How it works
These Japanese bubble letters are kana: hiragana and katakana drawn fat, with a black outline and a white middle to color. The page opens on あいうえお, the first row of the kana chart. The fonts hold no kanji.
Read the full guide
Row by row through the chart
The kana chart is a grid of five vowels across ten rows, with 46 kana in use today. After your first download, Kana rows and words holds every row in hiragana and in katakana, from あいうえお to わをん, plus four words: こんにちは, ありがとう, かわいい and にほん.
Four fonts that keep their loops
RocknRoll One, Yusei Magic, Reggae One and Rampart One keep the loops of あ, ぬ and め open under the Bubble look. Two heavier Japanese fonts closed them into blobs and are not offered. Outline draws a thinner edge, and Sticker adds a white border.
- Press Enter between rows. The tool takes four lines, so four rows of the chart fit on one picture.
- Rampart One is an outline font with a shadow built in, so the Bubble look gives its kana a double edge.
Questions and answers
What are Japanese bubble letters?
Kana drawn the way bubble letters are: every stroke fattened, edged in black and left white inside. This page draws hiragana and katakana that way. It does not turn English into Japanese. What you type or tap is what it draws.
How many kana are there to color?
The modern chart has 46 hiragana, and katakana writes the same 46 sounds. The row buttons cover them all: five kana to a row, three in the ya row, and わ, を and ん on the last one.
What do the four Japanese words mean?
こんにちは is the daytime greeting, good day or hello. ありがとう is thank you. かわいい is cute. にほん is Japan, spelled in hiragana here because the fonts hold no kanji.
Why does the last row hold only three kana?
The grid has gaps. The wa row keeps only わ and を today, and ん stands outside the grid as an extra sign, so the three share one button. The ya row has three for the same reason.