1. A handwritten character recognition method comprising: capturing an input handwritten character with parameter representation for each stroke of the handwritten character and applying a polygonal approximation to each stroke; assuming each polygonal line segment approximated by said polygonal approximation to be a vector that reaches an end point from a start point, and obtaining an angle between an axis that becomes a reference and said each line segment as a polygonal line segment angle sequence; obtaining an exterior angle sequence of vertices of the obtained polygonal line segments; making a sum of exterior angles of a same sign to be a winding angle sequence, where the same sign is a continuous sequence of plus values or minus values in said exterior angle sequence; extracting a global feature according to said each obtained sequence and a localized or quasi-localized feature in each curved portion divided corresponding to said winding angle sequence, hierarchically and divisionally; and performing a character recognition by comparing the extracted features with a set of template features of an object character for recognition that is provided in advance.