1. Kanji: They are Chinese letters absorbed into the Japanese lingua. It is made up of over 6000 characters, though the average Japanese may just need 2136 for daily life in Japan.
2. Hiragana: This is the most original writing. It is made up of 46 cursive characters used to write Japanese syllables. It is also used for verb and adjective inflections and simple words.
3. Katakana: For foreign words, names, and loanwords changed to suit the Japanese tongue, e.g., ‘teburu’ (table, ‘aisu’ (ice), and ‘takushi (taxi).
4. Romaji: Sometimes, it’s not counted as a writing system.It is a method of writing Japanese in Roman characters.Romaji is commonly used in phrasebooks and when studying Japanese at a beginner level, but actual native material is usually written using the Japanese writing system.

The Japanese language is traditionally written vertically and read from top-bottom, but it can also be written ‘normally’ in a horizontal manner and read from left-right. Some newspapers even join the two methods to maximize paper space. It may seem like a jumble to you, but it’s really not.