Japenese marks remind me of logos rather than letters. I agree that they are beautiful, organic and very expressive. Have you thought about studying Japanese? Learning how to write this way will influence they way you look at your own writing and how you dot each “i” and cross each “t”. Japanese culture is quite amazing and the design coming from this part of the world is exploding. Have you seen the magazine IDEA or looked at the work of Tadanori Yokoo, http://www.tadanoriyokoo.com/ You can see some of his stop animation (where he uses still imagery) to make videos, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wYALOq22QE.

I have this japanese poster hanging outside of my office (see below.) I was told it was a Japanese announcement for a Sumo Wrestling Tournament. The bigger the name means the bigger the Sumo wrestler.

As you can see, I love Japanese design and think it is beautiful as well.

I agree. I love Japanese writing so much. I studied Japanese in high school for 2 years and it was so amazing to see how the formation of the characters are created. The only problem with Japanese writing is doing it correctly. There is a specific stroke order that the character is supposed to be written. That to me is the most difficult part of learning Japanese as well as learning all the characters. Learning Japanese does make you realize the beauty in creating fluid movement in whatever you create.