Stationery - Japanology Plus

Japanese stationery is popular for its quality and diverse designs. Every year brings many new versions of familiar stationery products. Pens, erasers, notebooks and more. Nowadays there's special stationery for research labs or for left-handers. Such niche products are becoming popular. Then there's stationery designed to be used with digital devices and even pens to write or draw in virtual space. In this episode of Japanology Plus, we explore the latest developments in the world of Japanese stationery. Hello and welcome to Japanology Plus. I'm Peter Barracuda. Our theme for today is stationery. Anyone who's ever visited Japan probably already knows that this country has an incredible variety of stationery. There are specialist shops all over the place which are increasingly popular with foreign visitors too. Today we're revisiting this topic to find out about the most recent developments. And my guest on today's program is Kan Misato-san. Nice to meet you. Hello, my name is Kan Misato. Today's guest is Kan Misato, a stationery specialist. She works in Japan and overseas as a consultant to stationery makers, planning and supervising new products. So first of all, tell us what's special about Japanese stationery. Three things make Japanese stationery special. The first is its high quality. The second is its affordability. Many items are priced to make them easy for students to buy. And the third is its wide variety. Japanese stationery strikes a balance between those three. Today I'd like to show you some examples of the latest Japanese stationery. Okay. Our first stop is a major variety store in Shinjuku. Many of the stationery products sold in Japan can be found here. This is the stationery section. It's big, isn't it? There are about 40,000 stationery items here. Wow. This is the popular colored pen section. I'm always amazed at how many different colors they have. It's incredible. It's not just the number of colors. They have all kinds of features, too. For example, take off the cap on this one end. Oh, the fat one and a very thin one. That's right. Previously, you needed a marker and a pen, one of each. But this has both in one, so there's no need to switch. You can just turn it around like this and save yourself time. Okay, okay. That's actually quite clever. And this marker has a tip on both ends. Oh, two colors in one pen. I see. This pen has a thick tip on one end and a finer one on the other. One tip is used to draw thick lines, then the other to write over them. If you overlay colors using a regular marker pen, the ink often smudges, making it difficult to write. With this pen, the colors don't blur, so the writing is clear and easy to read. Let's take a look at some popular mechanical pencils. Mechanical pencils. Okay. These products are from the same series and work in the same way. As you write, the lead automatically rotates so that the tip doesn't wear down unevenly. It stays sharp for writing. That's pretty high-tech. When you use a regular mechanical pencil, one side of the lead wears down and the line tends to gradually get thicker. This mechanical pencil uses pressure put on the tip during writing to move gears up and down, gradually rotating the lead. It means that you can always write with a sharp lead. The first Japanese mechanical pencils were made in 1915 by Hayakawa Tokuji. He invented a metal mechanical pencil that could be twisted to extend the lead. In 1960, another Japanese manufacturer developed a mechanical pencil with a button on the end that extended the lead. A series of hit mechanical pencil products follow. This appeared in 1977, a combo of a ballpoint pen and a mechanical pencil. This one has a button on the side to extend the lead. And this one has a flexible middle section that can be squeezed and bent to extend the lead. There have been many more innovations, and the functions of mechanical pencils continue to expand. Next stop is the eraser section. There are all sorts of erasers, from simple square ones to ones shaped like pens. Oh, these are all erasers as well, I see. That's right. These ones are quite unique. These are not toys. These are erasers that have lots of corners. Why? An interesting and special thing about Japanese writing is its complexity. Sometimes you want to erase just a small part of a kanji. You might want to precisely remove a specific part, but regular erasers only have a few corners. This has lots of corners, so there's always one to race with. All right, I kind of get the point. And then there's this eraser with a special trick. It has a magnet in the case. The eraser itself contains iron filings, so the eraser dust is attracted to the magnet, making it easy to collect. There's more. Notebooks are one of the most common stationary items. Is there something special about notebooks too? This is a type of notebook that opens out flat. Recently in Japan, it's become usual for students to each have their own tablet. They write in the notebook during study, then take a photo from above with the tablet. Okay, I do get that. It's easy to photograph. More convenient, yes. All right. This half-size notebook appeared during the COVID pandemic. When online meetings increased, someone came up with the idea of a notebook that's easy to use in front of a laptop computer. Interesting. I wonder if any other country than Japan would even think of something like this. Yes. Japanese stationery makers are particularly good at this kind of detail-focused design. Evidently, all of the stationery makers keep coming up with all of these new ideas. Why so many, I wonder? Actually, this