Even in today’s laptop computer/iPad-heavy times, the students among us, at least, are not able to make it through most days without using at least some stationery. As a keen writer, I certainly would suffer without a trusty pen and notebook nearby at all times. Stationery is perhaps not the most exciting topic in the world for most people, but I love it. There is something about uncorking a new pen, writing on fresh sheets of new notebook paper, sliding letters written on pretty paper into equally pretty envelopes, and decorating not-so-pretty with cute stickers in an effort to make it pretty, that I and I think many others find exciting and therapeutic. Japan is one country that seems to have taken the idea of stationery being cool and rolled with it, because nowadays there is such a wide range of amazing stationery available in Japan that is to some extent lacking in other countries. So in this article I will talk about some of the items of Japanese stationery that I find particularly cool.
Shaker Mechanical Pencils
Mechanical pencils (or pacers, as we used to call them as children), are probably one of my favourite pieces of stationery. I draw quite a lot, and I find using a mechanical pencil nicer than using a more traditional wooden pencil, because I am not the biggest fan of pencil sharpeners (they are pretty messy). As such, I was immensely interested in the mechanical pencil a friend of mine had been given by a Japanese girl about five years ago. Already impressed by the nice weight and thickness of the pencil, as well as its awesome gel-grip, my friend told me to shake it, and I did. I felt a weight inside the pencil move back and forth as I shook it, and gasped in both surprise and delight when I saw the lead come out of the end.
This is probably a pretty useless gimmick, to be perfectly honest. It is not as if shaking the pencil is any less taxing than pressing the end of the pencil as a method for making the lead come out. But back then I thought it was awesome, and I still do. I highly recommend the shaker pencil (particularly the Pilot or Uniball brands, which appears to be the most common type of shaker pencil in Japan) as a cool new piece of kit for any stationery enthusiast.
Shaker Mechanical Pencils
Mechanical pencils (or pacers, as we used to call them as children), are probably one of my favourite pieces of stationery. I draw quite a lot, and I find using a mechanical pencil nicer than using a more traditional wooden pencil, because I am not the biggest fan of pencil sharpeners (they are pretty messy). As such, I was immensely interested in the mechanical pencil a friend of mine had been given by a Japanese girl about five years ago. Already impressed by the nice weight and thickness of the pencil, as well as its awesome gel-grip, my friend told me to shake it, and I did. I felt a weight inside the pencil move back and forth as I shook it, and gasped in both surprise and delight when I saw the lead come out of the end.
This is probably a pretty useless gimmick, to be perfectly honest. It is not as if shaking the pencil is any less taxing than pressing the end of the pencil as a method for making the lead come out. But back then I thought it was awesome, and I still do. I highly recommend the shaker pencil (particularly the Pilot or Uniball brands, which appears to be the most common type of shaker pencil in Japan) as a cool new piece of kit for any stationery enthusiast.
A couple of shaker mechanical pencils. The one on top is a Pilot model, and the one on the bottom is a Uniball model.
Fine-Quality Writing Paper
This probably has something to do with how meticulous the Japanese are with all of the products they mass-produce, but regular Japanese writing paper so much nicer than the paper in either of the other countries in which I have lived. It is thicker, smoother to the touch, the lines on lined paper have more definition, etc. When you write on Japanese writing paper, there is little chance of the pen ink going through the paper, and because the paper is so smooth it actually feels nicer to write on Japanese writing paper than western writing paper. Admittedly, there are probably not many people who do draft writing on paper these days, but to anybody who does I recommend giving Japanese writing paper a shot. It is lovely stuff.
Cute Japanese Notepads and Letter Sets
The Japanese have an almost frightening obsession with cuteness (an obsession I explore in more detail in my article entitled "The Cuteness Obsession"); an obsession that shows itself with great aplomb in stationery. Memo notepads of about 100 sheets with varying background designs on them, make writing memos far more interesting than using western notepads (apart from maybe Post-It notes, but the appeal of them is not a result of their design as much as it is a result of their stickiness). These designs come in a variety of themes, so you can get notepads with various Disney characters on them, notepads with designs of animals on them, and even notepads with cute cartoon versions of food on them. They are adorable, and I really enjoy using them.
