Ryakuji (Japanese: 略字 "abbreviated characters", or 筆写略字 hissha ryakuji, meaning "handwritten abbreviated characters") are colloquial simplifications of kanji.
Ryakuji are not covered in the Kanji Kentei, nor are they officially recognized (most Ryakuji are not present in Unicode). However, some abbreviated forms of Hyōgaiji (表外字, characters not included in the Tōyō or Jōyō Kanji Lists) included in the JIS standards which conform to the Shinjitai simplifications are included in Level pre-1 and above of the Kanji Kentei (e.g. 餠→餅, 摑→掴), as well as some other allowances for alternate ways of writing radicals and alternate forms. Some Ryakuji were adopted as Shinjitai.
Some simplifications are commonly used as special Japanese typographic symbols. These include:
I take a look around me and it makes me mad
Another friend of mine in rehab
Try to pull himself from a plastic bag
He's callin' from the Halfway House he says he's doing fine
Says he got himself out just in time
Says his friends woulda let him turn blue and die
Someday becomes yesterday
Your life goes and crawls away
You gotta take it on the Black Train, Jack
You can't even feel the fire burnin' your back
Her boyfriend left her broken and alone
She took some pills and crawled to the death zone
Her mother found her just in time
She strapped to a bed in psych ward doin' fine
Aww girl, what happened, what happened, what happened to you
What's goin' on? What's goin' on?
Someday becomes yesterday
Your life goes and crawls away
You're walkin' hand in hand with a death trip
You can't even feel the power in it's grip
Sometimes I wanna take you by your shoulders and shake you
You've got to open your eyes, man, how long will it take you
Runnin' through life blind, man, what a waste
Shot down and neutralized, man, what a case
What happened, what happened to you?
What's goin on? What's going on with you?
Someday becomes yesterday
Your life goes an crawls away
You've got to take it on the Black Train, Jack
You can't even feel the fire on your back
I don't wanna die in the wreckage
Don't wanna go blind in the wreckage
Don't wanna go down in the wreckage
Don't wanna get stuck in the wreckage
Sometimes it's all I can see
The wreckage is all around me
The human wreckage, the human wreckage