桼: a lacquered knee

桼も表外漢字です。英語で、「varnish」です。
漆, lacquer.  It's liquid 氵, applies to/comes from wood 木, and can make a big nasty splash under your roof if you're careless.
膝, knee:  It's flesh so we get 肉 on the left.  Beyond that, I think of a wooden knee and water on the knee as things that can go wrong with it.

漆膝

舛: Dancing with the greats

舛 is 表外漢字.  It relates to dancing.  I'll remember it as a dancer 㐄 with arms out and the forearms we see on our left up (sort of like half of walking like an Egyptian), dancing at night 夕.
舞, dance:           Before a lineup of spectators (the top row), the dancer does her stuff.
瞬, wink:            With the eye, using her eyebrow + eyelash 爫 and eyelid 冖, the dancer winks.
傑, greatness:     The person who sees the dancer walking those floorboards thinks:  she's a great artist, and this work is a masterpiece!
隣, neighboring: But glamorous or not, beyond the hills, the dancer eats rice like everyone else and is just a neighbor to those she knows.

舞瞬傑隣

旡: all choked up

旡は表外漢字です。TheKanjiMap.com thinks it's choke/sob; using Henshall, I get that it's a figure stopping its throat or something; I'll picture it as having a hand up in front of its fact saying, "No more food."
既, already/previously/    I looked back on what I'd eaten, and said, "No more
   established:                    food -- I already ate."
慨, deep feeling/lament:  A deep feeling of sadness for days gone by
概, generally:                  Trees are generally already established where they are
                                          (try moving one and you'll agree).

既慨概

私は それを * 疑う（うたがう）*

疑, question/doubt.  This is a monster.  Guy sitting 匕 on an arrow 矢 questions/doubts
                                  whether ma マ was right 正 to shoot him in the butt.
凝, stiffen/congeal.  Doubt can cause you to "freeze up," which really means get stiff.
擬, imitation/mock.  Create a handicraft that mimics something and people will
                                  question whether it's real.

疑凝擬

今日。。。

メリークリスマス、皆！

隶and his daring escape

隶は表外漢字です。It means slave.  I picture it as a hand working a butter churn that's sort of splashy.  I'm going to use the meaning "criminal" (next symbol) here, because I couldn't find a happy ending for my mnemonic story otherwise -- there was no symbol in this group for "escape" or "abolish slavery."
隷, slave/criminal:    The samurai from last time was seized at the altar as a
                                   slave/criminal.  Oops.
逮, chase/arrest:     Once in motion, the criminal is chased and arrested.
康, peace/ease:       When the criminal's in the Big House, everything is peaceful
                                  again.  Until the next exciting episode.

隷逮康

示: showing up at the temple

示is an altar, and looks like it; per Henshall, the lines coming down left and right are drops of blood or sacrificial wine.  It doesn't mean altar as a standalone, but means show, meaning that what comes from the sacrifice will show the will of the gods.

Different religions

宗, sect:                  Each sect has an altar, but under a different roof.
奈, Nara:                The city of Nara is famous for its temples -- they're a big 大きい deal.
斎, worship/study: The holy text 文on the altar, bounded by walls, make the temple
                                 a place for worship and study.
崇, worship/lofty:  The Samaritans used to put altars for worship in lofty places in the mountains.

The forbidden-forest temple

禁, forbidden:        This altar is in the forbidding/forbidden forest.
襟, collar/neck:      It's forbidden to wear a collar on your neck in the forbidden temple
                                  -- wear a robe.

The festival in the hills

祭, festival:            Offer meat 肉 on the altar for the festival.
際, occasion:         The festival in the hills is quite an occasion.
察, guess:              When we offer meat to the gods, it's done under a roof of secrecy
                                 -- you can only guess how the gods will respond.
擦, scratch/score:  Use your hand to scratch the altar so we can guess what it's made of.

How not to behave in church

票, ballot/ticket:     Put your hat on the altar -- it's your ticket out of here (because you'll
                                  get kicked out).  OK, I vote we don't do that.
標, signpost/stamp:Put up that ticket or ballot on a tree as a signpost for others:
                                 don't try the "hat on the altar" thing.
漂, float/drift:         Throw your ballot on the water and it will drift away.  Maybe
                                 people will forget what you did.
款, friendship:       The samurai, feeling a lack of friendship in life, offers himself
                               on the altar:  take me!  So now he is friend to the gods.  Better than the
                               thing with the hat.

