What is a Henohenomohe-ji?

Henohenomohe-ji (へのへのもへじ), sometimes just abbreviated heno-ji , is a drawing made up of hiragana characters (へhe,のno,へhe,のno,もmo,へhe,じji) that arranged in a certain way, they make up a face or countenance. The first and second “へ” represent the eyebrows, the two “の” represent the eyes, the “も” represents the nose, the third “へ” represents the mouth, and the “じ” represents the outline of the face. The Hehenonomohe-ji is the equivalent to Kilroy was here in the United States, to Chads and written Wot no in England or to Lalo was here in Venezuela.

You have probably seen it appearing in anime and manga such as Naruto , Ranma ½ , Tokyo Ghoul , Jujutsu Kaisen , and Nichijō among others. It is often used as the typical scarecrow face, although you can also find it as graffiti on blackboards and notebooks, and in manga and anime it is used as a momentary expression on the faces of the characters.

The origin of this drawing is not exactly known, although it seems to have been common to draw it in the middle of the Edo period, since there is a drawing of a henohenomohe-ji “samurai” drawn by Utagawa Hiroshige, an ukiyoe artist of that period.