The idea came from wanting a fast, well-organized way to find and copy kaomoji — those uniquely Japanese text emoticons like (╥﹏╥) and ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶ that you can't easily type.
Features: - One-click copy to clipboard - 500+ categories: emotions, animals, characters, greetings, seasonal, food, etc. - Subcategory filtering (basic, cute, kawaii, decorated, ascii art) - AI-powered kaomoji generation for custom ones
Tech stack: Next.js 14 (App Router), Tailwind CSS, Shadcn UI, deployed on Cloudflare Pages. Each category is a static TypeScript data file with kaomoji,tags, and popularity scores — no database needed for the main content.
The tricky part was organizing 300+ data files by category while keeping Japanese cultural context intact (e.g., dogeza, banzai, otsukaresama have specific meanings that don't translate directly).
Everything is free, no signup required. Would love feedback on the UX and category organization!