About
Who's teaching you
I'm Cesar Borgenkrans — a Japanologist based in Stockholm. Everything on this site is my own work: written, drawn, recorded, and given away.
The qualification
I hold a bachelor's degree in Japanese and work as a Japanologist — someone whose actual academic subject is Japan: the language, the writing systems, and the culture that shaped both. The degree finished in 2020, after several research trips to the country.
That matters here for one reason. When a page on this site tells you a kanji means something, or that a phrase would sound rude in a particular situation, it isn't guesswork copied from another website.
The teaching
I have taught hundreds of learners, from eight-year-olds to adults, through schools, cultural organisations, and public workshops. In 2026 alone that included around forty workshops for Skapande skola, Sweden's national creative-schools programme.
Everything on this site was tried on real people in real rooms before it was published here. When a page moves slowly, it's usually because I watched a class get stuck at exactly that point.
Where the work has landed
- The Japan Foundation — the Japanese government's cultural institution — funded my research project on Harajuku Neo-Decora fashion, 2023–24.
- Asahi Shimbun, Japan's largest daily newspaper, covered my work in 2025.
- I have lectured at Stockholm's Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities (sold out), and to an audience of 160 at NärCon.
- Workshops and calligraphy demonstrations for schools across Stockholm, museums, and companies including Microsoft.
Why this book has characters in it
"Reading" Japanese Role-playing Games — degree thesis, 2020
The mascots are not decoration, and the Kanji Guild is not a gimmick. This is my academic subject.
I studied how Japanese games teach people to read: how they hand you a word at the exact moment you need it, how a difficult character stops being a shape to memorise and becomes a character you actually know. That research is what The Pyon Go! Book is built on — a Guild of kanji rather than a vocabulary list, quests rather than exercises, three classmates rather than a faceless textbook voice.
So if the design looks playful, that is the research working, not a lack of seriousness about it.
And the brushwork
I'm also a calligrapher — shodō and sumi-e — with solo exhibitions in Stockholm behind me. That's why the stroke-order material and the brush artwork on this site are drawn by hand rather than generated.
Want a workshop for your school, company or group? Write to hello@sparklesnap.dev.
More about the lectures, calligraphy and translation work: cezarborgkrans.com.
Start learning →