1. A method for magnetic character recognition with an information recording medium having a character string of magnetic ink characters printed thereon, the method comprising: preparing a first standard waveform that is used as a datum in an operation of reading magnetic ink characters, printed with a magnetic ink, by using a magnetic head, the first standard waveform comprising a plurality of candidate character waveforms; preparing a second standard waveform, the second standard waveform comprising a plurality of candidate character waveforms that have at least one of the following properties: being thick-lined, being thin-lined, and being tilted when read by a magnetic head; generating a regeneration waveform from the character string printed on the information recording medium; segmenting a regeneration character waveform of a magnetic ink character from the regeneration waveform; comparing the regeneration character waveform with the first and second standard waveforms; selecting a plurality of candidate character waveforms from the first and second standard waveforms based on a comparison result of the comparing the regeneration character waveform with the first and second standard waveforms; shifting the plurality of candidate character waveforms and the regeneration character waveform relatively in a generating direction of the regeneration waveform and its counter direction at predefined intervals; calculating a coefficient of coincidence indicating a degree of coincidence between each of the plurality of candidate character waveforms and the regeneration character waveform at each shift position in the shift process; and identifying, as a read character, the character corresponding to the candidate character waveform having the greatest coefficient of coincidence.