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Paper short abstract

This paper examines hanjimono as multimodal visual devices for testing and activating knowledge. Drawing on semiotics and learning theories, it shows how hanjimono puzzles integrate images, language, and cultural references to foster active and creative learning and cultural understanding.

Paper long abstract

Hanjimono (also known as hanji-e) are rebus-like visual puzzles that have circulated in Japan for several centuries, combining images, written characters, and culturally embedded associations to generate meaning. Their earliest documented uses can be traced to Buddhist contexts during the Edo period, where they functioned as visual aids for reading and interpreting canonical texts such as the Heart Sutra. Over time, hanjimono developed into popular visual challenges appearing in prints, books, and maps produced for entertainment, later extending into commercial advertising. In contemporary contexts. Today they continue to circulate in the form of nōtore quizu (“brain-training quizzes”).

Drawing on semiotic and learning theories, this paper conceptualises hanjimono as visual devices that actively structure knowledge rather than merely illustrating it. Following Barthes’ distinction between denotation and connotation, hanjimono rely on culturally shared visual codes to prompt layered interpretation, while Eco’s notion of the “open work” helps explain their interpretive indeterminacy and reliance on the viewer’s encyclopaedic knowledge. From a multimodal perspective (Kress & van Leeuwen), hanjimono orchestrate meaning through the interaction of visual composition, written language, spatial arrangement, and cultural reference, requiring readers to negotiate meaning across modes.

Edo-period hanjimono prints typically provided no instructions, answers, or explanations, offering only brief titles that hinted at thematic categories. This absence of explicit guidance positioned viewers as active meaning-makers, testing their linguistic, historical, and cultural competence. As a result, even contemporary Japanese audiences will struggle to decipher such puzzles without historical and cultural contextualisation, highlighting their function as tools for activating and verifying knowledge.

Building on Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning and Inaba’s work on active and creative learning, this paper explores the pedagogical potential of hanjimono in contemporary Japanese language and culture education. It argues that the creative use of hanjimono-style puzzles can function as a form of intercultural mediation, fostering active engagement, deeper cognitive processing, and the integration of prior and new knowledge. Positioned at the intersection of visual culture, semiotics, and education, hanjimono exemplify how visual materials in Japan have long operated as powerful mediators in the production, transmission, and application of knowledge.