U+304A "お" Hiragana Letter O Unicode Character

U+304A "お" Hiragana Letter O is a fundamental character in the Japanese writing system, representing the phoneme /o/ and serving as the first character of the modern Japanese vowel row in the hiragana syllabary. It is used extensively in native Japanese words and grammatical particles, such as the honorific prefix "お" that adds politeness to nouns and verbs. Visually, "お" is distinguished by a sweeping curve on the right and a small diagonal stroke on the upper left, and its pronunciation is a pure vowel sound similar to the "o" in "more" without the off-glide. This character is also a key building block for compound syllables when combined with smaller versions of "や", "ゆ", or "よ", producing sounds like "きょ" (kyo).