Hexo Theme Simple Japanese is an open-source Hexo blog theme built to make Japanese text more readable and beautiful, offering a sidebar with built-in widgets and simple configuration.
What is Hexo Theme Simple Japanese?
Hexo Theme Simple Japanese is a Hexo static site theme that restyles a blog to improve Japanese typography and readability. It takes a standard Hexo blog (Markdown posts generated by Hexo) and renders pages using its own layout templates, sidebar widgets, and configurable custom assets. The theme is maintained by the developer mitsuruog and includes a live demo at https://blog.mitsuruog.info/. The GitHub repository currently has 23 stars.
Key Features
- Japanese readability focus — the theme's stated purpose is making Japanese text more readable and beautiful, with typography tuned for Japanese character display.
- Five built-in sidebar widgets — search (Google site search), profile, recent_posts, tagcloud, and archive, all enabled through a widgets list in the theme configuration.
- Custom assets — add a custom CSS file and a custom JavaScript file to the theme via the
simple_japanese.custom_assetssettings, injecting them into every page. - Contact icon — display a contact link with a Font Awesome icon (e.g., fa-github) using the
contactconfiguration option. - Google Tag Manager support — insert your GTM ID in the
google_analyticsconfig option to load tracking. - Favicon support — drop a
favicon.icofile into thesourcefolder to set the blog's favicon. - AMP integration — works with the
hexo-generator-ampplugin to output Accelerated Mobile Pages for posts. - Simple installation — install via git clone or git submodule, then set the theme name in Hexo's
_config.yml.
Who is it for?
- Japanese-language bloggers building a Hexo blog who want a theme specifically tuned for Japanese text display and line spacing.
- Hexo developers who want a minimal theme with configurable sidebar widgets and a clean codebase to fork and modify.
- Bloggers wanting quick setup — installation takes two steps: clone the repo into
themes/simple-japaneseand update the theme name in the config.
What can you do with Hexo Theme Simple Japanese?
- Set up a personal blog — publish Markdown posts and get a clean layout with a profile sidebar showing your avatar, author name, and description.
- Add search to your blog — enable the search widget to use Google site search on your content.
- Improve mobile performance — pair with the AMP generator plugin to serve AMP versions of your posts.
- Customize appearance — inject your own CSS and JavaScript for styling without modifying the theme's core files.
How does Hexo Theme Simple Japanese work?
After cloning the repo into the themes/simple-japanese directory, edit the site _config.yml and change the theme property to simple-japanese. Optional customization goes into the theme's own configuration block: author info, avatar URL, widget list, contact link, Google Analytics ID, and custom asset paths. To update a git submodule install, run git submodule update --remote.
FAQ
Is Hexo Theme Simple Japanese free?
Yes, it is open-source and available on GitHub. You can clone it using git and use it on any Hexo blog without licensing fees.
How do I install Hexo Theme Simple Japanese?
Clone the repository into your Hexo themes folder with git clone https://github.com/mitsuruog/hexo-theme-simple-japanese.git themes/simple-japanese, then set the theme to simple-japanese in _config.yml. For submodule installs, fork the repo and add the fork as a submodule.
Does this theme support English and other languages?
The theme's design goal is Japanese readability, but it works for any blog because it only changes HTML/CSS presentation. Content in other languages will display normally, though the author's typography choices are optimized for Japanese.
How do I add a favicon?
Place a favicon.ico file in the source folder of your Hexo site. The theme automatically picks it up and serves it for the blog.
Can I add analytics to this theme?
Yes, set the google_analytics option in the theme config to your GTM-XXXXXX ID. The theme will load Google Tag Manager for tracking.
