Let’s be honest: kanji can be hard.
Some are simple and satisfying to write. But others look like someone dropped a bowl of ramen on the page!
In this post, we’re diving into the hardest, most complicated, and downright ridiculous kanji in Japanese.
Don’t worry – while these are all real kanji, most of them aren’t actually used often (if ever!) in real life.
But they are fun to learn about, and sure to impress your Japanese teacher and friends!
Ready to meet the kanji that even Japanese people avoid?
Let’s go!
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鬱 (utsu) – the hardest kanji in daily use?
If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed trying to learn kanji, this one might be your nemesis.
Utsu (鬱 / うつ) means depression, both as a mental health term, and in the general sense of feeling low.
This fiendish kanji has 29 strokes, which makes it the highest stroke count of all the jōyō kanji (the set of common characters officially used in daily life in Japan).
Do Japanese people actually use it?
Yes! Since it’s one of the jōyō kanji, all Japanese people are expected to know how to read and write this kanji by the end of Junior High School.
However, because it’s so complicated, it’s often written in hiragana (うつ) – especially in informal writing.
You may see 鬱 in words like:
- Utsubyou (鬱病 / うつびょう) – clinical depression
- Utsu ni naru (鬱になる / うつになる) – to fall into depression, to feel blue
- Uttoushii (鬱陶しい / うっとうしい) – gloomy, depressing; irritating, annoying
I would say 鬱 is the most complicated kanji you are actually likely to encounter in daily life.
薔薇 (bara)
Bara (薔薇 / ばら) means rose: the flower of love, beauty… and kanji nightmares!
This word is a kanji compound (i.e., a word made of two or more kanji characters together). It’s made up of two complex characters, with a whopping 32 strokes between them.
Neither of the component kanji, 薔 and 薇, are used commonly on their own. They basically exist only to write the word bara.
Do people really use this kanji?
Yes – but not always!
Most Japanese people can read this kanji. But since it’s so complicated, it’s most commonly written in katakana instead as バラ.
However, 薔薇 is used occasionally for aesthetic flair!
You might see it:
- On fancy packaging or menus
- In flower shop names
- In manga or novels
… and so on. Basically, it’s a matter of style.
檸檬 (remon)
Here’s another compound word for when you want to be extra fancy. 檸檬 is the kanji for remon (lemon) – and it’s made up of 35 strokes in total.
Luckily, most people stick with the katakana version: レモン.
Do Japanese people really use these kanji?
Not really.
In Japan, lemon is almost always written in katakana: レモン. It’s short, easy, and instantly understood.
But as with the kanji form of ‘rose’, sometimes it is used when people want to be extra fancy or aesthetic.
Now and then, you might spot the kanji 檸檬…
- On elegant product packaging (like lemon-scented perfumes or expensive cakes)
- In literature (like the famous 1924 short story 檸檬 by Kajii Motojirō)
- As a quirky or vintage aesthetic choice
In those cases, using kanji gives the word an old-fashioned, refined, or poetic feel.
All the kanji we’ve looked at so far are characters that you might actually come across in Japan – even if they are pretty rare.
Now, let’s get into some truly crazy kanji. These characters exist pretty much just as an oddity – but we love them for their weirdness!
齉 (bi)
Have you ever been so stuffed up with a cold that you could barely breathe?
There’s a kanji for that!
Bi (齉 / び) means a blocked nose. It’s when you’re extremely congested and can’t breathe properly.
It’s not just a feeling… it’s a full-on 36-stroke kanji, making it one of the most complicated characters in the Japanese language.
Is 齉 actually used in Japanese?
Hardly ever!
This kanji is not part of the jōyō kanji, so you’ll basically never see it in daily life. Most Japanese people don’t even know about it.
Instead, if someone wants to say they have a blocked nose, they’d just say something like hana ga tsumatteiru (鼻が詰まっている) – my nose is blocked.
So 齉 is more of a kanji collector’s oddity. Something to pull out if you want to impress (or confuse) someone!
𰻞 (biang)
So you thought 鬱 or 齉 were bad? Let me introduce you to the king of complex kanji: 𰻞 (biang).
This is a non-standard Chinese character with an insane 57 strokes. It’s used in the name of a type of noodle from Shaanxi province in China: biangbiang noodles.
In Japanese, the dish is usually written in katakana as ビャンビャン麺 (biangbiang men). But sometimes, just to show off, you’ll see the full Chinese version: 𰻞𰻞麺.
It’s not in any official kanji list. Neither Japanese nor standard Chinese dictionaries include it. The character is thought to be made up especially for the dish.
Do people actually use it?
Basically, no.
Most Japanese restaurants that serve this dish go with ビャンビャン麺, which is far easier to type, read and write.
But the kanji 𰻞 has become famous online and in pop culture as a kind of “ultimate boss-level kanji”!
You might come across it in articles, quizzes and so on. But it’s safe to say, you could happily live in Japan without ever having to learn this kanij!
Want to master the most ridiculous kanji ever?
Download our free stroke order worksheet for 𰻞 – the legendary 57-stroke character!
Sure, you’ll never need to write it in real life. But it’s great for practising stroke order, and it also makes a super cool party trick to impress your Japanese teacher or friends!
The worksheet teaches the three characters to spell out 𰻞𰻞麺 (biang biang men / biang biang noodles) with stroke order guidance.
Ready for the ultimate kanji challenge?
Taito
Get ready to meet the most complicated kanji of all time. In fact, it’s so complicated that my computer can’t even render this character, so you’ll have to refer to the image above instead!
It’s pronounced taito (or daito, or otodo) and means “appearance of a dragon in flight”.
And it’s written with a completely ridiculous 84 strokes in total. No, that’s not a typo!
If you break this kanji down into parts, you’ll notice that it’s made of 3 雲 (kumo – cloud) above 3 龍 (ryuu – dragon). Hence, the image of the dragon in flight. Pretty cool, right?
So, is taito actually used?
Not really. This kanji is so rare, it’s not even included in Japanese or Chinese character sets.
It’s basically just a fun piece of kanji trivia. It pops up every now and then on Japanese variety shows, and in articles about difficult kanji or oddities of the Japanese language.
The character is said to be a Japanese surname. Apparently, it appeared in a 1964 surname dictionary and a 1977 dictionary of names.
However, I could not find any evidence of anyone actually using that name! And how could they, if it can’t even be typed?
Some people think it came about as a ghost word. This is when a word that doesn’t actually exist is published in a dictionary by error.
But strangely enough, in recent years, some noodle shops and other businesses have started using it as a novelty. And the ghost word has become real!
Kanji you’ll actually use
Japanese learners, be thankful: most kanji you’ll come across are nowhere near as outrageous as the ones in this list!
These characters are much harder than anything you’d use in daily life.
But that’s what makes them fun!
Whether you’re here to impress your friends, fuel your trivia brain, or just giggle at the idea of a blocked-nose kanji, I hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the most ridiculous kanji out there.
Want to learn some actually useful kanji, the smart and easy way?
Check out this free ebook. It breaks kanji down into radicals (the smaller parts that make up all kanji) so that you can actually remember them in a way that makes sense.
What’s the weirdest or hardest kanji you know? Share in the comments!
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Rebecca is the founder of Team Japanese. She spent two years teaching English in Ehime, Japan. Now back in the UK, she spends her time blogging, self-studying Japanese and wrangling a very genki toddler.