Japanese ASCII Art: History, Kaomoji, and Examples

You have probably seen ASCII art in a Facebook post, a funny comment, or even in an old email chain. These giant emoticons and drawings are made entirely with text characters.

ASCII art is a form of art that uses only the characters available in the ASCII table (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). Its roots go back to the typewriter era, when artists were already experimenting with letters, numbers and symbols. With computers, the practice grew much more complex and visually impressive.

Japan, in particular, has a strong ASCII art culture. Japanese creators have made illustrations of anime and manga characters, along with other familiar figures from pop culture. Turning text into images gives these pieces a style that feels closely tied to that visual tradition.

You should also know about Kaomoji, the facial emoticons written with characters.

Where to find ASCII art

Here are a few external galleries if you want to browse more examples or share them with friends.

• https://www.ascii-art.de/ascii/ab/anime.txt
• https://www.sunnyspot.org/asciiart/gallery/
• https://www.chris.com/ascii/

ASCII art editor

Of course, with today's tools, you do not need to create text art character by character. There are many editors that let you draw a picture and then convert it into text you can copy and share.

Open ASCIIFlow Infinity

If you want to experiment with ASCII art on your own, a text generator can also help you get started.

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