Questions About Shodo, Japanese Calligraphy: Why Does Next Year’s New Year Card Say 午?

December is finally here!
In Japan, that means it’s time to start preparing New Year’s cards. These cards are meant to arrive on January 1st—a special day called Gantan. It’s a little different from Christmas cards, which you usually send early so they reach the recipient before Christmas.

This year, if you drop your cards in the mailbox between December 15th and 25th, the post office will deliver them right on New Year’s Day. So don’t worry—nobody receives New Year’s cards before January 1st. That would feel strange for us!

Why Animals Show Up Every Year

If you’ve ever received a Japanese New Year’s card, you’ve probably noticed the animal illustrations. And the ones you get next year will almost certainly feature… a horse.

Why a horse? Because each year is assigned one of the twelve zodiac signs. The sign for 2026 is 午.

A long time ago, the twelve characters “子丑寅卯辰巳午未申酉戌亥” were used for all kinds of things—months, directions, even times of day. They’re not exactly easy to memorize, though. To make things friendlier for ordinary people, each character was paired with an animal.

We even have a picture book at home called “Jyunishi no Shinnenkai” (“The Twelve Animals’ New Year’s Party”) that we bought for our son. Once each character is connected to an animal, it suddenly feels much easier—and much cuter.

But Wait… 午 Isn’t the Same as 馬?!

Here’s something fun:
The character 午, the zodiac sign, is not the same as the character for the actual animal horse, which is 馬.

When I was a kid, I learned to tell them apart like this:
牛 (cow) has horns → the top vertical line sticks out
午 (zodiac horse) has no horns → the line does not stick out

It made perfect sense to my childhood brain!

And an important note:
When you’re talking about the real animal—like in “horseback riding” (乗馬) or “horsepower” (馬力)—you must use 馬. If you write 乗午 or 午力, Japanese speakers will stare at it thinking, “What… is this a typo? Is that even a word?”

So What Will Your New Year’s Card Say?

When you open your New Year’s mail next year, which kanji character will you find—午 or 馬?
Maybe even both!