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Watch this renowned Japanese calligrapher effortlessly write “the hardest kanji ever”【Video】

Scott Wilson Sep 28, 2017
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She makes all 56 strokes look easy.

When looking up the most difficult kanji of all time, there’s one character that constantly pops up: biang. As you may guess from its pronunciation, it’s not a Japanese character, but a Chinese-only one, and it’s rarely ever used. In fact, the only times we’ve ever seen it are on signs for “biang biang noodles,” and as a punishment for being late to class.

But Bisen Aoyagi, a 27-year-old master Japanese calligrapher, recently posted a video of her showing that writing biang doesn’t have to be a punishment, it can be a pleasure.

▼ It takes her a full minute to write the single character,
a longer time than most sentences take to write.

最も複雑と言われる漢字の一つ。
中国の漢字です( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ！
「ビィアン」と読みます。麺の種類のひとつで「ビャンビャン麺」と呼ばれる麺を漢字で書く場合に使われるようです(^ ^)！美扇筆ー半紙用ーを使用してます。 pic.twitter.com/GXMxPCmBro

— 書道家/VR書道アーティスト青柳美扇あおやぎびせん (@aoyagibisen) September 25, 2017

All we can really say after watching that is, wow. Each stroke is written with precision and confidence, making all the little details of the character pop out of the page, almost giving the final product a life of its own.

And it takes an experienced calligrapher to pull that off, which Bisen Aoyagi certainly is. She’s given calligraphy performances all over Japan and other countries for big companies like Mazda, and her work has appeared in many expositions like JAPANEXPO. She’s also amassed a huge online following, with over 100,000 fans between her social media accounts.

But great art inspires imitation, and seeing the complicated kanji written so beautifully inspired some other netizens to try their hand at writing biang themselves:

▼ A cool stylized one written in ball-point pen.

https://twitter.com/iiutakimagure/status/912742161258496000

▼ A “normal” version written in single lines.
You should try writing it yourself too and see how you do!

https://twitter.com/Lee_Freud/status/912689742373838848

▼ As cool as the pen ones are, we have to say, doing it with a
brush and ink is a lot harder, as this brave netizen shows us.

https://twitter.com/hara_physics/status/912657107651936258

But Bisen Aoyagi isn’t just all about writing biang. She’s tweeted many other gorgeous works of calligraphy art that she’s created. Here’s just a few recent ones:

▼ This kanji kagayaku (“to shine”) has such great
speed and flow to it, it’s like a beam of light itself.

https://twitter.com/aoyagibisen/status/892744996842987521

▼ Just looking at this kanji natsu (“summer”), with its red color and slightly
sweaty texture, makes us remember the hot temperatures from a few months ago.

夏ーSUMMERー

今日も暑い〜 pic.twitter.com/pJJiE9Vv6P

— 書道家/VR書道アーティスト青柳美扇あおやぎびせん (@aoyagibisen) July 25, 2017

Calligraphy doesn’t always have to be big. Here she is writing kyōfu (“fear”), which is exactly what we would be feeling if we had to write that small and detailed with a brush.

恐怖！ pic.twitter.com/xhQbCUvAKu

— 書道家/VR書道アーティスト青柳美扇あおやぎびせん (@aoyagibisen) March 16, 2017

▼ Here’s the artist herself, looking like she’s
having a great time casually making masterpieces.

#新しいプロフィール画像 pic.twitter.com/oCWZoa8xKm

— 書道家/VR書道アーティスト青柳美扇あおやぎびせん (@aoyagibisen) July 21, 2017

If you want to see more of Bisen Aoyagi’s amazing work, then be sure to give her a follow in Twitter or Instagram, or check out her official website where she has some of her works for sale.

Now that we’ve seen her write some of the hardest kanji ever, we’d love to see her take a crack at writing some of the strangest kanji ever next.

Source, featured image: Twitter/@aoyagibisen