There is also the kanji 隷, but since we haven't done 隶, I will defer that until tomorrow.

宗奈斎崇禁襟祭際察擦票標漂款

Strange 奇妙な (きみょうな) travels 旅行 (りょこう)

奇, strange.          A big 大 mystery:  what 何 can 可 that strange thing be?
騎, equestrian.    It's strange how dedicated equestrians are to their horses.
埼, promontory.  What a strange earth formation!  It's a promontory
崎, promontory.  What a strange mountain!  It's a promontory too.
寄, approach.      Even a stranger, when you let him approach under your roof, can become a friend.
椅, chair (いす). What a strange tree that is!  No, that's a chair.

奇騎埼崎寄椅

鬲: the evil laboratory

鬲is 表外漢字.  Unfortunately, per Henshall, it's a cookpot.  The last thing I want to remember is yet another cookpot (良、豆、曾).  So I say instead it is... an evil laboratory setup.  Papers sitting on a display 口 above a work table, underneath which is a stool.  The two marks above the stool are either supports for the table or clutter on the stool -- you know how messy evil scientists are.

隔, isolate:  The lab is isolated behind those rolling hills.  What secrets lurk within?
融, melt:     He's made a weapon capable of melting living beings!  He's experimenting
                       with bugs for now.  But who's next?

隔融

丂, a twisty water weed

丂 is 表外漢字 which, per Henshall, is a twisty water weed under the surface (the top line).

朽, decay:        A plant under the water with the twisty weed will soon decay.
巧, ingenuity:  My mind, turned to technical things エ, is deep and complicated like
                            that water weed.
号, number:     Our worker found a phone (to me this 漢字 looks like a dial with a
                            receiver beneath), dialed a number, and escaped!  (This one's easier
                            for me because it's part of 電話番号, phone number.)
考, think over:  This to me is like a person or worker 者, except he's like that water
                            weed -- he's thinking over how to do things.
拷, torture:       Uh-oh.  Someone's raising a hand to him.  "Think!  Remember the
                             information I want!"
誇, boast:        "To hear him talk, he's a big man who can walk on water.  But notice
                            that surfboard he's actually standing on!"

朽巧号考拷誇

バックパッキング旅行 with 尺

Although 尺 means hand's-breadth (I think I can see the palm and fingers), Henshall suggests thinking of it as a backpack.  This helps make a coherent story for mnemonics.

昼, noonish:   After sunrise, I backpack till around noon.
沢, swamp:    On my backpacking trip, I came to a wet swamp.
訳, translate:  On my backpacking trip (in a foreign land), I often had to translate words.
釈, explain:   "Sir, explain why you're smuggling rice stalks in your backpack."
択, choose:    I use my hand to choose something from my backpack.
尽, exhaust:   I'm so exhausted I'm dropping things out of my backpack.
駅, station:     In this case, I think of 尺 as looking like a hitching post,
                           the station where I tie my horse. A good place to rest for
                           the night.  Story ends.

昼沢訳釈択尽駅

官: 映画館、図書館、音楽、と死亡

官 is bureaucrat:  someone with a big head, sitting under a roof, with a big, well, you know muscles get bigger when you exercise them and he exercises his sitting muscles a lot.  Just sayin'.

館, public building:  It may be a government building or it may have food.
管, pipe:                   When he has a moment, the bureaucrat likes to practice his
                                 bamboo flute.
棺, coffin:                 It's made of wood and one day the bureaucrat, like the rest
                                 of us, will go into one.

官館管棺

What's 次

次 つぐ, next, is common enough.  I don't know why you put ice 冫together with a hole 欠 and get next, but so be it.

This set of 漢字の物語 feature various agents:  a playboy, a consultant, a grazing animal, a banker, and a thief.

