"Heterolingual" Japanese literary works – which incorporate words, sentences, or even entire paragraphs in a foreign language – include a significant visual dimension. Often, they mix Japanese characters with other scripts: Chinese sinograms (simplified or not), Korean Hangul, or letters of the Latin alphabet. In this article, we suggest calling this phenomenon "heterographism" and studying its aesthetic character: how are foreign scripts integrated, what effects do these arrangements generate on the reader, and what ends do these visual strategies serve? After outlining the methodological tools needed to analyze this process, we will study four contemporary works. The comparison will show that it is not so much the choice of foreign characters inserted as the way they are used that impacts the readings and reveals the literary projects of each author.