As the number of such characters used decreased, their styles became increasingly more simplified, and during the early Heian period, so-gana characters, Manyo-gana characters written beautifully in the sosho-tai style, were used.
文字数の減少と平行して字体の簡略化が進み、平安時代初期、万葉仮名を草書体で美しく表現した草仮名（そうがな）が使われた。