This week’s Kanji Disassembled is a word that is tightly related to comics or more correctly, mangas as they were usually called by us. In my opinion, they’re among the best known export assets from Japan and its also a huge industry. I dare to say that most of us, here in Indonesia, are susceptible if you don’t want to call it ‘victimized’ to its influence. Alas, if you asked me, it is quite a sad thing as well, considering that some of our youngsters are drowned into this influence so deep they had adopted this culture as if they were regretting to be born this far south. I mean, it is one thing to learn Japanese and tried to hone your skills in it every once in a while, but it is another thing entirely to denominate your daily purchase in Yen even if you’re living in a place where only Rupiahs are mattered. Sad.
Anyway, back to the topic, this week’s kanji is “Kaku” or “to draw” or “to sketch.” A skill essential for every comic authors (or oftenly called as mangaka). The skill is very important for mangaka to established a niche market, their niche market, especially in a competition where you had these vast of available choices coming at daily rate. Some of the best mangakas always had their own unique style that sets them apart from their competitors. Adachi Mitsuru, CLAMP, or Fujiko F. Fujio are among the easily known mangakas to recognize from the way they sketched their panels.
From left-to-right, top-to-bottom, this kanji could be divided into three distinct components. Element (1) is actually a shortened version of a kanji character associated with “hand” (more on “hand” in the future to come) and stretching this logic a bit, element (1) could be further associated with “fingers” as it is easy to see “fingers” as a shortened version of a “hand.” Element (3), as already mentioned (albeit vaguely) in a couple of weeks ago column, could be taken to mean as a “rice field” or a “brain.” In this context however, I’ll prefer to go with “brain.”
Element (2) is a top-position kanji element that often appears in kanjis associated with weeds, grass, or any small vegetation. The most recognizable kanji that uses this element is perhaps, in my opinion, in a kanji for “tea.” Further, as this element, as far as I know, is only appears at the top-position, you could take them to mean as “leaves” as well, or even if rather vague, “a seedling” – “a seedling” is how the Heisig method recognize this kanji. Even so, in this context, I’d like it better to associate this element with a verb “to grow”, or “to sprout forth” as in to indicate that something entirely new and different is growing from something. And have you ever seen a vegetation that grows anywhere but up? Even if you do, the generally accepted fact is that a vegetation is always grows upward. Thus, the top-position of this element.
Ergo, taking these reasonings into one, I could envisioned a story to help me remember this kanji. Such as, “In order to made a masterpiece sketches, one must tapped into his brain, envisioning an idea, nurturing it until it sprout forth and transferring those idea to the canvas through his fingers.” Well, at least, this is my story and it helped me a great deal to remember this kanji I was actually writing all this without a momentary glance to my kanji dictionary.
Always choose one story that is “made sense” and you’ll be fine in remembering these characters. “Fingers”, “Seedling”, and “Rice field” are merely a frame to guide you through. The journey should be yours and yours alone.