Next Level Kanji
Master all 2,136 jōyō kanji through literature, professional communication, and everyday Japanese.
Form, balance, relationships, technique.
Just like any sport, any creative discipline, any profession bound to an interplay that bridges observation, technique, and obsession, mastering kanji requires us to, at once, function as practitioner, scholar, artist and engineer on a mission with an indeterminate end. To ensure success, we must acquire, manage, and adapt to technique, develop the capacity to learn from a sea of accumulating insight that prompts overwhelm, and focus with deliberate intent on the physical nature of the task at hand so as to become one with the specific mechanical properties that aid our mind in stitching everything together.
It all begins with the snapping-off of the pen cap, the snatch of the pencil, the first dip of the brush… and from there, that very first single line, and its very, very specific finish.
December 1st marks the launch of Maplopo’s Next Level Kanji program.
It’s a program that will have you tackling all 2,136 jōyō kanji. Inside and out. Once and for all.
You’ll use parallel texts anchored to our Masters of Story Collection translations: works by Dazai Osamu, Nakajima Atsushi, Sakaguchi Ango, and Natsume Sōseki. This writing forms the core of the experience, and comes complete with more than 1,300 jōyō kanji BUILT RIGHT IN.
We’ve also tossed in a mountain of carefully crafted supplementary sentences that span everything from business to everyday life so you can count on heaps of opportunities to explore, practice, and reinforce what you’re learning.
You’ll read more, write more, and have a hell of a lot more to say.
Reiko and I, of course, are here to help keep you on track… just as we are for all Maplopers.
EVERYONE has somewhere further to go. Whether you’re tackling your first kanji or your two-thousandth, there is a path forward.
And we won’t stop building this thing, either. As with all our programs, we’ll keep adding new material for you to work with long after launch.
Enrollment is open now. $59 a month. You’ll receive an invoice each month. A thoroughly analog arrangement for a thoroughly analog undertaking.
And… how ’bout a carrot?
Pass Level 2 of the Kanji Kentei, and we’ll reimburse your exam fee and brag about you forevermore.
A glimpse inside the course materials
You’ll have access to video and audio examples, structured Anki decks, and other tools to practice kanji in professional, casual, and literary contexts.
Click the image to enlarge so you can pinch-to-zoom on mobile or magnify on a desktop.
Click the image to enlarge so you can pinch-to-zoom on mobile or magnify on a desktop.
Already know tons of kanji?
Then you have plenty of experience to bring to this program.
NEXT LEVEL Kanji isn’t simply a procession of unfamiliar characters. It’s an opportunity to work systematically through all 2,136 jōyō kanji, examining their written form, encountering them in literature and our translations, and exploring the vocabulary they help create in professional and everyday Japanese.
Some characters will be new. Others will be familiar. The work you undertake with them may be quite different from anything you’ve done before.
Take a look at the course materials above and decide whether this is the kind of learning you want to pursue.
Enrollment is open—and stays open.
NEXT LEVEL Kanji opens December 1, 2026. You can sign up now or join anytime afterward. There’s no enrollment deadline.
Interested in NEXT LEVEL Kanji? We’d love to hear from you.
Leave your name and email below, and we’ll be in touch. If you have a question about the program, feel free to include it.
Already decided to join? Let us know, and we’ll send you an invoice for your first month ($59).
Once you’re enrolled, we’ll arrange your personal onboarding conversation with Doc and you’ll be off and running.
