Every December in Japan, the Kanji of the Year offers a compact cultural snapshot: one character meant to distill twelve months of headlines, anxieties, and shared experience. For 2025, that character was 熊 (“bear”).

At first glance, 熊 feels oddly specific. But anyone who followed Japanese news this year knows exactly why it rose to the top.

熊 — a year stalked by bears

Bear encounters dominated regional news throughout 2025. Reports of bears wandering into residential areas surged, particularly in rural and semi-rural prefectures. Bears were spotted near schools, crossing roads, entering storage sheds, and in some tragic cases, injuring or killing residents. Local governments issued repeated warnings, closed hiking trails, and debated emergency responses that balanced public safety with conservation.

Several factors were frequently cited: shrinking habitats, warmer weather extending bear activity later into the year, and poor acorn harvests driving animals closer to human settlements. There is also a possible reason (a favorite theory of some elderly people I know) that the strict gun laws are discouraging young people from becoming hunters and with all the old men hunters getting, well old, and dying or retiring, that leaves no one left to control the wild animal population. At any rate, what made these incidents resonate nationally was their frequency. This was not a single shocking event, but a steady drumbeat, with 熊 appearing again and again in headlines until it became a symbol of unease, unpredictability, and the uneasy boundary between human life and nature.

In that sense, 熊 works perfectly as a kanji of the year. It isn’t abstract — it’s visceral.

The runners-up: 米 and 高

The second-place character, 米 (“rice”), reflects a very different anxiety. Rice prices rose noticeably, supply issues made news, and the crop’s symbolic weight in Japan amplified every fluctuation. Rice is never just food; it’s economy, tradition, and identity. When 米 becomes unstable, people feel it.

Third place went to 高 (“high” or “expensive”), a broad but telling choice. High prices, high costs of living, high electricity bills, high expectations with little relief. As everywhere, inflation is out of control here. 高 captures the financial pressure many households felt throughout the year, even when employment numbers or macro indicators looked stable on paper.

Taken together, 熊・米・高 form a quiet triad. Nature pushing back. Essentials becoming uncertain. Daily life growing more expensive. None of these are uniquely Japanese problems, but Japan’s Kanji of the Year tradition gives them a uniquely Japanese clarity, compressing complex realities into a single, legible mark.

熊 may be the most literal of the three, but that may be why it won. A bear at the edge of town is impossible to ignore.

If you want a longer write-up on this, see this story in the asahi news.

David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky. 【Support @dbooster with Hive SBI】