THE modern Japanese writing system is pretty complicated. It uses three scripts: Kanji and two syllabaries called Kana. The first one uses ideograms from Chinese characters. Kana consists of Hiragana, used for native Japanese words, and Katakana, used for foreign borrowings. Katakana are characterized by short, straight strokes and are the simplest of the Japanese scripts, and I believe the set you see on this page is Katakana. Keinosuke Sato and Shoyu Ohmachi designed this particular font.