4000+), the value starts to lose meaning as characters tied in frequency (with very few occurrences) have i-ranks determined by the order I encountered them. For example, about 150 characters which appeared exactly 5 times across all comments make up i-ranks ~4000 to ~4150. This is not such a big deal: very few characters with such high i-ranks appear within the Jōyō Kanji list.

The i-rank chart below is the schemed the same way as the n-rank chart above with one major difference: Kanji with well-defined i-rank above 2501 are colored black, while Kanji with i-rank zero are colored white (they’re so rare, I didn’t even bother making them readable).

i-rank 500: i-rank 1000: i-rank 1500: i-rank 2000: i-rank 2501: i-rank 2501+: i-rank 0:

一右雨円王音下火花貝学気九休玉金空月犬見五口校左三山子四糸字耳七車手十

出女小上森人水正生青夕石赤千川先早草足村大男竹中虫町天田土二日入年白八

百文木本名目立力林六引羽雲園遠何科夏家歌画回会海絵外角楽活間丸岩顔汽記

帰弓牛魚京強教近兄形計元言原戸古午後語工公広交光考行高黄合谷国黒今才細

作算止市矢姉思紙寺自時室社弱首秋週春書少場色食心新親図数西声星晴切雪船

線前組走多太体台地池知茶昼長鳥朝直通弟店点電刀冬当東答頭同道読内南肉馬

売買麦半番父風分聞米歩母方北毎妹万明鳴毛門夜野友用曜来里理話悪安暗医委

意育員院飲運泳駅央横屋温化荷界開階寒感漢館岸起期客究急級宮球去橋業曲局

銀区苦具君係軽血決研県庫湖向幸港号根祭皿仕死使始指歯詩次事持式実写者主

守取酒受州拾終習集住重宿所暑助昭消商章勝乗植申身神真深進世整昔全相送想

息速族他打対待代第題炭短談着注柱丁帳調追定庭笛鉄転都度投豆島湯登等動童

農波配倍箱畑発反坂板皮悲美鼻筆氷表秒病品負部服福物平返勉放味命面問役薬

由油有遊予羊洋葉陽様落流旅両緑礼列練路和愛案以衣位囲胃印英栄塩億加果貨

課芽改械害街各覚完官管関観願希季紀喜旗器機議求泣救給挙漁共協鏡競極訓軍

郡径型景芸欠結建健験固功好候航康告差菜最材昨札刷殺察参産散残士氏史司試

児治辞失借種周祝順初松笑唱焼象照賞臣信成省清静席積折節説浅戦選然争倉巣

束側続卒孫帯隊達単置仲貯兆腸低底停的典伝徒努灯堂働特得毒熱念敗梅博飯飛

費必票標不夫付府副粉兵別辺変便包法望牧末満未脈民無約勇要養浴利陸良料量

輪類令冷例歴連老労録圧移因永営衛易益液演応往桜恩可仮価河過賀快解格確額

刊幹慣眼基寄規技義逆久旧居許境均禁句群経潔件券険検限現減故個護効厚耕鉱

構興講混査再災妻採際在財罪雑酸賛支志枝師資飼示似識質舎謝授修述術準序招

承証条状常情織職制性政勢精製税責績接設舌絶銭祖素総造像増則測属率損退貸

態団断築張提程適敵統銅導徳独任燃能破犯判版比肥非備俵評貧布婦富武復複仏

編弁保墓報豊防貿暴務夢迷綿輸余預容略留領異遺域宇映延沿我灰拡革閣割株干

巻看簡危机揮貴疑吸供胸郷勤筋系敬警劇激穴絹権憲源厳己呼誤后孝皇紅降鋼刻

穀骨困砂座済裁策冊蚕至私姿視詞誌磁射捨尺若樹収宗就衆従縦縮熟純処署諸除

将傷障城蒸針仁垂推寸盛聖誠宣専泉洗染善奏窓創装層操蔵臓存尊宅担探誕段暖

値宙忠著庁頂潮賃痛展討党糖届難乳認納脳派拝背肺俳班晩否批秘腹奮並陛閉片

補暮宝訪亡忘棒枚幕密盟模訳郵優幼欲翌乱卵覧裏律臨朗論乙了又丈与及乞凡刃

巾互丹乏井冗凶刈勾匂匹升厄双介孔屯幻弔斗斤爪牙且丘丙丼巨仙凹凸占叱召囚