phenomenon started after the 2008 global financial crisis. As profits dwindled, some companies stopped providing their employees with stationery in order to cut costs. When employees bought stationery to use at work, even if it cost an extra 10, 20 or 30 yen, they chose items that suited them, that wrote well, felt easy to use. Customers spent a little more. Makers turned their attention from bulk corporate orders to individual buyers. And 10 years of product development has resulted in all sorts of stationery. As Japan's birth rate drops and its market shrinks, the stationery industry is developing various products in search of new customers. In Gifu Prefecture, there is a store that designs and sells stationery for left-handed users. Hello. This is the left-handed goods store, and we sell a range of practical items that are easy for left-handed people to use. Let's see some products. First up is a left-handed diary. The way you open it is opposite to a regular diary. In a regular calendar, the dates are in the upper left corner. But in this one, they are in the upper right, so they won't be covered by the writer's left hand. Here's a ruler for both right and left handers. This is the scale for right-handed people, but when left-handed people want to draw a 5 cm line, some people start at 15 cm and subtract, while others are forced to push the pen as they draw the line. So this side is for the left-handed, and 0 is on the right. I can draw a 5 cm line like this. There's also a left-handed box cutter with its mechanism on the other side. This is a fountain pen with a nib angled to make it easy to use with the left hand. I'm left-handed myself, so I stock items I'd like to have in my everyday life, and even design some. Next is a major Japanese stationery maker. This company is developing stationery for research labs. So tell us about the new products that you're developing. It's this pen. That's just a regular pen? It looks like a regular pen, but it has functions that make them ideal for use in research labs. OK, what kind of functions? In research labs, people write on tubes and petri dishes like these. The problem is that the writing disappears when disinfectant alcohol is applied. So we developed this alcohol-resistant pen. The writing won't disappear even when alcohol is applied. This is the pen that can't be erased with alcohol. This is a regular oil-based pen. This is alcohol. When I wipe it, the writing from the regular pen immediately disappears. But this one doesn't disappear. Interesting, OK. So perhaps limited applications, but very useful for those. You might think that the applications would be limited, but actually this product was a hot topic on social media. That was because during the COVID pandemic, everyone started disinfecting or wiping things with alcohol a lot more often. So the fact that it's alcohol-resistant drew a lot of attention. This notebook has a secret too. It's a notebook to protect researchers' discoveries. There is space for the date, the person who makes the entry, and the person who officially confirms it. The edges of the notebook are printed with strings of random characters. These make it clear when pages have been ripped out. Let's see if you can tell without opening the book. Ah, look, there's something missing here. Ah, OK. So if somebody comes into your lab at night and rips out a page, you're going to know about it immediately. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Plus One. I'm Kyle Card. In today's edition, we're going to introduce some art forms that utilize stationery. One that uses pencils and the other that uses erasers. But not in the way you imagine. One art form uses pencil shavings and the other eraser dust. Sounds intriguing, right? Let's go check them out. This factory in Matsubara, Osaka Prefecture, has been making pencil sharpeners for over 90 years. Hello there. I'm Nakajima. Pleased to meet you. Nakajima has some pencil art to show Kyle. Oh, Steve Jobs. Wow. What you see here is a picture created from pencil shavings. It's well-drawn, right? This is a contemporary artwork made from an entire pencil turned into shavings. Whoa, whoa, whoa. That is dynamic. It looks like a snake. You wouldn't be able to create something like this connected if the blade isn't really good, right? Yes. The sharpness of the blade is definitely key. Japan knows all about sharp blades. What brought you to utilizing pencil shavings to create art? We were exhibiting at a trade show in France. I was telling people about the quality of our products and did a demonstration by sharpening a pencil to show them. They were extremely surprised by the long pencil shaving and took photos. So I thought about how we might use shavings to further communicate the quality of our products. And we figured we'd create works of art and show them to people. Kyle has a go at pencil shaving art. I'm nervous. Keep a good rhythm. Keep going, keep going. Okay, okay, keep going. Ah! Okay. And that's the end. Okay. I'll take that little piece as well. