âYou know a lot of big words.â â Determining Shigeoâs Kanji Literacy
An analysis in four parts:
Jouyou kanji and Japanâs compulsory education system, explained.ďżź
An introduction to the analysisâwhat I did and why I did it.
A presentation of data, evidence, and counterarguments.
The truth revealed: can Shigeo write a reasonable amount of kanji for his age group?
Jouyou kanji and Japanâs compulsory education system, explained
Let us begin this analysis by establishing a basic understanding of how Japanâs education system is structured.
As you may already know, only elementary school and middle school are compulsory in Japan, meaning that high school and college are completely optional. Therefore, compulsory education in Japan consists of grades 1-9, with grades 1-6 being ĺ°ĺŚć Ą (primary school) and grades 7-9 being ä¸ĺŚć Ą (middle school).
The term ă常ç¨ćź˘ĺă(jouyou kanji, âDaily-Use Kanjiâ) refers to a list of 2136 kanji that the Japanese Ministry of Education requires be taught throughout education grades in Japan due to their importance and frequency of use in Japanese daily life. Knowing all 2136 is defined by the Japanese government as the baseline for basic, functional literacy in Japanese. The jouyou kanji list is further divided into two sub-categories: ăćč˛ćź˘ĺă(kyouiku kanji, âEducation Kanjiâ) and ăä¸ĺŚăťéŤć Ąćź˘ĺă(chuugaku ⢠koukou kanji, âSecondary School Kanjiâ).
ćč˛ćź˘ĺ (kyouiku kanji, âEducation Kanjiâ) (A.K.A. ĺŚĺš´ĺĽćź˘ĺé ĺ˝čĄ¨ [gakunenbetsu kanji haitouhyou, âlist of kanji by school yearâ]) is the Japanese term for the 1006 kanji that are taught over the 6 years of primary school in Japan, grouped into different grade levels by difficulty and complexity.
ăä¸ĺŚăťéŤć Ąćź˘ĺă(chuugaku ⢠koukou kanji, âSecondary School Kanjiâ) is the term for the 1130 kanji that students are expected to learn throughout middle school and high school. This list of kanji is not strictly divided by grade level, though a general grade level is often provided, because students in secondary schoolâwhether it be middle or highâare expected to learn kanji more independently. Though the responsibility of learning these kanji is shifted from the classroom to the individual, the importance of knowing these kanji by the end of oneâs education, if that be middle school or high school, cannot be overstated. Once again, these 2136 kanji are considered the basics of Japanese kanji fluency.
According to the âKanji Frequency Number Survey/柢ĺé ťĺşŚć°čŞżćťâ conducted by the National Cultural Affairs Division in 2000, in 385 books published by a major publishing company, 8474 different kanji were used (not including duplicates). However, speakers are able to understand 99% of them if they know the top 2457 kanji, and 99.9% of them if they know the top 4208 kanji. And as is true for speakers of every other language, people can generally read more words than they can write.
I determined the âgrade levelâ of each kanji in this analysis according to the grade level provided in my Japanese-English dictionaries, but consideration will be made for Secondary School Kanji due to the lack of official grade divisions and the less organized circumstances involved with learning them.
An introduction to the analysisâwhat I did and why I did it
In this analysis, I focused specifically on Shigeoâs ability to write kanji, not to read them. This is most obviously because itâs much harder to determine whether or not someone can actually read something, especially in anime, without it being explicitly mentioned. However, it is also because the meaning of kanji can be inferred from knowing the meaning of radicals, and as mentioned above, it is common for people to be able to read more words than they can write. The true mark of knowing a kanji is being able to write it.
To determine Shigeoâs kanji-writing ability, I studied screenshots from a few scenes from the anime, specifically a couple of scenes from the Reigen OVA where Shigeo is writing a LOT, and a couple scenes from the regular anime where Shigeo is explicitly seen writing stuff down and the audience is shown the writing.
The data has been organized into two different excel chartsâone for kanji he uses correctly, and one for kanji he doesnât know or messes up. The kanji in each of these charts have been color-coded and organized by grade level, with readings, translations, and explanations provided. There is only one kanji in the entire analysis that is not considered a part of the jouyou kanji, and this kanji has been marked by âN/Aâ in the grade level section.
