: Roman type in MS Mincho/SimSun Some time ago I had drawn attention to the font MS Mincho, namely its Latin set. Same (or very close) Latin set is used also in SimSun font and some others

Posted in: #FontRecommendation #Typefaces #TypeTheory

Some time ago I had drawn attention to the font MS Mincho, namely
its Latin set. Same (or very close) Latin set is used also in SimSun font and some others with asian titles.

I have to say, I'm really astonished by the quality of letters and overall stroke balance. Especially I want to emphasize that I notice outstanding legibility of this font.
There is a monospaced version - Mincho, and a normal (proportional) version - PMincho.

Here are examples:

I personally find particular letters of Mincho (first line in the image)
are better crafted than in PMincho, such as e.g. bowls in "p", more prominent "r" and "i".
So in PMincho some of them became worse, namely "i" is
too narrow, and in general -- a bit too dense by default.
So, yes I am criticising PMincho for having some drawbacks.
(Please note that I am not talking about monospaced vs proportional,
but rather features of some letters. In the image, I have adjusted spacing of Mincho manually to make the comparison)

I became really curious, because this typeface seems to provide better
readability than any others I have seen before, particularly some features
of Mincho's letters, like I said.

It would be really interesting to know:

who is the designer of MS Mincho (Latin set)? Any sources, historical notes?
is this letter design (Mincho Latin) very original or derived from some very close brother?
if there are other types very close to Mincho, please make examples.
Namely exactly as Mincho, only with few letters adjusted (Mm, Ww).

Probably there is even a separate term for this typeface group?
I know that it is classic/roman group, but try googling "classic roman"!
One fairly similar font on my computer is Times New Roman, but with other stroke style and width.