The most prominent characteristic of Manyo-gana is that, regardless of the meanings of the Chinese characters, one letter was used to represent each syllable of Japanese which was expressed with Chinese characters in a square or a cursive style.
楷書体ないし行書体で表現された漢字の一字一字を、その義（漢字本来の意味）に拘わらずに日本語の一音節の表記のために用いるというのが万葉仮名の最大の特徴である。