仕方が無い shikata ga nai It Cannot Be Helped

仕方が無い (shikata ga nai): there is no way, so it cannot be helped.

There is no way, so accept it: what a Japanese speaker says when a thing is beyond changing, unsatisfying, with nothing to do but let it go, and the acceptance is the point, not a report that there is no solution but a decision to stop looking. It has two further senses in speech, hopeless of a person and unbearably of a feeling. In English the phrase has become a name for a whole way of bearing what cannot be helped; in Japanese it is the phrase of daily life. The same idiom is also written 仕様が無い, said shō ga nai, and clipped to 仕方無い, and each is offered on its own. Whether you hang it for the acceptance or for the shrug is yours.

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 仕方が無い.

Your scroll is brushed when you order it and completed within 1 to 3 business days. It ships by USPS Priority Mail from Master Takase's studio in Washington State, boxed and ready to hang, with a printed page giving the art's English, romaji and Japanese.

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Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase brushes your scroll by hand when you order it. Each scroll bears her red seal, 英利, and her signature.

The scrolls are 12 1/4" W × 43" H (31 × 109 cm) with real silk borders and Japanese paper that are layered so the scroll hangs straight and will not warp over time. The scrolls themselves are made by Sankō (株式会社三幸) in Gifu prefecture, which has been making high quality scrolls since 1947, and we have worked with Sankō for over two decades.

Eri Takase was born and raised in Osaka, Japan, and holds the rank of Shihan, the highest rank in Japanese calligraphy, from the Bokuteki-kai and the Bunka-shodo. About Master Takase