Syllabic* characters, but yes, it just looks lame if you can read any Japanese.
You're right. I was thinking "alphabetic" would resonate more with a general audience, albeit not 100% accurate. Thanks for pointing it out!
As a bonus note, the term "mora" is used to describe a syllabic character.
(edit: typo)
I think you are missing the point here.
The faked characters are made to look similar to English, once you turn your head.
Since you are trying to read Japanese characters, it is making it harder for you to read the punchline. You might want to turn off your Japanese character recognition for reading this.
thanks for using Leebra!
go to feed...
In case you're wondering, the "Japanese" section of the shirt has a mixture of actual Katakana (usually used for "style" or foreign words) and Hiragana (used for native words and [grammar] case markers). Plus, random shapes that look somewhat like Katakana. Some appear to be backwards Katakana, while some are simply made up (like the "R" character).
Also, the shirt says you need to turn you head to read it... But traditional Japanese, which was written top-down and right-to-left, was readable without turning your head. T L K
H I I
I K N
S E D
_ _ A
(edit: Vertical text is weird in Markdown)
I realize it's meant as a joke. But if you know Japanese, even if only how to read the non-Kanji, alphabetic characters (Katakana and Hiragana), it borders on lame. Especially since they faked a bunch of the characters.
save