Standard stroke order for any given character is occasionally different between Chinese and Japanese [1]. Characters also have different variants, e.g. the rad

Standard stroke order for any given character is occasionally different between Chinese and Japanese [1]. Characters also have different variants, e.g. the radical on top of 'grass' 草 has variants with 3, 4, or even 6 strokes [1]. There are two 4-stroke variants that look different and have different stroke order. Plus cursive handwriting will often elide and merge strokes to make things flow better. Full stroke order independence is probably unrealistic (some parts of a character will always be written last), but allowing for some local inversions is probably necessary. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order#Stroke_order_per_polity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke_order#Stroke_order_per_... [2] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%89%B9 https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%89%B9