An illustration of Koi-nobori and　Kanji of "昇" Toddler T-Shirt

The character reads as "shou” or “noboru", and writes as "昇" in semi-cursive style (gyosho). The meaning of this kanji is to “go up / rise/ go ［move］ up the ladder of success". We celebrate Children's day on May 5 in Japan. Koinobori are cloth streamers in the shape of a carp which are flown on a tall pole on Children's day. Carp are believed to be fish capable of climbing up stream against rapid currents and overcoming all manner of obstacles. Therefore, carp are taken as a symbol of the strength, courage and patience to accomplish major goals. In Japan, we pray that boys in the house will live their lives strongly, just like carp, the symbol of strength. Since this is a directly scanned hand-written image, this design is only available from us. We do not use preset fonts to design our products. Hand written by a shodoka (Japanese calligraphy master). This design was drawn with brushes and a special paper for calligraphy, and it might have resulted in some gradations of tones and blurs. These gradations and blurs may not appear clearly in printing. The character may look tilted greatly. However, this is because the model is posing. The actual printed character is well-balanced from an artistic point of view of Japanese calligraphy. If you like to have a letter written in Kanji, please post your request on our facebook page. http://www.facebook.com/shodo.jp.