姿, figure/shape:           A woman has a figure, but so does the next.
恣, selfish/arbitrary:      ...or so thinks the selfish man:  it's arbitrary -- one's much like the next
諮, consult/deliberate:  Words in which one mouth speaks, then the next.
茨, thorn/briar:              The thorns tell the grazing animal:  skip this bush and go on to the next.
資, capital/resources:    Capital is a commodity -- one piece of money is just like the next.
盗, steal:                       The next thing to do is steal a plate.

次姿恣諮茨資,盗

場s to go

昜 is 表外漢字, and I find it more useful to base everything on either 場 (place) or 湯 (hot water/hot spring). so:

場, place:                  an earthen spot where the sun shines over, oh, maybe a bank
                                 with trailing weeds, IDK.
陽, daytime/male     Sun shining in daytime over the hills at that special spot.
/yang principle:        I'm guessing that identifies it with the yang principle which
                                 symbolizes male.
湯, hot water/spring:  This spot is all about the water:  it's a hot spring.
腸, intestines:          People come to the hot spring to cure their ailments.  Some
                                of which may be gut-related.
揚, elevate:             And Christ reaches out his hand and says to the sick person,
                                you're healed -- get up!

場陽湯腸揚

育てる your children well

育てる（そだてる）means raise (children), train, foster.  This was a tough one to make mnemonic for.  I think of it as a hanger dangling a piece of 肉.  Maybe we're raising tiger babies.

徹, penetrate/pierce:  You'd better have a stick in hand 攵. or the baby tigers waiting
                                     at the crossroads 彳will have some piercing insights into... you.

撤, remove:                The safest thing is to use your 手 to remove the 肉 from that
                                     hook, still keeping stick in hand 攵.

育徹撤

旦 and what comes later

旦, early morning.      Yep, that's the sun coming over the horizon.
但, however/but:          A person sees the sunrise and says,
                                      "But...but...I was SLEEPING!"
胆, courage/nerve/gall bladder:  The part of human nature that sticks up for things
担 shouldering/carry:  Put your hand to something, pick it UP and carry it
揚, elevate:                 Take someone by the hand who's waiting at the 湯 hot spring
                                      water.  "Do you want to be well?  Get up and walk!"*
宣, proclaim:              Under that same roof we saw at the podium, proclaim what's in range of your topic
恒, constancy:           The feeling of staying in between, not going out of range.

亘range/span:            Sun shining between two borders.
垣 hedge:                   Separate earthy areas between hedges.
壇, podium:               See the samurai getting ready to speak at a podium (well, it
                                     looks like one to me.  I think that thing in the middle is a TV.)

*I don't think this one belongs here, but rather with the 昜 family, but I got confused and put it in this set instead.  No wonder I'm having a rough time remembering it.  I'll move this later if I remember.


旦但胆担揚宣恒亘垣 壇

喜: time to rejoice

喜, rejoice:  As in a previous post:  ten bean cola makes the mouth rejoice.
樹, timber:  We can measure 寸 trees 木 for timber and rejoice in our profits.
膨, swelling:  The bean symbol 豆 is (per Henshall) related to a cookpot:  the square's the pot, it's got a stand, that kind of thing.  Let the at the top be the lid and handle.  What happens to your flesh ⺼ if you put yo' hairy 彡self on that cookpot?  Ouch!  Now it's going to swell up.
鼓, drum:  Safer to put a stick in your hand 支 and bang on that cookpot as a drum.  Maybe rejoicing 喜 in our timber 樹profits rather than nursing a swollen 膨 hand.

喜樹膨鼓

曲: music and pleasure

曲, music/pleasure:   Looks sort of like sheet music on a music stand
豊, rich/abundant:     It also looks like an extension of 田 field, so maybe it's a big, rich, abundant field of beans.
艶, glossy/colorful:  The leaves of the beans are glossy and colorful.
農, farming:              The bottom symbol 辰 is clam, and a clam shell looks
                                    like/could be used as the blade of a hoe.  Hoe your field:
                                    that's farming.  (There's two great discussions of  at Kanji
                                    Portraits, parts one and two; I used them instead of making my
                                    own.)
濃, dark/thick/concentrated:  Run water through your farm and you'll get dark,
                                    thick, concentrated runoff.


