How to Get Japanese Fonts Working in CMatrix The classic cmatrix terminal utility mimics the iconic green falling code from The Matrix . By default, it uses standard alphanumeric characters. However, you can customize it to display Japanese Katakana, closely matching the original digital rain from the films.
Set your terminal transparency to 10-15% over a black wallpaper.
: Japanese characters (CJK) are "wide" characters, meaning they take up two spaces instead of one in a monospace grid.
Open your terminal settings and change your font to Noto Sans Mono CJK JP or another Japanese-compatible monospaced font.
Modern forks of cmatrix include a Unicode execution flag ( -u ) which automatically looks for extended glyphs if your terminal font supports them. cmatrix -u Use code with caution. Method B: The CMatrix-X11 Approach cmatrix japanese font
sudo dnf install google-noto-cjk-fonts
, the angular Japanese script used for foreign loanwords, which mirrors the futuristic, mechanical feel of the Matrix. Monospaced Requirements
In standard GUI terminal emulators, cmatrix relies on the -l (Linux mode) flag, which loads the matrix.fnt file. However, a better experience is achieved by manually loading the matrix.psf (PC Screen Font) version, which includes proper Unicode mapping for Japanese characters.
# Start the update loop update_text_area() How to Get Japanese Fonts Working in CMatrix
Use WSL with a Linux distribution.
: Many standard binary versions of cmatrix are compiled without wide-character support. If you are experiencing issues, you may need to compile from the source and link against ncursesw by modifying the Makefile to include LIBS = -lncursesw .
By default, cmatrix uses:
There is also a JavaScript/Node.js version of cmatrix available via npm. This version defaults to using Katakana and Hiragana and gives you direct control over the character set via code, making it very reliable for developers who want to script the effect. Set your terminal transparency to 10-15% over a
The for your specific OS (Ubuntu, Fedora, Mac?)
echo "アイウエオカキクケコサシスセソタチツテトナニヌネノハヒフヘホマミムメモヤユヨラリルレロワヲン" > jp_chars.txt
sudo apt install fbterm fbterm -f NotoMonoCJK cmatrix -u 3