Subtitles

Film and TV subtitles are called jimaku (字幕), literally "character curtain", in Japanese. They may appear in either tategaki, usually on the left of the screen, or yokogaki, usually on the bottom of the screen, format.

Digital TV subtitles use full-width characters with furigana but half-width katakana. In the days of celluloid film, a special form of lettering was developed which was written directly onto the film itself, known as screen moji.