The Japanese are globally renowned, not so much for being good at inventing things, but for their ability to improve upon and adapt existing things. From manufacturing products such as cars to distribution services such as home delivery, the Japanese excel at improving on the original to create something better and more convenient. For example, though the convenience store chain Seven-Eleven was created in the USA, its Japanese franchise has done really well by using a Japanese-style management system. A similar phenomenon occurred with the Japanese language. Japan had no established writing system, so it adopted characters from China and attached them to traditional Japanese words. Then, hiragana and katakana were created. On top of this, Japan created its own original kanji. Many of these have been adopted by the Chinese. The usage of katakana, which has traditionally been mainly used to transcribe words from Western languages such as English, is expanding. Nowadays katakana is used in a variety of different ways, including for stage names and pen names. For example, the official name for “Ryugu,” the asteroid explored by “HayabuSa-2,” is written リュウグウ in katakana. The asteroid was named after “Ryugu-jo (Ryugu Castle)” which appeared in the famous Japanese fairytale “Urashima Taro.” Ryugu is usually written in kanji. The asteroid “ イトカワ ” was named after ITOKAWA Hideo, the creator of the Japanese rocket. Katakana can also be used to suggest a particular thing, while actually having a different meaning.