奴尻尼巧払氾汁込斥旦玄瓦甘甲矛伎仰伐伏充刑劣匠企吉叫吐吏壮如妃妄尽巡帆

弐忙扱汎汚汗江芋芝迅旨旬肌朽朱朴缶臼舟串亜佐伺伸但伯伴克冶励却即呂含吟

呉吹呈坑坊壱妖妥妊妨妙寿尿尾岐床廷弄抗抄択把抜扶抑沙汰沃沖沢沈没狂芯芳

迎那邦阪忌忍戒戻攻更肘肝肖杉秀辛享依佳侍侮併免刹刺到劾卓叔呪坪奈奇奉奔

妬姓宛宜尚屈岡岳岬弥弦征彼怪怖拉押拐拒拠拘拙拓抽抵拍披抱抹況沼泥泊泌沸

泡狙苛茎苗茂迭迫邪邸阻附房旺昆昇股肩肯肢肪枕枢析杯枠欧殴炎炊炉采玩祈祉

盲突虎阜斉亭侶侯俊侵促俗冠削勃勅卑卸厘叙咽哀咲垣契威姻孤封峡峠帥帝幽弧

悔恒恨拶拭括挟拷挑洪浄津洞狭狩茨荒荘逃郊郎怨怠怒施昧是胎胆胞柿柵栃架枯

柔柄某柳為牲珍甚畏疫皆盆眉盾冒砕窃糾耐臭虐虹衷訃訂貞赴軌香俺倹倒倣俸倫

兼冥凄准凍剥剣剛剤剖匿唄哺唆唇哲唐埋娯娠姫娘宴宰宵峰徐悦悟悩挨捉挫振捜

挿捕浦浸浜浮涙浪華逝逐逓途透陥陣恣恐恵恥恋恭扇拳敏脇脊脅脂朕胴桁核桑栽

桟栓桃殊殉烈珠祥泰畝畜畔疾症疲眠砲称租秩袖被既粋索紛紡紋翁耗致般蚊衰託

貢軒辱酎酌釜隻飢鬼竜曹乾偽偶偵偏剰勘唾喝啓唯埼堆執培婚婆寂尉崖崎崇崩庶

庸彩彫惧惨惜悼捻捗掛掘掲控据措掃排描堀淫涯渇渓渋淑渉淡添涼猫猛猟葛萎菓

菊菌逸逮郭陰陳陶陪隆陵患悠戚斜斬旋曽脚脱梗梨殻爽瓶痕盗眺窒符粗粘粒紺紹

紳累羞粛舷舶虚蛍蛇袋訟豚貪貫販赦軟酔釈釣頃鹿麻斎亀僅偉傍募傘喉喩喚喫喪

圏堪堅堕塚堤塔塀塁奥媛媒婿尋嵐項幅帽幾廃廊弾御循慌惰愉握援換搭揚揺湧渦

滋湿渡湾猶葬遇遂遅遍隅随惑扉掌敢斑暁晶替普腕椅椎棺棋棚棟款欺殖煮焦琴畳

疎痩痘痢硬硝硫裕筒粧絞紫絡蛮裂詠詐詔診訴貼越超距軸酢鈍閑雇雄雰須傲傾傑

債催僧勧嗅嗣嘆塞填毀塊塑塗奨嫉嫁嫌寛寝廉彙微慄慨慎携搾摂搬溺滑溝滞滝漠

滅溶猿蓋蓄遡遜違遣隙隔愚慈愁暇腎腫腺腰楷棄楼歳殿煙煩煎献禍禅痴睦睡督碁

稚窟裾褐裸継羨艇虞虜蜂触詣詮該詰誇詳誉賂賊賄跡践跳較載酬酪鉛鉢鈴雅雷零

飾飽靴頓頑頒鼓僕僚塾墨奪嫡寡寧彰徴憎慢摘漆漸漬滴漂漫漏蔑遮遭隠慕暦膜概

熊獄瑠瘍罰碑稲端箸箋箇綻維綱緒網腐蜜誓誘豪貌踊辣酵酷銃銘閥雌需餅駆駄髪

魂儀勲舗嘲嘱噴墜墳審寮履幣慶弊影徹憧憬憤撮撤撲潰潟潤澄潜蔽遵遷慰憂慮戯

摯撃摩敷暫膝膚槽歓璃畿監盤罵罷稽稼稿穂窮窯範縁緩緊締縄衝褒誰謁請諾賭賜

賠賓賦趣踪踏輝輩舞鋭鋳閲震霊餓餌頬駒駐魅黙儒凝壊墾壌壇壁嬢憶懐憾擁濁濃

獲薫薪薦薄還避隣憩曇膳膨獣磨穏篤緻緯縛繁縫融衡諦謎諧諮謀諭謡賢醒麺錦錮

錯錠錬隷頼骸償嚇擬擦濯懇戴曖臆燥爵犠環療瞳瞭矯礁繊翼聴謹謙謄購轄醜鍵鍋

鍛闇霜韓頻鮮齢濫藤藍藩懲璧癖癒瞬礎穫襟糧繕繭翻覆贈鎌鎖鎮闘顎顕騎騒瀬藻

爆璽羅簿繰艶覇譜蹴離霧韻髄鯨鶏麓麗懸欄籍譲醸鐘響騰艦躍露顧魔鶴籠襲驚鑑

鬱

The i-rank distribution looks relatively identical to the previously established n-rank distribution, but with more variance. By this metric, there are more uncommon 2000+ Kanji in grades one to six (13 vs 2) and more common 500- Kanji in grade seven (41 vs 27). I personally think that the lists are close enough in similarity such that the Jōyō Kanji have been revisioned fairly well - but this discrepency still raises some hints about the nature of the early-taught Kanji in the Jōyō Kanji list, which will be discussed in a later section.

