Japanese “reserved” Button Emoji

A green square button holding the white Japanese kanji 指 (shi, yubi, sasu), meaning 'finger,' 'to point,' or in signage context 'designated' or 'reserved'. Emojipedia lists it as the Japanese Reserved Button, and that single word does a lot of work. In Japan it stands in for 指定席 (shiteiseki, a reserved seat), 指定券 (shiteiken, a reservation ticket), and 指定 (shitei, a formal designation or appointment).

The character itself is constructed from 扌 (tehen, a hand radical) plus 旨 (the phonetic / intent marker shi). The literal picture is a hand aiming at a thing. From that gesture Japanese gets a whole fan of meanings: 指す (sasu, to point at), 指名 (shimei, to nominate a person by name), 指示 (shiji, an instruction), 指摘 (shiteki, to point something out), 指導 (shidō, guidance), and 指揮 (shiki, to conduct or direct). Walk through any Japanese train station or stadium and you'll see that kanji everywhere, quietly saying 'this one, not the other ones.'

The emoji's green color is deliberate. JR lines print 指 reservation seals in green on Shinkansen boarding passes and platform signs, paired with the orange or blue of 自由 (jiyū, unreserved) cars. When Japanese carriers encoded the kanji into their flip-phone emoji palettes in the early 2000s, they kept the signage color, and Unicode 5.2 (2009) carried the convention into U+1F22F.

Inside Japan 🈯 reads as 'that seat is taken' or 'this slot is booked'. On Japanese X it shows up in Shinkansen live-tweets (指定席取った, 'got a reserved seat'), in concert live reports (全指定, 'all reserved seating'), and in stadium threads. It's also the TV broadcast symbol for 指名打者 (shimei dasha, designated hitter) in Japanese baseball, printed on score bugs in NPB games since the Pacific League adopted the DH rule in 1975.

Western use is rare. The word 'reserved' in English rarely travels by emoji, and most non-Japanese readers see a green square with strokes and scroll past. When it does appear outside Japan, it's usually anime-fandom Twitter using it as a half-ironic 'claimed' marker on a character ('she's 🈯'), Japanese-baseball accounts recapping DH stats, or TikTok travel creators decoding Shinkansen signage. Japanese-American and Japanese-Brazilian communities sometimes use it in the original 'reserved' sense for family events and gatherings.

Japan's reserved-seat system on long-distance rail is essentially as old as the Shinkansen. When the bullet train opened the Tōkaidō line between Tokyo and Osaka in October 1964, Japan National Railways (the predecessor to JR) set up two categories of tickets: 指定席 (shiteiseki, reserved) and 自由席 (jiyūseki, unreserved). Passengers paid a small surcharge for a numbered seat, and the 指 shorthand went up on platform signs, ticket stubs, and in printed timetables.

That shorthand never left. Sixty-plus years later, every JR Shinkansen and most JR limited-express trains still use 指 on reservation seals, in Ekinet confirmation emails, and on the car-number stickers above the doors. Regular-season reservation fees in 2026 are ¥530, scaling to ¥730 during peak travel and ¥930 for super-peak travel around Golden Week, Obon, and New Year. During those peaks, 指定席 sells out weeks in advance while 自由席 passengers queue on the platform 45 minutes before departure.

Japanese flip-phone carriers (DoCoMo, au, SoftBank) encoded 指 into their proprietary emoji palettes in the early 2000s so users could text each other about ticket statuses. When Unicode 5.2 (2009) absorbed the Japanese button set as the Enclosed Ideographic Supplement block, 🈯 went in as U+1F22F. Carriers that had used a warmer green kept their warmer green. Carriers that used a teal kept a teal. Convergence toward the bright JR green happened slowly across vendor redesigns over the 2010s.

1. 1964Tōkaidō Shinkansen opens. JNR introduces 指定席 / 自由席 distinction. The 指 mark begins appearing on tickets and platform signs.
2. 1975Pacific League adopts the designated hitter rule, two years after the American League. Japanese TV broadcasts start using 指 as the on-screen DH indicator.
3. 2001Japanese carriers (NTT DoCoMo, au, J-Phone/Vodafone) encode 指 into their flip-phone emoji palettes so users can text about seat reservations.
4. 2009Unicode 5.2 releases the Enclosed Ideographic Supplement block. 🈯 is assigned U+1F22F.
5. 2010iOS 5 ships the first Apple version of 🈯 alongside most of the Japanese button family. The early design is a muted green gradient with a stroke-heavy kanji.
6. 2017Google drops the blob style. 🈯 gets the flat modern green square it carries today.
7. 2025NPB's Central League votes in August to adopt the DH rule starting in 2027, ending 50 years of Pacific-League-only DH. 🈯 is about to be on every Central League score bug too.

