[emoji] (^_^)/ (- _-) (- -; ......of its root

These days, it seems that emoji is a topic in the some news, so, sorry to Japanese people that it’s a common story of that, but someone has to make it clear here.

To be precise, I don’t know who invented emoji, but it’s a definitely Japanese word. Just I guess that ASCII art originated before emoji, and it was developed well in Japan too. Back then, I used to be strucked by it made by crazy annonymous Japanese AA artists. LoL. I enjoyed it thanks to. How crazy followings.

AA art

AA アスキーアート

アスキーアート on Google

AA on twitter

アスキーアート wiki

ASCII art wiki

Then, many of Japanese people wanted to express their emotion while emerging e-mail or txt to communicate for each other more emotionally. Especially Japanese young women love it. Why not enogh txt or letter? Because Japanese people are very sensitive and considerable too when it comes to making communication for each other. You know which is more effective?

Thank you so much!

Thank you so much ＼(^-^)／ ......(spread arms)

or

Why don’t you go out with me?

Why don’t you go out with me? (*＾ーﾟ)b ......(wink)

Why don’t you go out with me? (＊^. ^＊) ......(red cheeks)

or

Crying. (T_T) ......(dropping tears from eyes)

or

Cat (=^^=)

＼(^-^)／ They desperately wanted to manage to make drawings with only using ASCII codes. That’s the same to crazy ASCII art.

However, nowadays, emoji used in common especially on mobile phones is just right a picture developing emoji as ASCII art and due to capability of rich data on modern mobile phones. So, I can tell that latest emoji is just a picture being used between letters and txts on the phone. Why people call it emoji? I wonder. LoL

絵文字 In the end, I tell you that “e” of emoji means picture in Japanese, and “moji” of emoji means letter in Japanese. So, emoji is "picture (made of) letter". At the beginning, the letter was only ASCII code, so people managed to make “e(picture)” with “moji(ASCII code) back then. But latest emoji is not made of “moji(letter or ASCII code), so that’t the just “e(picture)”. Tha’t the mere picture LoL. But, you know what, I’m glad to hear emoji called all over the world as a Japanese, though I am never a geek who can draw such a great, crazy ASCII art. Thanks.