曲豊艶農濃

豆: mame mia

豆, まめ bean:  I think of it as ground, vines climbing up a trellis, then a bean, then the top of the trellis.
頭, あたま head:  That's using the old bean.  (The 頁, though it means leaf or page, is derived from a symbol for head.)
短, みじか（い）short:  The distance an arrow flies to cross a bean's width is pretty short.
喜, rejoice:  Ten bean cola makes the mouth rejoice.  (Supposedly Coca-Cola's name in Chinese means "makes the mouth rejoice.")  I put the descendants of 壴 into their own set, which I may post here soon.
登, のぼ（る）climb:  Two climbed the beanstalk, then lay on their backs to watch the clouds go by.
澄, settle/clear:  Those climbers saw clear skies -- no clouds -- so settled in to wait.
闘, fight:  Unfortunately, it's the beanstalk from Jack's story, so attached to it is the castle gate.  They'll have to fight a giant.

There are two more kanji, 艶 and 豊, but I'll put them in later post related to 曲.

豆頭短喜澄闘

殳: pushing through

殳:  a lance.  Wha--?  Well, the bottom is a hand, and the top is a lance after you've smushed it into a wall so it's all curved.  Best I can do here.

Now, for the descendants.
殳, lance/pike:      First, there was a pike(man).
穀, grain/cereal:    Like many adventurers, he started on a farm.  He poked grains into the earth with his lance, to get a crop of rice.
殻, husk/nutshell: Didn't work, so he poked in the earth with his lance and found nut shells.
般, carrier*:          He tried getting a job on a carrier ship, but...

没, drown:            He fell into the water and nearly drowned.

役, role/military service:  Finally, seeking his fortune, he came to a crossroads.  They drafted him for the role of military service.
殴, assault:           The pikemen made an assault on the city ward.
撃, shoot at/aggression: The army used their hands to shoot lances in their attack.  (車 here is used as army.)
疫, epidemic:        There was an epidemic, so he used his lance (to enforce quarantine?)
殿, mansion:         Finally the pikeman came to a mansion.
段, stair:               He made his way up a staircase.
鍛, forge:              He found a forge at the top.  There at the forge was his opposite number, with a fresh-forged lance.
投, throw:             They threw their lances.
股, thigh/crotch:   Like the Fisher-King in Arthurian legend, he got a wound to his thigh or crotch, from a lance.
設, establish:        Ultimately, to establish anything, he found you need words not weapons.

This doesn't fit, so I'll put it by its lonesome:
殺, kill:                On the cross, or poetically a tree, they killed Christ; the soldier stuck a lance in his side.

* There are more with 般 in them, but the list is getting long and I put these with 舟 (ship) anyway.


殳穀殻般没役殴撃疫殿段鍛投股設殺

斥: axe it, reject it, repel it

斥:  reject.  It looks like the axe radical 斤, but with a strikethrough.  So:  I really reject this thing.  So I axe it and then strike it out.

訴:  accusation.  Words that thoroughly reject.

斥訴

余: it's all just too much

余 means remainder or too much.  Maybe it's a broom sweeping out a shed, and there's way too much dirt remaining.  It helps my story here if I focus on it being too much dirt, so:

除:  remove.  Remove the hills of dirt from that shed.  (掃除機, sweep-remove-machine, is a vacuum cleaner).
斜: diagonal, slant.  Put too much dirt in the dipper and it'll slant diagonally.
途  route, road.  Move the dirt you swept up down the road.
徐: gradually.  Don't want to get caught dumping, so I gradually let dirt spill as I travel the intersection.
叙: confer/describe.  I'll put my hand on the dirt before conferring it on... you.
塗: paint.  Liquid black dirty stuff that looks like earth.  (The earth radical at the bottom is also in ink 墨).

余除斜途徐叙塗

The clear brightness of 奐

奐 is a 表外漢字, hyougai (rarely used) kanji.  But it's got two commonly used descendants.

奐（かん）：clear/bright.  Looks like a lamp on a table, with the bulb clear/bright enough to see the wiring.
喚 （かん）：yell.  Which is what you'll do if you stick your hand on that hot bulb.
換 （かん）：interchange/convert/replace.  That's what your hand can do to a light bulb.

喚換