The reforms led to the development of the modern Japanese written language, and explain the arguments for official policies used to determine the usage and teaching of kanji rarely used in Japan.
[citation needed] A proposal to eliminate certain kanji from use was implemented in a number of regions and overseas territories in the 1920s, near the end of the Taishō period.
[2] The reforms made after the Second World War have had a particularly significant impact on accepted kanji usage in the modern Japanese language.
On 12 November 1945, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper published an editorial concerning the abolition of kanji, and on 31 March 1946, the first American Education Delegation arrived in Japan at the invitation of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) and issued its first report.
[citation needed] Japanese media have increasingly used non-approved kanji with furigana to aid the reader in place of mazegaki.
In the same year, Article 50 of the family register law made it illegal to name a child using characters not on the official list.
When this law first came into effect, the Ministry of Justice declared that all newborn babies must be registered in the koseki (the Japanese family registry) with a name that used only hiragana, katakana or tōyō kanji.
In addition, two kana, ゐ/ヰ wi and ゑ/ヱ we, were officially declared obsolete, as the pronunciations they represented had dropped from the language many centuries before.
[citation needed] When reporting the lawsuits regarding cases of Minamata disease in 1970, the non-tōyō kanji 怨 on, "grudge", was used to refer to the feelings of the bereaved families.
Increased use of kana to kanji conversion on word processors and computers during the mid-1980s brought drastic changes to the amount of Japanese written by hand.
Subsequent issues of the Kisha handobukku shinbun yōji yōgo shū (記者ハンドブック 新聞用字用語集, lit.
The changes in jinmeiyō kanji made by the Ministry of Justice during the same year also conformed to this standard printed form, with 芦 being an exception.
Current opinion favors the inclusion of the character 碍 under the Jōyō Kanji list in order to promote the more positive word for handicapped person, 障碍者, because the current word for handicapped, 障害者, uses the character 害, which means “damage” or “harm” (invoking pity) and has a secondary derogatory meaning of "harm or evil influence".
Though the intention was to have words requiring characters that were not included on the list to be substituted with a suitable synonym, in reality, the rule was circumvented by writing these kanji in kana and making mazegaki commonplace.
Foods commonly written either just in kana or in mazegaki include 醤油／しょう油 (shōyu soya sauce) and 味噌 (miso).
Other words commonly written as mazegaki include 改ざん, 破たん, 隠ぺい, 漏えい, 覚せい剤, and 団らん where the traditional forms are 改竄, 破綻, 隠蔽, 漏洩, 覚醒剤, and 団欒 respectively.
Mazegaki is not enforced and is rarely used in literature, where traditional forms are often used, although it is common in media outlets such as newspapers and television broadcasts, since non-Jōyō kanji are not supposed to be used in these contexts.
In extreme cases, jōyō kanji may be written in this way in television programmes or manga aimed at younger children or language learners – for example 哺乳類 (honyūrui "mammal") as ほ乳類.
Mazegaki may also be used in signs, possibly as katakana – for example, 皮膚科 (hifuka dermatologist) may be written as 皮フ科 to improve legibility from a distance.
[citation needed] The resulting reduction in printing costs caused the restriction or abolition of kanji to give serious economic advantages to newspaper companies, and they became heavily involved in decisions made by the Japanese Language Council.
Another common example is 抽籤 chūsen (lottery), which is often written as 抽選, in addition to the mazegaki 抽せん mentioned above.
A rarer example is the word 沈澱 chinden 'settlement (of sediment)', which is a combination of the characters 沈 'to sink' and 澱 'sediment', so the meaning is evident from the kanji.
Advocates of the method explain that it makes content easier to read and will attract a wider audience, while critics argue that it is sloppy and erodes traditional culture.
Further, mazegaki is criticized because in some respects it makes the text more difficult to read, as it is not clear whether the hiragana (or katakana) are part of a content word, or if they are okurigana or performing a grammatical function (inflection or particles).