Kyūjitai–Shinjitai Converter

CONVERTER JAPAN REFERENCE
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By Checked against sources by , Founder & Architect, RECATOOLS Published Updated Last reviewed

Convert Japanese text between old character forms (旧字体, kyūjitai) and the modern ones (新字体, shinjitai) of the Jōyō list.

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Kyūjitai–Shinjitai Converter

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📅 Research current as of 14 Oct 2026 · Sources: Unicode Han Database (Unihan), Unicode 18.0.0: kJapaneseNewVariant and kJapaneseOldVariant (provisional, new in 18.0) and kJinmeiyoKanji; the 2010 常用漢字表 (平成22年内閣告示第2号), whose bracketed 康熙字典体 these 364 pairs match.
Standards, published formulas, and reference data are revised over time — check against a current authoritative source before relying on these figures.

Character pairs from the Unicode Han Database, Unicode 18.0.0, © Unicode, Inc., used under the Unicode License v3. Everything runs in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere.

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How to use the kyūjitai–shinjitai converter

1
Paste Japanese text

Anything from a single character to a page. Kana, Latin letters, numbers and characters outside the list are left exactly as they are.

2
Choose a direction

Old forms to new (國學 → 国学) for reading or quoting pre-war text in modern script, or new to old (国学 → 國學) for the opposite. Going back to old forms needs more care: a few new forms were already characters of their own, so the page asks you to check those rather than guess.

3
See what changed

Changed characters are highlighted, with the original shown on hover. Going back to old forms, an old form that is on the given-names list is underlined twice, and one stored as a compatibility character is underlined with dots.

4
Check the meaning where the page asks

弁 replaced three different old characters — 辨, 辯 and 瓣 — and 余, 欠, 芸, 予 and 缶 were already separate characters before the reform. The page leaves these as written and shows the old form; only the meaning of your text decides.

5
Copy the result

The converted text, ready to paste.

The 364 old forms printed beside the Jōyō kanji

Japanese writing today uses simplified character forms — 国, 学, 桜 — where text printed before the post-war reforms used older, fuller ones: 國, 學, 櫻. The old forms are called 旧字体 (kyūjitai), the new ones 新字体 (shinjitai). Old books and many names still carry the old forms, so moving between the two is a common need for anyone reading older Japanese.

Where the list comes from

The 2010 Jōyō kanji list, the 常用漢字表 issued as a Cabinet notice, sets out 2,136 characters for general use. Beside many of them it prints a second form in brackets: the 康熙字典体, the form of the classic Kangxi dictionary. The list says these are added for reference, to show the link with the typefaces used since the Meiji era, and that forms which differ only slightly are left out. There are 364 of them. Unicode added that same set of pairs to its character database in version 18.0, released in 2026, and this page converts by exactly that list — nothing more, so it never invents an old form that the list does not give. Neither form is wrong: the list itself says it does not reject the characters used in past writing.

When going back to old forms needs a reader

Converting old to new is always one answer: each old form has one new form. The other direction is not. The new character 弁 stands for three old ones with different meanings — 辨 (to distinguish), 辯 (speech, argument) and 瓣 (a petal or valve). 弁当 and 雄弁 do not go back to the same old character, so the page will not guess: it leaves 弁 as written and shows the three.

A few other new forms were already characters of their own before the reform. 余 (I, me) stood beside 餘 (surplus), and 芸 (a herb, rue) beside 藝 (art). The Jōyō list brackets one old form for each, but a text may mean the older character: 余は猫である uses the pronoun, not “surplus”. The page leaves 余, 欠, 芸, 予 and 缶 as written and shows their bracketed old forms 餘, 缺, 藝, 豫 and 罐 for you to choose. Three of those pairs, 予/豫, 欠/缺 and 缶/罐, are still encoded as separate characters in the mainland Chinese GB 2312 set, and all five have separate entries in the Kangxi dictionary.

Old forms that look like the new ones

For 62 of the 364 pairs, Unicode treats the new form and its bracketed old form as one character, and stores the old shape as a compatibility character kept for round-trip with other character sets — 侮’s old form is U+FA30. Unicode’s normalisation rule maps each of these straight back to the new form, and many databases, search engines and web forms normalise what you paste. In many fonts the two also look identical. The page converts them and marks them with a dotted underline, so check after copying that the old shape is still there if it matters.

Old forms in names

A child’s given name may be written only with Jōyō kanji, the separate list of characters for names (人名用漢字), and hiragana or katakana. The family-register rules say so in article 60, and for a Jōyō kanji with a bracketed old form they allow only the form outside the brackets. A bracketed old form is therefore not usable in a given name on that basis alone. Of the 364 old forms, 204 are on the names list in their own right — 櫻, 龍 and 廣 among them — so they may be used. The other 160 cannot be used in a newly registered given name. When converting new to old, the page marks the 204.

Chinese readers in Singapore and Malaysia

Many of the old Japanese forms are the same characters that traditional Chinese uses: 國, 學, 體. A reader who learnt simplified Chinese in school meets three systems at once in Japanese text — the Chinese simplified form, the Japanese new form and the old form — and they do not always line up: 国 and 学 match, but 広 and 广 do not. Nor is the old form always the traditional Chinese one. Of the 302 pairs that Unicode encodes as separate characters, 17 have Japan’s new form, not the old one, in Big5, the encoding long used in Taiwan and Hong Kong: 為 rather than 爲, 真 rather than 眞. Converting those to old forms moves away from what Big5 encodes.

