Joyo kanji by grade
The Joyo kanji are the 2,136 characters the Japanese Ministry of Education sets as the essential reading base for general-purpose Japanese. The list is the basis for newspapers, signage, official documents, and most published prose. The 1,026 elementary-school kanji (the kyoiku kanji) are assigned to specific grades 1 through 6; the remaining 1130 characters are introduced across junior and senior high without a specific grade assignment, so this site follows the wkstats convention of grouping them as "Grade 9".
Pick a grade below to see the full kanji grid, the kind of vocabulary it unlocks, and where it falls in a typical WaniKani progression. For your own personal coverage, see the Joyo coverage tool.
Pick a grade
- Grade 180 kanji
The starter set. Numbers, body parts, basic verbs, and the kanji on every classroom poster.
WaniKani teaches all of Grade 1 by around level 8.
- Grade 2160 kanji
Everyday vocabulary - weather, family, school subjects, simple adjectives.
Fully covered by around WaniKani level 15.
- Grade 3200 kanji
School subjects and broader daily-life vocabulary. The set kids encounter in textbooks year three.
Done by around WaniKani level 22.
- Grade 4200 kanji
More abstract concepts: behaviour, society, government, civics.
Most of Grade 4 is at Guru by WaniKani level 30.
- Grade 5185 kanji
Politics, economy, biology - readings get less obvious and compound words become denser.
Substantially covered by WaniKani level 38.
- Grade 6181 kanji
Final year of elementary - the last of the kyoiku kanji before the secondary set.
Effectively complete by WaniKani level 45.
- Secondary (Grade 9)1130 kanji
Junior high and beyond. The biggest single bucket - everything Joyo not in Grades 1 through 6.
WaniKani has substantial coverage by level 50 and effectively complete coverage by level 60.
Joyo, kyoiku, and "Grade 9"
"Joyo" (jouyou kanji) is the umbrella term. The first 1,026 characters - Grades 1 through 6 - are also known as kyoiku ("educational") kanji, and these are the ones assigned to specific elementary-school years by the Ministry. The remaining 1130 Joyo characters are taught across junior high and senior high, but the official curriculum does not pin them to specific grades. Study tools need a label, so the convention - borrowed from wkstats - is to call this bucket "Grade 9". You will see it as "secondary" in some other tools and as "JHS+" elsewhere.
Outside the Joyo list are the jinmeiyo kanji (characters permitted for personal names) and the hyogai kanji (everything else). The Joyo list is the practical baseline for reading adult Japanese; the others are useful for specific domains but are not part of the official reading expectation.
See your personal coverage
The lists here are the same for every visitor. Your personal Joyo coverage, tied to your live WaniKani SRS progress, is on the Joyo coverage tool. Paste an access token on the login page to get started; everything stays in your browser.
Related
- JLPT kanji lists - the proficiency test alternative breakdown, N5 through N1.
- Frequency coverage - WaniKani's overlap with the most common kanji in modern text.
- WaniKani FAQ - SRS intervals, level-up rules, leech detection.