I will provide each chart alongside a percentage likelihood that Mob will know any given kanji from each grade level based on the information gathered from the anime. Please note that the sample size is obviously limited, but Iâm working with what I have. If there is a kanji with some sort of detail worth consideration, Iâve marked it with a (**) in the chart and will explain below.
Lastly, I included kanji used in names in the chart here after some deliberation. Name kanji are tricky in general, because multiple kanji share the same pronunciation and people usually donât know what kanji are used in someoneâs name unless they are shown by that person (unless itâs some crazy common name like éŤç° or 棎 or ç°ä¸).
A presentation of data, evidence, and counterarguments.
Shigeoâs known kanji:
Shigeoâs unknown kanji:
IMPORTANT NOTE: There are one or two instances of Shigeo NOT using a kanji at all that Iâve decided not to include on the chart. This is because it is common for Japanese speakers to omit kanji for super common verbs and write them in kana instead, either for personal style reasons or for convenience. Since the verbs are so fundamental and commonly-used, itâs unlikely that they will be misunderstood or mistaken for another word if written in kana. So, if Shigeo wrote the verb for âto readâ or âto eatâ without using kanji, I didnât include it, as I highly highly highly doubt he doesnât know those kanji and I felt like it would unfairly skew the results against him.
çął** = I donât blame Shigeo for not knowing this kanji. Itâs fair to assume that Mob might not have seen Mezatoâs name written out and therefore wouldnât know which kanji to use. On TOP of that, âmeâ for çął is a special nanori (used for names only) reading and is super obscure and uncommon. I couldnât even find it in my name dictionary by searching âMezatoâ, I had to find her name written in kanji in S1E3 and go from there. I wouldnât expect this kanji to be in anyoneâs top ten possible kanji guesses for the âmeâ in âmezatoâ. I included it because rules are rules, but wanted to mention this to make it fairer on the boy.
ä¸** = I want to make it known that Shigeo does successfully write this kanji in the image shown here, when he writes ăä¸ç´ă(century):
HOWEVER. However. He messed it up SO BAD before that I think it actually overpowers him using it correctly and brings it back around to a ânot properly knownâ kanji, especially because itâs a kanji taught in second grade that he shouldnât be messing up at all:
The subtitles intersect it but Iâve rewritten what Shigeo wrote there at the bottom. He tried to write ăä¸ăŽä¸ăŤăŻăâIn the worldâŚâ, but tried to write the kanji, messed up, crossed it out, and then rewrote it in kana. Didnât even try to write it a second time. This is egregious and, in my jurorâs power, cancels out his later usage. This would be like misspelling âworldâ in English. Iâm willing to entertain arguments that he just wanted to write it in kana for some reason, but as it is now, I donât think that excuse is compelling enough against such damning evidence, so in âmissed kanjiâ it goes. (Itâs partly cut off but what gets me is that it doesnât even look wrong in the first place lol but if he crossed it out, it means he didnât know it well enough, which allowed him to doubt, which is still damning enough.)
é ** = Just like above, Shigeo actually does successfully use this kanji once in the show when heâs filling out his paperwork for the Body Improvement Club in S1E2 (forgive my awful kanji, itâs hard to draw on the phone lol): ďżź
However, that was not only on an official school document, it was also in the presence of a student council member and Saruta (#2 in the grade lol) so I have to assume he either asked someone for help or got corrected. Either way, the instance where he doesnât use the kanji is when heâs in his bedroom alone, writing in his personal notebookâa much more casual environment, and one that takes place AFTER s1e2 (canât argue he learned it):
This leads me to believe that Shigeo does not naturally know the kanji, as he canât reproduce it in casual day-to-day or when alone.
ç** = This kanji is not only not included in the jouyou kanji, but it is also used in an obscure word. In fact, it took me a minute to locate it in my Japanese-English dictionary app. It is absolutely not reasonable to expect Shigeo to know this kanji off the top of his head, and he probably wouldnât know it even if he were a kanji ace. It is included and working against him, however, because the kanji he initially tried to write in its place was ăĺă, a.k.a. the kanji for YEN/ÂĽ:
Sure, ăăăăis a reading forăĺă, that part makes sense. But ăçľçămeans âthe finals years in oneâs lifeâ, so Iâm really struggling to understand why Mob would think the yen money kanji would be a part of that word and why he would try to write it with that kanji instead of just writing it in kana first, like the majority of the kanji he didnât know. Itâs truly an enigma to me. Iâm bewildered he even tried that, and for that, Iâm holding it against him.