Because there is i-rank data for characters far beyond the rank of 2501, there are only three Kanji with i-rank = 0 (meaning they were never used in any post). They are 逓 (which means something along the lines of relay or communications), 詔 (imperial edict), and 楷 (square character style of writing). All three had relatively high (or zero) n-ranks as well.

Of particular interest is the common character 撃, which has advanced (no pun intended) from an n-rank of 474 to an i-rank of 246. An interesting hypothesis is that this is due to the influence of popular anime TV series Attack on Titan (進撃の巨人), especially now that the second season is currently airing (at the time this post was written) !

However, when we take a look at the other Kanji within the name, we find that the opposite holds true for characters 進 and 巨: 進 fell from 143 to 287 and 巨 from 893 to 898, so this hypothesis has no ground. Overall, anime/manga themed subreddits made up only a small portion of the 304 subreddits in the list, so their influence was probably overstated in my mind. (We will see later which communities really dominate).

But first, let’s take a look at how the Kanji n-ranks compare with the i-ranks directly.

One must be careful to note that the axes sizes are not equal; this is because we have further data on i-rank Kanji compared to the n-rank Kanji, which are limited to 2501 in number. The uneven axes sizes are a further consequence of this. Also, though it may appear like there are more i-like Kanji, in actuality there are 1,205 n-like Kanji and 829 i-like Kanji¹.

I will denote a Kanji as n-like if it’s n-rank < i-rank and i-like if it’s i-rank < n-rank. If we imagine a line with unit slope dividing the quadrant in the graph into two, i-like kanji are below this line and n-like kanji are to the left. There are 2,038 data points in total, 98 less than the number of total number of Jōyō Kanji: the reason for this is that some Jōyō Kanji exceed the n-rank threshold of 2,501².

