To say there are a lot of anime characters out there would be an understatement. Each passing year welcomes new characters to the medium, and those hundreds of heroes join an ever-expanding line-up of ...

TOKYO (AP) — Hello Kitty, whom many learned last week is a girl and not a cat, may be the queen of Japan's cute characters, but she's hardly the only one. There are thousands, and they are ubiquitous: ...

A survey by Japanese anime fans breaks down the top 10 most popular shrine maiden characters -- and Inuyasha fans win big ...

Seihan Mori, chief Buddhist priest at Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto, writes the Chinese "mitsu", meaning "congested" or "dense", as the character was selected as the single best kanji symbolising the ...

Japanese anime, manga, and game characters sometimes have blond hair. Sometimes they have blue eyes. But, that’s merely cosmetic, no? There must be some sort of analysis that cuts closer to the bone.

Japan’s Kanji of the Year 2025 is 熊 (bear). Here’s why it won, what it says about Japan.

Anime is for kids? Think again. As you grew older, perhaps you felt the need to “put away childish things”, as the verse from Corinthians admonishes us to do. You graduated from picture books to ...

Hello Kitty, whom many learned last week is a girl and not a cat, may be the queen of Japan’s cute characters, but she’s hardly the only one. There are thousands, and they are ubiquitous: Long-time ...