BASIC STATS:
GRADE 1 KANJI:
- Total known: 17
- Total unknown: 0
- Grand total: 17
- Shigeo knows: 17 out of 17
- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 1 kanji: 100%
GRADE 2 KANJI:
- Total known: 16
- Total unknown: 3
- Grand total: 19
- Shigeo knows: 16 out of 19
- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 2 kanji: 84.2%
GRADE 3 KANJI:
- Total known: 13
- Total unknown: 6
- Grand total: 19
- Shigeo knows: 13 out of 19
- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 3 kanji: 68.4%
GRADE 4 KANJI:
- Total known: 11
- Total unknown: 0
- Grand total: 11
- Shigeo knows: 11 out of 11
- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 4 kanji: 100%
(Baby apparently had a great year in fourth grade.)
GRADE 5 KANJI:
- Total known: 3
- Total unknown: 4
- Grand total: 7
- Shigeo knows: 3 out of 7
- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 5 kanji: 43.9%
GRADE 6 KANJI:
- Total known: 0
- Total unknown: 2
- Grand total: 2
- Shigeo knows: 0 out of 2
- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 6 kanji: 0%
đ
GRADE 7 KANJI:
(No known or unknown 7th grade kanji found)
GRADE 8 KANJI
- Total known: 5
- Total unknown: 6
- Grand total: 11
- Shigeo knows: 5 out of 11
- Percentage likelihood of Shigeo knowing a grade 8 kanji: 45.5%
^ To Shigeoâs credit, this isnât bad at all considering heâs only halfway through his eight grade year at this point in the story.
% OF JOUYOU KANJI SHIGEO KNOWS:
% known from observed data:
65/86
75.6%
# of jouyou kanji: 2136
75.6% of 2136 = 1615 jouyou kanji
Hereâs a graph for your visualizing pleasure:
Finally:
(All values are rounded up)
There are 1006 kyouiku kanji. There are 1130 secondary school kanji. Because high school in Japan is not compulsory, weâll assume that the secondary kanji are to be learned over the three years of middle school. That means about 377 words per middle school grade. If Shigeo is halfway through eighth grade, letâs say he should generally know 1006 + 377 + (377/2) kanji, which comes out to 1,572.
There are 80 kyouiku kanji assigned to first grade, which Shigeo should know 100% ofâ80 total.
There are 160 kyouiku kanji assigned to second grade, which Shigeo should know 84.2% ofâ135 total.
There are 200 kanji assigned to third grade, which Shigeo should know 68.4% ofâ137 total.
There are 200 kanji assigned to fourth grade, which Shigeo should know 100% ofâ200 total.
There are 185 kanji assigned to fifth grade, which Shigeo should know 43.9% ofâ81 total.
There are 181 kanji assigned to sixth grade, which Shigeo should know⌠0% ofâŚ. 0 total.
This all totals out to:
80 + 135 + 137 + 200 + 81 + 0 = 633/1006 elementary school-level kanji. Thatâs 63% of the kanji required for elementary school.
(Didnât include a calculation for middle school kanji due to having 0 data on seventh-grade kanji and also him being halfway through eighth.)
The truth revealed: can Shigeo write a reasonable amount of kanji for his age group?
Uh⌠no. Maybe? Well⌠probably not, no.
I mean, of course there are flaws with my methods. I had a super small sample group and applied the stats there to all of the jouyou kanji, which is almost guaranteed to be lower than reality. I just didnât really have another choice. Also, Iâm very certain that Shigeo MUST know some 6th grade kanji, even if in the results here I considered the probability to be 0%. Thatâs assuredly not accurate. There were just, by chance, only two instances of sixth-grade kanji in all of the sample writing and he happened not to know either of them. This is just for fun, anyway. I can say with confidence, though, that he certainly isnât a writer, and he definitely knows less kanji than the average eighth grader, but I wouldnât take my numbers for anything more than entertainment.
But yeah. Shigeo isâŚ. a little kanji-impaired. Which explains why he struggled with Emiâs writing and is only ever seen reading Shounen Jump volumes lmao. I believe in him though. He makes it work. My illiterate king. Who needs the other half of your elementary sight-words anyway?
All jokes aside though, he really started to scare me with the ä¸ and ĺ things đđđđđ
