pykakasi
Kana kanji simple inversion library
Decision gist · record as of 2026-08-14
Yes, if you need Japanese-to-romaji conversion and can tolerate dormant maintenance. The package is Production/Stable, has no known vulnerabilities, low install friction, and supports current Python versions (3.8–3.13). The 781-day gap since last release is notable but not disqualifying for a mature, narrowly-scoped library. GPL-3.0-or-later licensing is a blocker for proprietary closed-source projects.AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying
Before you install
- Low install friction; pure Python wheel.
- Maintenance is dormant (781 days since last release), though the package is marked Production/Stable and has no known vulnerabilities.
License · maintenance · safety
GPL-3.0-or-later (copyleft) — GPL-3.0-or-later copyleft license. Derivative works and distributions must be released under GPL3+ or compatible terms; proprietary use requires separate licensing.
last release 2024-06-24 (781 days)
0 known vulnerabilities (OSV.dev, 2026-08-14) · 1,686,957 downloads/mo, #3,650 on PyPI
Alternatives
Verify before relying
import pykakasi
kks = pykakasi.kakasi()
text = "かな漢字"
result = kks.convert(text)
for item in result:
print(item['orig'], item['hepburn'])- Whether dormant maintenance status (781 days) affects reliability for current Python versions despite Production/Stable classifier
- Performance characteristics on large Japanese text volumes or real-time processing scenarios
What it is and what it does
Pykakasi is a Python NLP library that converts Japanese text into romanized form (rōmaji). It handles hiragana, katakana, and kanji characters, producing multiple output forms: kana (katakana), hiragana, and rōmaji (Latin alphabet). The library is based on algorithms from the kakasi C library and supports NFC-form characters.
Typical use is to pass Japanese text to a kakasi instance and iterate over the conversion results, which include the original character, its kana and hiragana forms, and its romanized representation. It depends on jaconv for character conversion, deprecated for API management, and importlib-resources for resource loading.
Use it for
- Convert Japanese text to romaji for display in systems that require Latin characters
- Extract phonetic readings (hiragana/katakana) from kanji for language learning or accessibility
- Process Japanese input in NLP pipelines that need standardized romanized output
- Generate furigana-like output for mixed Japanese text (kana + kanji) in documents
Worth the install?
AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page. Verify before relying on it.
Yes, if you need Japanese-to-romaji conversion and can tolerate dormant maintenance.
The package is Production/Stable, has no known vulnerabilities, low install friction, and supports current Python versions (3.8–3.13). The 781-day gap since last release is notable but not disqualifying for a mature, narrowly-scoped library. GPL-3.0-or-later licensing is a blocker for proprietary closed-source projects.
Install
pykakasi on PyPI
Before you install
Low install friction; pure Python wheel. Maintenance is dormant (781 days since last release), though the package is marked Production/Stable and has no known vulnerabilities.
License in practice
GPL-3.0-or-later copyleft license. Derivative works and distributions must be released under GPL3+ or compatible terms; proprietary use requires separate licensing.
Quickstart
import pykakasi
kks = pykakasi.kakasi()
text = "かな漢字"
result = kks.convert(text)
for item in result:
print(item['orig'], item['hepburn'])Verify before relying
- Whether dormant maintenance status (781 days) affects reliability for current Python versions despite Production/Stable classifier
- Performance characteristics on large Japanese text volumes or real-time processing scenarios
Package facts
| License | GPL-3.0-or-later copyleft |
| Python support | Supports the current Python release >=3.8 |
| Install friction | Low. Pure-Python wheel |
| Runtime dependencies | 3 packagesjaconvdeprecatedimportlib-resources |
| Maintenance | Dormant 781 days since the last release |
| First released | |
| Downloads | 1,686,957 / month, #3,650 on PyPI 30-day window, as of 2026-08-14 |
| Known vulnerabilities | None known OSV.dev, checked 2026-08-14 |
| Classifiers | Development Status :: 5 - Production/StableEnvironment :: ConsoleLicense :: OSI Approved :: GNU General Public License v3 or later (GPLv3+)Operating System :: MacOS :: MacOS XOperating System :: Microsoft :: WindowsOperating System :: POSIXOperating System :: POSIX :: LinuxProgramming Language :: PythonProgramming Language :: Python :: 3Programming Language :: Python :: 3 :: OnlyProgramming Language :: Python :: 3.10Programming Language :: Python :: 3.11Programming Language :: Python :: 3.12Programming Language :: Python :: 3.13Programming Language :: Python :: 3.8Programming Language :: Python :: 3.9Topic :: Software Development :: Libraries :: Python Modules |
Evidence: pykakasi-2.3.0-py3-none-any.whl
Tags
Let your AI agent find packages like this
Example. Real query, live index.
You found this page by searching. An agent finds it by wishing: SkillFed indexes 14,416 PyPI packages by what they can do, searchable in plain language.
wish › “japanese text to romaji”
- pykakasiTransliterates Japanese text (hiragana, katakana, kanji) into rōmaji…
- jaconvjaconv converts between Japanese character types: Hiragana, Katakana,…
- cutletCutlet converts Japanese text to romaji (Latin characters) using…
Give your agent the search over MCP, or paste the wish link into any chat.
More Python Modules packages
Converts domain names between Unicode and ASCII-compatible encoding (Punycode) according to IDNA 2008 and Unicode Technical Standard 46, with security validation and broader script coverage than the standard library.
Install it if you work with internationalized domain names, need to validate domains, or use HTTP clients that depend on it transitively.
Setuptools is a Python build backend and package management tool that handles building, distributing, and installing Python packages, including support for C/C++ extension modules.
PyYAML parses and emits YAML 1.1 data format, enabling serialization and deserialization of configuration files and Python objects to and from human-readable YAML text.
Pydantic validates Python data structures against type hints, coercing and checking input at runtime to ensure it matches a declared schema.
Provides reusable metadata objects for use with PEP-593 `typing.Annotated` to express common constraints like bounds, collection sizes, and predicates on types.
Install it if you use or build libraries that need to express type constraints in a standardized, inspectable way—or if you want to annotate your own types with…
Provides runtime tools to inspect and introspect Python type annotations, enabling programmatic examination of type hints at execution time.
See also cutlet · jaconv · kanjize · habachen · mojimoji · hangul-romanize · indic-transliteration · transliterate · Unidecode · OpenCC