The first Japanese character set was JIS X 0201, which only had half-width katakanas. It is absurd in the modern standard, lacking all hiragana and kanji, and l

The first Japanese character set was JIS X 0201, which only had half-width katakanas. It is absurd in the modern standard, lacking all hiragana and kanji, and looks really awful (so much that they are used for comical effects today). I'd argue that JIS X 0201 is an extremely radical attempt compared to the Han unification---so why should the Han unification be blamed alone?