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I'll make a small crown. Pences. Pencil princess. This is a special pencil sharpener used to join pencils that have become too short to hold. First, you make a hole in the end of one pencil. Then you shave down the tip of the second so that it fits the pencil hole. Then connect the two and it's done. That's pretty cool. When pencils get short, they're hard to use, so people throw them away. But it's a waste because you can still write with them. We created this pencil sharpener to express the Japanese idea of avoiding waste. The spirit of mottai nai. You can make forever pencils with this. It just keeps going on and on and on and on forever. A centipede of pencils, if you were. Next, we meet an artist in Hiroshima. Irie Saya is an artist who makes 3D objects from eraser dust. Let's take a look at some of her art. These are all made from erasers. That is so cool. Is that a tiny bird from a stamp? Wow. I erased the bird on the stamp with an eraser and sorted the dust by color. So I had different colored balls of dust and I used them to make a bird. Oh, cats! Oh, cats from the sake bottles. This is a leopard cat from Tsushima in Nagasaki Prefecture. I made it by erasing the label. Oh, is this Kanon-sama? Yes. This is completely made of eraser dust? From this? Yes. This kakejiku? One, how long did this take and how many erasers did you use? It took about three or four months to make and I probably used about 20 erasers. 20? Wow. What puts you on this path of using eraser dust to create three-dimensional art? Originally, I studied art at university. And for my graduation project, my first idea was to turn something 2D into 3D. I experimented using different things. Then I realized that if you erase something in a picture, it turns into physical eraser dust. It's kind of obvious. But I realized that if you need the dust and shape it into an accurate 3D copy, it's going to look like it came out of the picture. That's why I started it. Wow. Utilizing and repurposing the waste products from stationery to create this truly beautiful and breathtaking art is really in line with the spirit of Motainai. Waste not, want not. I was thinking, I used to buy a diary every year. And then probably about 10 years ago, maybe a bit more, I switched to digital and I stopped buying diaries. And everything I do now, on my computer probably. And I imagine there's probably a lot of people like me. How has that impacted the world of stationery? Digitalization is continuing. So there is a slight trend of declining sales for stationery. However, there are very few people who use only digital or only analog tools. These days, people take the best of both worlds, using both digital and analog stationery. This pen is a hit product that combines digital and analog. It has a special trick that encourages kids to study. The device contains an accelerometer and is attached to a regular pencil. And when children write with the pencil, the device lights up. Small movements from the child's hand as they study are transmitted to the device, as if charging it with the child's motivation. The device works with an app, allowing the child to transfer what they charged to their smartphone. They can then get all kinds of reward items. There's also a calendar, creating a visual study record to help sustain motivation. Next, we'll visit a manufacturer that researches and develops new forms of stationery for the future. Okay, let's go. Hello, nice to meet you. Iwama Takugo is in charge of development. I understand we're going to start with a digital stationery. But I have no idea what it is, so you're going to have to explain it. Today, I'd like to show you this writing instrument that we have developed. It looks ordinary, but this new device can write both on paper and in virtual space, providing a new writing experience. Go ahead, please. First, I put on the headset. The screen displays what I'm seeing. A virtual palette is shown on the screen. I can select the color and the thickness of the pen line. I've selected red and using the pen in the air. Like this. And it's not very good, but I've drawn an apple. And from whatever angle I view this apple, it seems to be floating in the air. Then, when you put your line drawing into a virtual computer, generative AI converts it to a 3D image. As you can see, a real-looking apple appears in virtual space. Normally, when we draw, it's in 2D. But this allows us to draw in 3D, so it inspires a different kind of imagination, enabling us to make interesting things. That's right. I'd like to try drawing something. I do. Why don't you have a go? Is it okay? Yes, of course. Put your left thumb and index finger together. Move the pen and a line will appear. It's supposed to be a hat. I see. I can move it. It's a hat. It's a floating hat now. It's floating. Amazing. We consider handwriting the starting point for creativity. Even as the world continues to become digital, when you create something, you start by writing or drawing by hand. That's how all kinds of things are made. We are engaged in research and development to expand the possibilities of handwriting by combining analog and digital technologies. What did you think of the latest Japanese stationery we saw today? Looking at this futuristic digital way of writing made me think of all sorts of things. I said earlier on that I've been using a computer for the last more than 10 years now. I realized at a point that once I started using a computer to write, I can still read it, but I have trouble remembering how to write certain characters. And I remember when I was first learning Japanese, you write over and over and over again to remember the characters. And I really feel that writing in whatever form, maybe it's a digital form, I don't know, but writing is really important. And I think that was reinforced in my mind today. Even as digitalization continues, people around the world are rediscovering the value of handwriting. Research institutes in various countries have shown how writing by hand is better for learning. I don't think the practice of writing by hand is going to disappear. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.