Katakana Font - is it readable?

[Scavenger]

I've recently been fascinated by different character encodings, so I decided to make a Katakana font using JIS X 0201, since that's the only AGS-compatible encoding I can find for japanese text. I don't actually speak the language, but I did try to make them look as accurate as possible.



So, does this look readable? Any mangled kana?

You can get it here if you want to try it out.

The non-JISX0201 characters are:
129 - Star
130 - Heart
131 - Infinity
132 - Cross
133 - White Shogi
134 - Black Shogi
135 - Ankh
136 - Female
137 - Male
138 - Mercury
139 - Note
140 - Quarter Note
141 - Double Note
142 - Double Quarter Note
143 - Flat
144 - Sharp
145 - Lightning
146 - Thunderstorm
147 - Sun
148-157 - 1 to 9 kanji
158 - hundred
159 - thousand

[Mandle]

I've recently been fascinated by different character encodings, so I decided to make a Katakana font using JIS X 0201, since that's the only AGS-compatible encoding I can find for japanese text. I don't actually speak the language, but I did try to make them look as accurate as possible.



So, does this look readable? Any mangled kana?

You can get it here if you want to try it out.

Looks pretty good!

You have all the numerical characters up to Sen (1,000)...You have an empty space after that so why not add "Man" (10,000)? Then the font can be used up until "Oku" (100 Million) which is the next leap in numerical naming in Japanese...

You have the braces which are the equivalent of quotes, and the Japanese comma and period, and also the "Ten" or dot needed to print the ubiquitous "..." needed for Manga character's speech/though balloons.

You have the accents of " and the floating circle needed to change HA to BA or HA to PA etc.

You have all the miniature vowel (etc) Kana for the building of composites like "Byou" etc.

You have the small "TSU" needed for the double-consonant pronunciation of words like "Datte"...

You have the dash needed to elongate the pronunciation of the Kana before it.

For me all of the Kana are perfectly readable...The only one that looks a bit weird (to me) is HE...The one that looks like: ^

It's too squashed up in the horizontal but I don't think there is any way to get around this given the pixel limits.

It's also too high up compared to the rest of the characters (for me)...Maybe move it down a pixel or two?

I think it's a very usable Katakana font and really takes me back to my days of playing Japanese RPGs on consoles back in the 90's before they could handle the memory needed for full usage of Kanji.

Very nice job!   

[cat]

Nice! ku and ke as well as te and ra are similar, but I guess I would have to see it in written text. The black box on the gray somehow changes the impression, seeing the characters on just black background will make it easier to read, I think.

[bicilotti]

I really like it, not only the kanas but the whole char-set, good job on 'getting the vibe' of the katakanas on such a constrained space!

[Scavenger]

Okay, fixed ku,ke,te, and ra so they don't look nigh on identical (mostly by making one of the pairs shorter and squatter - looking up how they're hand drawn helped)



Also converted another font I regularly use to JISX0201:



You can get this one here.

And I tested out the font with the following pangram, though I had to replace ãÆ'° with イ and ãÆ'± with エ as ãÆ'° and ãÆ'± aren't in the charset:
  イãÆ'­ãÆ'ãÆ'‹ãÆ'݋Æ'˜ãÆ'ˆ ãÆ'ãÆ'ªãÆ'Å'ãÆ'«ãÆ'² ãÆ'¯ã‚«ãÆ'¨ã‚¿ãÆ'¬ã‚½ ãÆ'„ãÆ'ãÆ'ŠãÆ'©ãÆ' 
  ウãÆ'°ãÆ'Žã‚ªã‚¯ãÆ'¤ãÆ'ž ケãÆ'•ã‚³ã‚¨ãÆ'† アサキãÆ'¦ãÆ'¡ãÆ'Ÿã‚· ãÆ'±ãÆ'’ãÆ'¢ã‚»ã‚¹ãÆ'³


Is it worth adding ãÆ'°ãÆ'±? It's just two characters, and I have plenty of space, but they are obsolete.

[cat]

Much better! One more thing are ãÆ'³ and ソ. They are almost the same here. In many fonts, the first stroke of n is just horizontal and of so it's vertical (kind of simulating the handwritten stroke order). Another trick is to make the two strokes of n left aligned and so top aligned.

[TomatoesInTheHead]

Much better! One more thing are ãÆ'³ and ソ. They are almost the same here.

In the pangram you only used ãÆ'³ in both places, I think. But still, in the small font they are not easy to tell apart and cat's suggestion sounds good.