Kanji Finder — Draw, Search & Look Up Kanji

How the Handwritten Kanji Search Works

When you draw in the box, the finder compares your strokes against reference patterns for more than 2,200 kanji — every jōyō ("regular use") character and the most common beyond them. Matching happens in two passes: a coarse pass filters by stroke count and overall shape, then a fine pass scores stroke directions and positions to rank the best candidates. Because scoring is stroke-order tolerant, you don't need textbook-perfect calligraphy — a recognizable shape with roughly the right number of strokes is enough.

Unlike older handwritten kanji lookup sites that send every stroke to a server for processing, recognition here runs entirely in your browser. That makes it faster after the first load, it keeps working on a flaky connection, and your drawings never leave your device.

Find Kanji by Radical

Every kanji is assembled from smaller components — radicals (部首, bushu). If you can spot even one or two parts of an unknown character, the Radicals tab will find it: tap the components you recognize and the finder intersects the lists, narrowing thousands of kanji down to a handful in a couple of taps. Components that can no longer appear together with your selection are automatically greyed out, and a stroke-count filter narrows things further. The decomposition data covers 6,000+ kanji across 253 radicals.

Kanji Lookup by Reading or Meaning

Already know how a kanji is pronounced, or what it means? The Search tab looks up characters by English meaning ("water"), romaji ("mizu"), or kana (みず) — and you can paste a kanji directly to jump straight to its card. Results are ranked by how common each character is, so the kanji you're most likely looking for appears first.