This paper addresses the problem of establishing a robust methodology for h
andwritten Kanji character recognition. First, existing techniques in Japan
are critically surveyed to clarify the state-of-the-art and remaining prob
lems. Second, new and promising approaches are discussed in the light of th
e general field of pattern recognition technology. Third, as a promising ch
allenge to distortion-tolerant shape matching, adaptive or category-depende
nt shape normalization of handwritten characters using global/local affine
transformation (GAT/LAT) as a general deformation model is described. (C) 1
999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.