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Why 弁 cannot go back to one old form, and the 204 old kanji allowed in given names

01

The 2010 Jōyō list prints 364 old forms (康熙字典体) in brackets beside the modern characters.

02

62 of the 364 old forms are stored by Unicode as compatibility characters, which normalisation turns back into the new form.

03

Forms that differ only slightly from the modern character are left out of the brackets.

04

弁 replaced three different old characters: 辨, 辯 and 瓣.

05

Every one of the 364 new forms is on the Jōyō list.

06

204 of the 364 old forms are on the 人名用漢字 list, so they may be used in given names; the other 160 may not.

07

國 → 国, 學 → 学, 櫻 → 桜, 龍 → 竜 and 龜 → 亀 are all among the 364.

08

Unicode added these old–new pairs to its character database in version 18.0, released in 2026, marked provisional.

09

In the official PDF of the 2010 list, the bracketed form of 亀 is printed as an image rather than a character.

10

The Jōyō list contains 2,136 characters in all.

Frequently asked questions

  • Kyūjitai (旧字体) are the older, fuller forms of Japanese kanji, such as 國 and 學. Shinjitai (新字体) are the simplified forms used today, such as 国 and 学.

  • The 364 pairs the 2010 Jōyō list prints in brackets — the old forms it gives as reference beside the modern characters. Characters outside that list are left as they are.

  • Because 弁 replaced three different old characters — 辨, 辯 and 瓣 — with different meanings. The page leaves 弁 as written and lists the three so you can choose.

  • Underlined twice: those old forms are on the list of characters allowed in given names, the 人名用漢字, so they may be used in given names. 204 of the 364 are. A bracketed old form that is not on that list cannot be used in a newly registered given name. Underlined with dots: compatibility characters, explained below.

  • Each was already a separate character before the reform: 余 (I, me) beside 餘 (surplus), 芸 (rue) beside 藝 (art), and likewise 欠/缺, 予/豫 and 缶/罐. The Jōyō list brackets one old form for each, but your text may mean the older character, so the page leaves it and shows the old form for you to choose.

  • For 62 of the 364 pairs, Unicode stores the old shape as a compatibility character, and many fonts draw it the same as the new form. Unicode normalisation, which many databases, search engines and web forms apply, also turns it back into the new form after you paste. The page marks these with a dotted underline.

  • It is not one of the 364 bracketed forms. The Jōyō list leaves out old forms that differ only slightly, and it covers only Jōyō characters: a character outside the list never had an official new form. Variants that are on the names list but not in the brackets, such as 嶋 and 冨, are outside it too. A character followed by a variation selector is also left as written.

  • No. Japanese and Chinese simplified differently. 国 and 学 happen to match, but 広 (Japanese) and 广 (Chinese) do not. Nor is every Japanese old form the traditional Chinese one: Big5, the encoding long used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, has 為 and 真 but not the Japanese old forms 爲 and 眞. Use a Chinese converter for Chinese text.

  • From the Unicode Han Database (Unihan), Unicode 18.0.0, whose Japanese old and new variant fields match the 364 bracketed forms of the 2010 Jōyō list. The fields are new in 18.0 and marked provisional.

  • Yes — paste up to about 10,000 characters (the box counts a few rare characters as two). Everything that is not one of the 364 characters passes through unchanged.

  • It converts the characters, but a name is written however its owner writes it. Use the result as a guide, not as the official spelling of a person's or company's name.

  • No. The table is downloaded to your browser and the conversion happens there.

Method & sources

How it computes

Pairs are Unihan 18.0.0 kJapaneseNewVariant/kJapaneseOldVariant: the 364 康熙字典体 bracketed in the 2010 常用漢字表. Old to new is one answer. New to old leaves 弁 (辨 辯 瓣) and a hand-checked list (余 欠 芸 予 缶) as written with the old form as a choice. 62 old forms are compatibility ideographs that NFC maps back; they are marked. kJinmeiyoKanji marks the 204 old forms on the names list.

What this tool implements

  • Measured against the text of the 2010 常用漢字表 PDF: the 364 pairs are exactly its bracketed 康熙字典体; 弁's three old forms, 餅 (餠) and 亀 (龜, printed as an image in the PDF) were checked by hand.
  • Old to new is a function; new to old is not. 弁 replaced three old characters, and 余/餘, 欠/缺, 芸/藝, 予/豫 and 缶/罐 pair a new form that was already a separate character — GB 2312 still encodes 予/豫, 欠/缺 and 缶/罐 as two characters, and all five have separate Kangxi entries (Unihan kKangXi). The page leaves these as written with the old form as a choice. The list is hand-curated: 虫/蟲 and 糸/絲 are not on it because Unihan defines both halves alike.
  • 62 of the 364 old forms are CJK Compatibility Ideographs whose canonical decomposition is the paired new form, so Unicode normalisation turns them back; the page marks and counts them. A character followed by a variation selector is left as written with its selector.
  • Names: 戸籍法施行規則 article 60 allows the form outside the brackets of a Jōyō kanji, the names table and kana; the page says a bracketed old form is usable in a given name only if the names list carries it (204 of 364).
  • The fields are provisional in Unicode 18.0; the page says so. Corrected 2026-10-14: 余, 欠, 芸, 予 and 缶 were silently converted to old forms; compatibility ideographs were not marked; a variation selector was carried onto a different character.

Sources

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