As I started peeking into Japanese, I see lots of characters in `hiragana` and
`kanji` where the latter uses Chinese characters that are similar to
traditional Chinese ones (I'm familiar with `hanzi`).

For example, for the following `kanji` 関門 there's a simplified `hanzi`: 关门
(I'm not talking about meaning here, just characters).

Also, country in Japanese 国 is same character in Chinese ( **simplified** ) as
opposed to Traditional 國.

AFAIK in Chinese, people hardly write using traditional style characters,
since they are hard to use. Is it applicable to Japanese? Or is the use of
hiragana/katakana eases that difficulty or it isn't an issue for Japanese?
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kanji orthography kyūjitai-and-shinjitai
Usage of Traditional style characters vs Simplified Chinese characters adopted in Kanji
Though simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, traditional
Chinese characters are still used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.

Kanji is derived from traditional Chinese characters, but has its own set of
simplifications. They are not as extreme as simplified Chinese characters, and
in fact looks very similar to traditional Chinese characters for the most
part.

Incidentally, there are other writing systems which evolved from traditional
Chinese characters just like Kanji did, such as Hanja (used with Korean,
though losing popularity recently) and Chữ Nôm (used with Vietnamese until
1949)

Historically for China and Japan, complex writing systems did not fall out of
use because people found them hard to use. They fell out of use because the
governments decreed that it be replaced with a simpler version. So people in
Japan don't have it as hard as people in Taiwan, Hong Kong or Macau when it
comes to writing characters, but they don't have it as easy as mainland China.
Unless the government adopts the Chinese writing system (unlikely), it's going
to stay that way.

Now, would Kanji ever be replaced by Hiragana and Katakana? After all, Hangul
is replacing Hanja in Korea. The answer is no. In Japan, there are so many
homonyms that Kanji is necessary to decipher meaning.

This is a bit of a ramble but I tried to stick to comparing the complexity
which rises from writing the characters themselves, as opposed to reading them
or their cultural compatibility etc. Please read
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji> for a more thorough introduction. Hope
this helps!
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Japanese doesn't use [simplified Chinese
characters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters). They
use their own system of simplification called
[_Shinjitai_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinjitai)
([新字体](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E5%AD%97%E4%BD%93)) instead.

_Shinjitai_ only applies to the Jōyō Kanji 常用漢字 while simplified Chinese
applies to _"all"_ Han characters. Sometimes the simplified character is the
same in both systems such as 国, sometimes Japanese version is simpler like 仏
vs 佛 in Chinese. But most of the time the Chinese version would be simpler
than Japanese version
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Japanese use a combination of traditional Chinese and its own version of
simplified Kanji. I believe that actually during the Republic of China era,
the Nationalists took some characters from Japan. During that time, they
already planned to simplify characters. I grew up with traditional and though
I prefer to write in traditional, it really is a pain in the butt especially
when you're running against the clock, such as in an exam or writing orders in
a restaurant. Simplified really does.. simplify everything. It's the truth and
I don't care how many people in Hong Kong/Macau or Taiwan object to it.
However, like the guy above said, there are some Japanese Kanji characters
that are simplified in a way that is only unique to the Japanese language.
These characters may or may not exist in the Chinese dictionary such as the
Kangxi Dictionary, compiled in 1710. Also, sometimes Chinese people will use
these simplified Japanese Kanji charcters incorrectly to convey a meaning.
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as a native chinese traditional chinese user，i don't think it's hard to use
them 。when you grow up with a language that's hard，it doesn't seem all that
hard because it's your native tongue 。just like how georgians can speak and
write georgian even though it's an insanely hard language with thousands of
grammar rules and dozens of cases，prefixes，suffixes，tenses，etc 。

i've tried simplified chinese and it always feels so unnatural and forced
which is why i don't use it 。traditional chinese is the same script from over
2000 years ago，preserved from middle chinese，and it's absolutely beautiful
。simplified chinese is a script made 70 years ago by the chinese communist
party to try and eradicate traditional chinese values and meanings in chinese
characters，because enlightenment and individual thought opposed communist
ideologies 。

most traditional chinese users also use it because of the beauty and heritage
that comes with each character 。simiplified characters are a sign of communism
and the eradication of traditional chinese culture and language 。in
japanese，some kanji have been changed during the mid-late 1900s，such as 國 to 国
and 學 to 学 。

but for the most part japanese still uses traditional characters 。that's also
why japanese shipping companies often prefer to ship to hong kong，macau and
taiwan as opposed to the mainland because they can communicate by writing
characters down，whereas they have no way to communicate to mainlanders since
they barely share any characters to communicate with 。

it also doesn't take too long to write down traditional characters 。only 1-4
seconds at most 。about as long as it takes to write most english
words，depending on how neat/legible your handwriting is 。sure，simplified
characters are faster to write for the most part，but the thing about
traditional chinese characters is that they have thousands of years of history
behind them 。simplified characters have nothing to their name except 80 years
of communism，facism，oppression，censorship，imprisonment，nazism，mass-slaughter
and death 。

no one really finds traditional characters too hard to use and that's why over
an estimated 50-200 million people across the world still use traditional
characters，high than the total population in the u.s.，the third-most populated
country in the world 。the lower estimate only accounts for people in
taiwan，hong and macau，however most overseas chinese communities use
traditional characters 。

hope this helps you understand the history and reasoning behind traditional
characters 。i hope we can keep our language healthy and alive because there's
thousands of years of culture in every traditional chinese character 。
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