Japan: universally legible. Every literate adult has stood under a station sign reading 指定席 and knows exactly what 指 means in that context. Chinese readers recognize the character because 指 is shared kanji/hanzi (zhǐ, meaning finger or point), but the 'reserved' extension is Japan-specific — in China the equivalent sign would use 已预订 (yǐ yùdìng) or 专座. Korean readers know 指 from hanja in older texts but would write 예약 (yeyak, reservation) in modern contexts. Outside East Asia the emoji functions mostly as a decorative green square to people who can't read the kanji, which is why it ranks near the bottom of global emoji frequency.

• •The designated hitter rule was adopted by NPB's Pacific League in 1975 partly to win back fans after the Black Mist game-fixing scandal. Japanese TV broadcasts have used 🈯 (指) as the on-screen DH indicator for five decades. Foreign fans watching NPB online picked up the emoji from those game feeds.
• •In August 2025 the Central League voted unanimously to adopt the DH rule starting in 2027, ending the Central League's position as the only major professional baseball league in the world still forcing pitchers to bat. The 'Ohtani rule' rides along with it, letting two-way players stay in the lineup as DH after they leave the mound.
• •A Shinkansen reserved-seat reservation costs ¥330 in off-peak season, ¥530 regular, ¥730 peak, and ¥930 during super-peak travel around Golden Week and New Year. Japan Rail Pass holders pay nothing extra for a reservation, which is one reason the Pass is such a steal for tourists hitting multiple cities.
• •The kanji 指 has three live readings in modern Japanese: shi (as in 指定, shitei, 'designated'), yubi (as in 指輪, yubiwa, 'ring' — literally 'finger-loop'), and sasu (the verb 指す, 'to point at'). All three show up in daily speech. Japanese keyboards disambiguate by context and furigana.
• •The Japanese traveler's phrase これを指してください (kore wo sashite kudasai, 'please point to this') uses the same 指 as on the emoji. It's the phrase every Japanese textbook teaches first for ordering from an untranslated menu.
• •At Japanese host and hostess clubs, 指名料 (shimei-ryō, designation fee) runs ¥2,000 to ¥5,000 at most places and tens of thousands of yen at luxury Ginza clubs. Most clubs operate on 永久指名 (eikyū shimei, permanent nomination) where once you've named a host you can't switch within that club.
• •The stroke order of 指 is nine strokes: three for the 扌 hand radical on the left, then six for 旨 on the right. Japanese elementary students learn it around third grade alongside 持 (motsu, to hold) and 揮 (ki, to wield), which share the hand radical.
• •🈯 ranks near the bottom of global emoji frequency and sits around 1-2% of the Japanese-button family's combined search interest. Among the 17 family members, only 🉑 (acceptable) and 🈷️ (monthly amount) are searched less often on a worldwide basis.
• •On JR Shinkansen boarding passes, the printed 指 seal is specifically stamped in JR green next to the car (号車) and seat (席) numbers. Tourists scanning their first ticket often assume the kanji is just decoration. It's the whole reason you know which seat is yours.

• •NPB broadcast score bugs (1975–present): every televised Pacific League game since 1975 has shown 🈯 next to the designated hitter's name. From 2027 the Central League joins, putting 🈯 on all six Central clubs' broadcasts too.
• •JR Shinkansen signage (1964–present): the original post-Tokaido-opening reservation mark. Printed on every 指定席 ticket and posted on car-entrance signs across every Shinkansen line in service.
• •Japanese anime and idol fandom on X (2015–present): fans tag a favorite character or bias 🈯 as a 'mine, hands off' claim, often paired with 🥺 or 🫶 in K-pop and J-pop stan posts.
• •Tokyo 2020 Olympics venue signage: 🈯 appeared on reserved-section badges at Olympic Stadium and Yokohama venues during ticketed events that ran without spectators.