What 󠅓 means
It selects a registered glyph variant for the preceding Han ideograph. Han characters are shared by Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese writing, and many have several documented shapes. VS100 draws nothing itself; ideograph plus selector is the instruction — an ideographic variation sequence.
It exists because names and historical records sometimes need one exact Han shape. Work began in 1997 and was refined in 2003–2004; the block entered Unicode 4.0 (2003), and the Ideographic Variation Database registered its first collection, Adobe-Japan1, in 2007.
Why does it seem invisible?
Because it is a selector, not a drawn mark. Apps may hide it; the effect shows only when the font knows that exact pair. Otherwise the ideograph renders normally — no error, no tofu box.
The block holds 240 selectors, VS17 through VS256 , and numbers are not interchangeable: the registered pair decides the glyph, and one selector can do different jobs after different ideographs.
Specialist: it says one exact glyph matters — names, historical texts, font-aware work.
After a random base it is ignored at best; the pair may not exist.
Drift: The IVD is cumulative; its latest listed release, 2026-08-03, adds collections without changing the rule.
Part of the collection
What it means when someone sends it to you
3 readingsNothing shows — no standalone message.
Don't confuse it with
3
️ VS16 (U+FE0F) asks for emoji presentation; VS100 never yields an emoji.
Zero-width space (U+200B) is also invisible but only allows a line break; it cannot reshape a glyph.
Related characters
2
葛󠄀 A documented Japanese sequence: 葛 plus VS17 selects the variant for the place name Katsushika — the same mechanism VS100 joins.
Worth knowing
- The name counts selectors, not code points: the block runs VS17 to VS256, putting Variation Selector-100 at UE0153.
Questions people ask
2Will every font show the variant?
No. Both font and app must support the exact pair; otherwise the ideograph renders as usual.
How can I check whether text contains it?
Inspect the code points. It is invisible, so only a Unicode analyzer will show UE0153 after the ideograph.
More like this
8
How to type or find 󠅓
- Also called
- VS100
- Search it as
- e0153 · ivs · invisible character · ideographic variation · cjk · kanji · itaiji · variant
- Shows up in
- Anything that takes text · its shape is whatever your font draws
󠅓\E0153Codes and encoding1 code points
A visible symbol can contain several code points. JS .length counts UTF-16 units; UTF-8 counts bytes.