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I'm learning Japanese and decided to pick up some manga in Japanese to improve
my reading. I found a preview of a manga I'll be receiving and had a look
inside. I found the following character, and everything tells me it's a そ, but
I'm not sure. Is it a weird font? Is it a certain common stylization?

[![panel from Tsurezure
Children](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GIsuc.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/GIsuc.png)
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-16T07:04:42.707
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2019-12-05T11:34:56.080
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question
manga hiragana
Is this character a そ?
そう!! It's just the way the computer font is styled but it definitely is a そ.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-16T07:11:54.333
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Sure it is, there's two legit ways to write そ in Japanese.

Two strokes so

[![so1](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1U9Dp.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/1U9Dp.gif)

One stroke so

[![so2](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MdEfb.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/MdEfb.gif)

I suspect that the two strokes version is historical but usage made the one
stroke version more common. It is definitely not a weird font, just one you
didn't encounter yet.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-16T08:24:11.423
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2017-10-16T08:30:52.473
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Both are the same characters. It's just a different font.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-16T10:10:30.583
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2017-10-16T11:47:43.440
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The 2 stroke version is the original. It’s still taught in many books this
way. The one stroke version is derived from writing in cursive but is widely
used. This is also the case for ゆ and ふ for example.
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-12-05T11:00:30.413
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By the way, hiragana was derived from kanji via cursive style of writing kanji
(e.g. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiragana#History)). The kanji
from which そ was derived had/has two dots on top. From there you have the two-
stroke variant, from that the one-stroke variant. It is basically writing with
brush with different levels of "precision" and "speed".

[![Hiragana origin; by Pmx \[CC BY-SA 3.0
\(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
sa/3.0/\)\]](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vKPeR.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vKPeR.png)
CC BY-SA 4.0
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