Before I can analyze the demographic of Kanji lying on either extreme, I will first need a measure of extremum to gauge precisely what “extreme” means. In the end I decided to use what I will call a g-ratio, which I defined as (i-ratio + 10) / (n-ratio + 10). Adding the small buffer of 10 to either side of the fraction was intended to help the higher ranked Kanji have a presence while maintaining a solid bias to low-ranked Kanji which are still commonly used that have significantly advanced their i-rank beyond their n-rank.

I will choose to exclude any Kanji with n-rank ≤ 1,000 from the data despite the fact that many of the extrema lie beyond this point. The reason for this is that I believe it wouldn’t be very interesting to look at n-rank i-rank imbalances in very obscure Kanji, which can be too prone to biases in the subreddit data (i.e. Kanji for which adding or excluding a few small highly-themed subreddits could greatly change their results).

With this definition, a very high g-ratio indicates high i-like extremity and a very low g-ratio means a high n-like extremity. Here are a subset of the Jōyō Kanji with the lowest g-ratio:

Many of the lowest g-ratio positions are filled by the numeral Kanji, (十,五,九,六,四,七,三,八,二). Undoubtedly this is because the use of arabic numerals has taken over representation of numbers over the internet. However, the Kanji for one (一) is notably not in this list because it is still commonly used in meaningful compounds. Moreover, the Kanji for two (二) has the highest g-ratio of the numerals in this list, which I believe is due to the same reason (common compounds include 二人 and 二度と).

There are also many Kanji associated with politics and/or geography, for example:

国: Country
区: District
市: City
政: Government
党: Political party

We see that many of these Jōyō Kanji (often taught in earlier grades) have an essential role in the context of society, but are not as widely used - an obvious analogy would be the teaching of geography and government in English-speaking elementary schools.

Dominating the high end of the spectrum are the two Kanji 曲 (song) and 音 (sound). 音 rose from an n-rank of 491 to an i-rank of 4 while 曲 astoundingly climbed from an n-rank of 810 all the way to the i-rank of number one!

This is a roundabout indication that music makes up a huge subculture within Japanese subreddits; in fact, this was immediately clear from the fact that there are a few relatively popular subs dedicated to certain musical groups (for example, /r/lovelive_ja). This presumption is strengthened further by noting that characters not far from the top 27 include 歌 (song, to sing) and 楽 (component in the compound meaning music).

Further down from the two musical titans include 動 and 画 (together 動画; animation), which could attest for the less pervasive but still present anime/television/film community. Perhaps SnK was not popular enough to have a presence on its own, but combined with all of its fellow entertainment media, they create the second largest (visible) community on reddit.

The g-ratio charts I have generated do seem to suggest that the more prominent narratives in newspapers are politics, geography and work whereas they shift towards entertainment on the internet. I wonder if the same can be said for english-speaking subreddits…

But that’s another discussion, for another day.

List of Kanji in i-rank sequential order here: Internet Kanji

It is important to keep in mind that these characters, paired together with different compound characters, have a multitude of different meanings which may have little relevance to the definitions I’ve provided. So the reasons for each ranking I’ve conjectured could be completely misplaced, and actually be because of something else entirely which I’ve overlooked. That’s just another feature of Japanese - and pretty much every other language - that characters on their own can only tell you so much without context.

Notice that 4 data points are missing - these 4 points represent Kanji that are neither n-like nor i-like; they have n-rank = i-rank, which I will refer to as being k-like. The four k-like Kanji are 世 (134), 元 (191), 件 (211) and 憎 (1807). Note that, for reasons stated before (inflation of rank), this is a pretty meaningless category but I nevertheless have added it in for fun. ↩
Indeed, combined with the fact that two of the three Kanji with zero i-rank have nonzero n-rank, if one were to count they would expect to see those as 98 - 2 = 96 black (zero n-rank) characters from table 1 of this post, which is correct. ↩