first time, beginning
Came from Chinese. It usually shows up when the kanji is joined to another, forming a compound word.
It is Japanese. It usually shows up when the kanji stands alone or is followed by hiragana.
The order matters: it is what makes handwriting come out legible, and it is how dictionaries index the character.
Visual decomposition, for recognising and comparing — not always the character's origin.
Where it appears is highlighted — the translation doesn't always make that visible.
八年?!じゃあ…僕が本当の初めての観客だったの?誰も見たことがないの?
Hachinen?! Jaa... boku ga hontou no hajimete no kankyaku datta no? Dare mo mita koto ga nai no?
Eight years?! So... was I your first real audience? Nobody's ever seen you perform?
間違えるたびに、最初からやり直します。
Machigaeru tabi ni, saisho kara yarinaoshimasu.
Every time I mess up a part, I start over from the beginning.
Readings and meanings: KANJIDIC2 · Decomposition: KRADFILE · Both from Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group, CC BY-SA 4.0 · data from 2026-09-07 · Strokes: KanjiVG, Ulrich Apel, CC BY-SA 3.0