Another cute type of stationery I enjoy using are letter sets. Obviously, letters aren’t written nearly as often as they used to be, and in western countries finding cute letter-writing sets is extremely difficult. I was certainly never able to find letter sets with the Disney characters I enjoyed so much when I was a child, which was a shame because I loved writing letters. But this is not the case in Japan. It is relatively easy to find nice letter sets in Japanese department stores, and these sets come with similar character drawings on them than memo notepads. These again might not be the most useful thing in the history of all things stationery-related, but it is fun to, amidst all the boring white envelopes containing phone bills and polite business requests, find a bright pink envelope with a picture of Marie from The Aristocats on the front of it containing a hand-written letter from a Japanese friend.
On top are a bunch of exciting Japanese notepad covers. Notice how a lot of them are food-related. Below is a typical Japanese letter set. It comes with envelopes and sheets of paper of several different designs, all based on the same theme.
Stickers
Stickers are something of a lost art in Western countries, beyond the realms of childhood, primary school teaching, and scrapbooking. I think that this is a shame, because stickers are cheap, fun, colourful, and they have a certain childishness about them that cannot fail to make a person smile. In Japan, however, stickers are the norm. Mobile phones are decorated with them, they are swapped and given to people as presents, people will gawk over each other’s stunning sticker collections, etc. It’s a childhood sticker culture, played by slightly older people.
If any country is going to be enthusiastic about stickers, it is a good job that that country is Japan. For one thing, the purikura that I talked about in my Game Centre article enables Japanese people (and when I say “people” I mean “girls and young women”) to make their own stickers. For another thing, stickers come in, if it is at all possible, even more different styles and designs than Japanese notepads. The array of stickers available is nothing short of astonishing, and so it really is no surprise that Japanese girls continue to enjoy collecting stickers for far longer than western girls seem to do.
On top is a (slightly blurry) photo of a few sheets of themed stickers. On the bottom is a sheet of stickers being used to decorate a mobile phone.
So stationery is not really something that many people think about. We use it often, but few of us are particularly enthusiastic about the different sorts of stationery out there. But to those people who are enthusiastic about stationery (and maybe a few of you who are not so interested in it), Japanese stationery is well worth checking out. In any case, my being a total stationery enthusiast gives me the authority, I believe, to declare stationery one of the coolest things about Japan.
Another cute type of stationery I enjoy using are letter sets. Obviously, letters aren’t written nearly as often as they used to be, and in western countries finding cute letter-writing sets is extremely difficult. I was certainly never able to find letter sets with the Disney characters I enjoyed so much when I was a child, which was a shame because I loved writing letters. But this is not the case in Japan. It is relatively easy to find nice letter sets in Japanese department stores, and these sets come with similar character drawings on them than memo notepads. These again might not be the most useful thing in the history of all things stationery-related, but it is fun to, amidst all the boring white envelopes containing phone bills and polite business requests, find a bright pink envelope with a picture of Marie from The Aristocats on the front of it containing a hand-written letter from a Japanese friend.
On top are a bunch of exciting Japanese notepad covers. Notice how a lot of them are food-related. Below is a typical Japanese letter set. It comes with envelopes and sheets of paper of several different designs, all based on the same theme.
Stickers
Stickers are something of a lost art in Western countries, beyond the realms of childhood, primary school teaching, and scrapbooking. I think that this is a shame, because stickers are cheap, fun, colourful, and they have a certain childishness about them that cannot fail to make a person smile. In Japan, however, stickers are the norm. Mobile phones are decorated with them, they are swapped and given to people as presents, people will gawk over each other’s stunning sticker collections, etc. It’s a childhood sticker culture, played by slightly older people.
If any country is going to be enthusiastic about stickers, it is a good job that that country is Japan. For one thing, the purikura that I talked about in my Game Centre article enables Japanese people (and when I say “people” I mean “girls and young women”) to make their own stickers. For another thing, stickers come in, if it is at all possible, even more different styles and designs than Japanese notepads. The array of stickers available is nothing short of astonishing, and so it really is no surprise that Japanese girls continue to enjoy collecting stickers for far longer than western girls seem to do.
On top is a (slightly blurry) photo of a few sheets of themed stickers. On the bottom is a sheet of stickers being used to decorate a mobile phone.
So stationery is not really something that many people think about. We use it often, but few of us are particularly enthusiastic about the different sorts of stationery out there. But to those people who are enthusiastic about stationery (and maybe a few of you who are not so interested in it), Japanese stationery is well worth checking out. In any case, my being a total stationery enthusiast gives me the authority, I believe, to declare stationery one of the coolest things about Japan.
No comments:
Post a Comment