KYOTO--Japan has chosen “mitsu" as the kanji of the year, widely cited as part of a social distancing slogan, in a fitting acknowledgement of how the pandemic has held the public at its mercy in 2020.

The character “mitsu”, meaning “congested” or “dense”, was derived from a buzzword “San-mitsu”, which was central to Japan’s approach to the containing the pandemic. Translated as “Three Cs” in ...