diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index 858caa5449..d6a08b1a05 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ phpMyAdmin - ChangeLog
 - issue #11783 Avoid syntax error in javascript messages on invalid PHP setting for max_input_vars
 - issue #11784 Properly handle errors in upacking zip archive
 - issue #11785 Set PHP's internal encoding to UTF-8
+- issue #11786 Fixed Kanji encoding in some specific cases
 
 4.5.3.1 (2015-12-25)
 - issue #11774 Undefined offset 2
diff --git a/libraries/kanji-encoding.lib.php b/libraries/kanji-encoding.lib.php
index 79222aa73d..b879c3c0fd 100644
--- a/libraries/kanji-encoding.lib.php
+++ b/libraries/kanji-encoding.lib.php
@@ -82,6 +82,9 @@ function PMA_Kanji_strConv($str, $enc, $kana)
         return $str;
     }
     $string_encoding = mb_detect_encoding($str, $kanji_encoding_list);
+    if ($string_encoding === false) {
+        $string_encoding = 'utf-8';
+    }
 
     if ($kana == 'kana') {
         $dist = mb_convert_kana($str, 'KV', $string_encoding);