Japanese fonts日本語
Japanese typefaces with hiragana, katakana and kanji. Font files are large, so previews load as you scroll.
4 open-licensed fonts that can set Japanese, each free to download for personal and commercial work.
Gothic and Mincho
Gothic (ゴシック) is the Japanese name for sans-serif type and Mincho (明朝) for serif — Mincho for long reading, Gothic for screens, signage and headings. Maru Gothic, with rounded stroke ends, reads as friendly and casual.
Kanji coverage
Most free Japanese fonts cover the kanji of the JIS X 0208 standard — over 6,000 characters, enough for everyday writing. Rare kanji in names may fall back to another font.
Setting Japanese text
Japanese fonts run to several megabytes because they carry thousands of kanji. On a website, subset the font to the characters you use, and mark the text lang="ja" so browsers pick Japanese forms for kanji shared with Chinese.