はんこ・印章
A hanko is a physical seal used to leave a name or other design on paper. Its everyday meaning depends on context: acknowledging a document, registering a seal with a local authority, or using a seal filed with a bank. Changes to particular procedures have added other ways to confirm an action alongside stamping.
An ordinary seal can take red ink from a separate pad; products with their own ink supply also exist.
Local registration gives a jitsuin its status.
A change to one procedure does not describe every use of seals.
The end of a seal carries its design. What it leaves on paper is the impression. A Sirusi photograph places a handheld seal, a separate red ink pad and an impression on paper in the same view, making the three objects easy to distinguish.
For an ordinary seal without its own ink supply, the basic sequence is to touch the face lightly to the red pad, press the face flat onto paper, then lift it away. Both seal suppliers explain this relationship. The separate pad, called shuniku, supplies the color.
The textbook issued by Japan’s national seal-industry association describes rubber molding, computer layout, photosensitive resin and laser processing, alongside other methods. It also discusses ink-permeated products that need no separate pad. A daily-use name seal is therefore not necessarily a hand-carved wooden object.
The association’s textbook gives circulated notices, receipts and deliveries as examples of mitomein, an ordinary acknowledgment seal. These examples explain a category of use. The organization handling a particular transaction determines what confirmation it requires.
Chuo City explains a jitsuin as a seal registered with the local authority. Another seal with the same name or a similar appearance does not automatically become that registered seal. Registration, rather than price, material or diameter, defines this role.
In Chuo City’s explanation, the inkan torokusho is the card issued after registration. It can be used to request an inkan toroku shomeisho, a certificate connecting the registered seal with its holder. These are distinct documents within the city’s described system.
A todokedein is a seal filed with a bank for its procedures. The textbook also distinguishes square organization seals and seals bearing an office or title. These names describe roles, while a bank’s own service terms determine when its filed seal is required.
Niigata Prefectural Archives discusses an 1841 anti-gambling pledge from a village in the Nagaoka area. Among 60 men recorded as stamping the document are groups of three sharing an identical seal. The archive interprets this through household-head seals representing a family, a specific case that complicates the picture of one personal seal for every individual.
A document group in the same archive includes a red 桜井 seal on an 1876 notice of settlement, followed by black 山本 and red 高林 seals on an 1877 application to borrow government mountain land. An 1882 loan document from Sado bears several red impressions. Each record ties the marks to a particular transaction and date.
The archive’s account notes permission for commoners to use red seals in 1868, permission to use surnames in 1870, and a surname requirement in 1875. These changes help place names and impressions in their Meiji setting. They do not remove the need to identify each document on its own terms.
The industry history of Rokugo in Yamanashi connects crystal working with existing tabi-sock makers and traveling sellers. Sellers took custom seal orders while away, and mail order developed later. By the late Taisho period the local industry had become established. This is the history of a production center, rather than a single origin for Japanese seals.
The Ministry of Justice states that compulsory stamping of family-register notifications ended on September 1, 2021. Birth, marriage, divorce and death notifications are among the forms concerned; voluntary stamping remains possible. This reform concerns those notifications, while local seal registration is a separate system.
SMBC describes an inkanless account that replaces the filed seal with a bank card and PIN for the counter transactions it specifies. For paper applications for direct debit, confirmation through SMBC Direct can replace stamping with the filed seal. The same page lists services that still require seals, so this is a named banking arrangement with defined limits.
A family-register reform and a bank account’s confirmation method operate in different settings. Local authorities also continue to explain registered seals and their certificates. Keeping the tool, its registered status and the requirements of one procedure distinct makes these overlapping changes easier to understand.
Its face takes ink from the pad, presses onto paper and lifts away, leaving an impression.
No. Its registration with the local authority gives it that status.
The card can be used to request a certificate. The certificate connects the registered seal with its holder.
It illustrates the use of household-head seals to represent families in a particular village pledge.
Stamping ceased to be compulsory, while voluntary stamping remained possible. Seal registration was a separate matter.