Strength Kanji (力): The 2-Stroke Power Character, Explained

There is a kanji that Japanese children learn in their first year of school, that a calligrapher can spend a lifetime trying to write perfectly, and that means one of the most universally tattooed concepts in the world: 力, chikara, strength.

It has two strokes. Two. And that is exactly what makes it interesting — because a character with only two strokes has nowhere to hide. Every weakness in your brush control, every hesitation, every imbalance is fully exposed. The simplest characters are often the hardest to write well, and 力 is the clearest example in the language.

After complex characters like 禅 and 夢, 力 runs the kanji series in the opposite direction: how much meaning, and how much difficulty, can live in almost nothing.

At a glance

Where the character comes from

The oldest forms of 力 are a pictograph — but of what, scholars have long disagreed. The two leading interpretations are both telling.

One reading sees the original character as a plow: the agricultural tool that demanded the most physical effort in ancient life. Strength, in this reading, is the force a body exerts against the earth to make it yield food.

The other reading sees it as a flexed arm, the muscle of the upper arm tensed in exertion — strength as the body’s own power, drawn taut.

Either way, the meaning is the same: 力 is force applied, effort embodied, power in action rather than power at rest. It is not strength as a static quality but strength as a verb — something you do, not merely something you have. That nuance survives in modern Japanese, where 力 appears constantly in words about exertion and effort.

What 力 really means in Japan

力 is one of the most productive characters in the language — it appears in an enormous range of everyday words, almost all of them about applied power or capability.

• 努力 (doryoku) — effort, diligence. Perhaps the most culturally weighted of all; Japanese culture prizes 努力 enormously, and the word carries deep moral approval.
• 体力 (tairyoku) — physical strength, stamina.
• 実力 (jitsuryoku) — real ability, genuine skill (as opposed to luck or reputation).
• 全力 (zenryoku) — full power, one’s whole effort. Zenryoku de — “with everything I have.”
• 協力 (kyōryoku) — cooperation, literally “joined strength.”
• 力士 (rikishi) — a sumo wrestler, literally “strength person.”
• 馬力 (bariki) — horsepower.
• 電力 (denryoku) — electric power.

Notice the range: physical strength, moral effort, technical ability, mechanical power, cooperation. 力 is the character Japanese reaches for whenever force or capability is involved, in any domain. It is far broader than the English “strength,” which leans physical. 力 is closer to “power” in all its senses, plus “effort” and “ability.”

When the character stands alone, chikara, it most often means strength or power in a direct, grounded sense — the strength to lift, to endure, to prevail.

How to write 力

Two strokes. This is where 力 stops being simple.

The two strokes are:

1. The first stroke — a horizontal-into-diagonal that begins at the top left, moves right, then turns and sweeps down and to the left, ending in a slight curve. It is one continuous motion with a corner in it: across, then down-and-around.
2. The second stroke — a diagonal that crosses through, starting near the top and pressing down to the lower left, the classic left-falling sweep (掠, ryaku, one of the Eight Principles of Yong).

The whole character is, in effect, a corner and a slash. And here is the difficulty: with only two strokes, the proportion and tension between them is everything. There is no third element to balance against, no internal structure to carry a weak line. If the first stroke’s curve is timid, the whole character looks weak. If the second stroke’s angle is wrong, the character looks like it is falling over.

A character meaning “strength” must, above all, look strong. The strokes need tension and confidence — the brush pressed with conviction, the curve of the first stroke taut rather than slack, the diagonal of the second decisive. This is a character where the meaning and the execution are the same problem: a weak 力 fails twice, once as calligraphy and once as a word.

For a beginner, 力 is an excellent early character precisely because it is so exposing. Write it fifty times and you will learn more about your brush pressure and your sense of proportion than from any number of complex characters where mistakes can hide among the strokes.

How 力 looks across the five styles

Across the five classical styles, 力 changes less dramatically than complex characters do — there is simply less to transform — but the changes that do occur are revealing.

• Kaisho — the block form above; two crisp, decisive strokes. The standard.
• Gyōsho — semi-cursive; the two strokes begin to connect, the corner softening into a flow.
• Sōsho — fully cursive; 力 can reduce to almost a single gesture, a sweep with a memory of the corner in it.
• Reisho — clerical; squarer, the strokes flatter and more deliberate.
• Tensho — seal script; the rounded archaic form, where the plow or muscle origin is faintly more visible.

Because 力 is so simple, it is a wonderful character to practice across all five once your kaisho is reliable — the small number of strokes lets you focus entirely on how the brush behaves in each style.

Where 力 appears in Japan today

Once you can read it, 力 is everywhere:

• On sumo banners and programs — 力士 (rikishi), the wrestlers themselves.
• In schools and workplaces — 努力 (effort) is one of the most common words of encouragement and evaluation in Japanese life.
• On product and energy branding — 電力 (electric power) companies, energy drinks, anything selling vigor.
• In idioms and encouragement — 力を入れる (chikara o ireru, “to put strength into,” to focus effort on something), 力になる (chikara ni naru, “to become strength,” to be of help).

Before you put 力 on a gift or a tattoo

For the full process of getting a kanji tattoo right — choosing, confirming, and having it written — see our complete guide to kanji tattoos.

For a tattoo, 力 has a specific and real advantage: it ages beautifully. As discussed in the tattoo guide, complex characters blur over decades as tattoo ink spreads under the skin — a 13-stroke character can become an illegible blob in twenty years. A two-stroke 力 has so much space between its lines that it stays crisp and readable for a lifetime. If you want a small kanji tattoo that will still look right when you are old, a simple character like 力 is a far wiser choice than a dense one.

The meaning is clean and unambiguous: strength, power, capability. It carries none of the romantic complications of 愛 (love) or the religious weight of 禅 (Zen).

Two cautions, both from the calligraphy side:

1. A weak 力 is very obvious. Because the character is so simple, a font-generated or poorly-drawn 力 stands out immediately — there are no other strokes to distract from the weak ones. This is the character where having it written by a calligrapher matters most, not least.
2. The strength must be in the brushwork. A 力 written without conviction looks ironic — a weak rendering of the word “strength.” Choose a calligrapher’s version with genuine tension in the strokes.

For a gift, 力 suits encouragement — for someone facing a challenge, starting something difficult, or needing endurance. It is a character of support and resolve.

Where to go next

To carry 力 further:

• The character that teaches its key stroke — the second stroke of 力 is the left-falling sweep at the heart of the Eight Principles of Yong.
• The other simple-but-hard character — 心 (heart), four strokes, the same lesson that simplicity exposes everything.
• The opposite extreme — 龍 (dragon), sixteen strokes, where the challenge is not exposure but keeping a dense character organized and breathing.
• If you are considering it as a tattoo — the complete guide to kanji tattoos explains why simple characters like 力 age better.
• The full character series — browse all the kanji studies.

力 is two strokes and a lifetime. A child writes it in their first year of school; a master is still trying to write it with perfect tension decades later. There is no character that better demonstrates the central truth of shodō — that simplicity is not easiness, and that the fewest strokes can demand the most control.