Tag Archives: Japanese

Review: Ohto Sharp Pencil 2.0mm

The Ohto Sharp Pencil caught my eye when I stepped into Black Ink in Cambridge, MA. It’s bright yellow body is roughly the size of a Musgrave ChooChoo or My First Ticonderoga, but instead of being round, it’s hexagonal. The hex sides are rounded enough to be comfortable for long periods of writing. It’s short size fits perfectly in my hand. It’s mostly very comfortable. I’ll get to my personal issues at the end but over all, this lead holder is super comfortable.Sharp Pencil The wooden body is lightweight and around the same weight as a regular pencil. I cannot determine if it is made of cedar or not, my sniffer is in allergy hell. It dents easily so it is a softer wood. The denting issue is par for the course with wooden lead holders. Mine is bright chrome yellow, the same shade as the school bus I rode as a child. I love this shade of yellow on pencils. I just makes me happy. The lacquer is thick and glossy. The pencil is also available in black, natural, and green. Black Ink only had the natural and the classic yellow while I was there. I was able to find the other colors via Amazon.Sharp Pencil Sharp Pencil

The knock holds an eraser and delivers 1.5mm of lead with a soft click. The eraser is… Awful. It smears and gets dirty and is gross feeling. It is replaceable and slides out with ease. I’ll be picking up a Pearl to cut to fit. This brings me to my second gripe. When the pencil arrived the knock was loose and rattled around. It made using the lead holder annoying. Every stroke of the pencil caused it to rattle. The metal on metal noise drove me batshit. This was easily remedied with a thin piece of scotch tape. I cut a piece of satin scotch tape to 3mm in height and then wrapped it around the base of the knock, with one wrap. The tape stays hidden. This stops the knock from making the metal on metal rattle but it does still move about. I attempted the surgery with washi which was too thick. Another partial wrap of scotch tape would likely cease the movement altogether but cause the knock to be sluggish when depressed.Sharp Pencil Sharp Pencil

Another issue with this lead holder is that the mechanism does not hold the lead tightly enough to sharpen the lead in the holder with ease. So you either have to remove the whole lead or grip the knock and the body at the same time to stop the lead and clutch mechanism from rotating. The weird thing is, it doesn’t always do this. Sometimes, it sharpens just fine, and others it just catches and spins.

My final gripe with this lead holder is the clip. It is available without, and really, you should not get the clip. It sits too far down on the lead holder to be of use when clipping the pencil to a notebook, leaving a good inch and a half of overhang over the top of your notebook. Which leaves the knock vulnerable to being lost. The clip also pokes into the soft tender bit of my hand between my thumb and index finger. I found this quite irritating both in feel and to my skin, it left a red patch. Fortunately, even if you do buy the model with a clip, it is easily removed. The models without a clip are a few dollars cheaper.Sharp Pencil

Sharp Pencil

Stupid high clip.

Sharp Pencil

stupid high clip, next to the Twist BP, which sits super low.

Sharp Pencil Once the issue of the knock being noisy was taken care of and the clip was removed, I really liked this pencil for long form writing. The Ohto lead it arrives with is okay, but it will hold any 2mm lead. The comfort of this fat little lead holder is quite nice. It also travels quite well in a pocket. It is also relatively inexpensive when ordered via amazon. While it has a few glaring issues that could have been easily solved by Ohto, the worst being the weird clutch and the knock’s noisiness. This seems to be an Ohto thing… To not fix simple issues with their products. I’ve read a great deal of reviews of Ohto products to have one or two simple to fix issues make it through design and preproduction and land in the final product. It’s kinda sad, because they make a lot of really nice stuff that just, sort of, fails at being perfect.

Review: Kitaboshi Wooden Lead Holder with Clip

My first impression of the Kitaboshi wooden lead holder was that it was very pretty. The warm pinkish hue of the cedar matches Kitaboshi wood pencils perfectly. The chrome hardware goes with this wood perfectly. This lead holder is gorgeous in it’s simplicity.KitaboshiThe clutch holds the lead tightly and does not slip at all, no matter how much pressure I put on the lead. The knock deploys 2mm of lead with a satisfying click. The knock itself is a simple mushroom shape that wedges into the internal plastic mechanism. I really like the look of the knock and how it’s simplicity works with the overall design of the lead holder. The clip design is also simple but it works with the overall look of the pencil. It’s strong enough to hold the lead holder to a pocket notebook without excessive overhang. Kitaboshi Kitaboshi KitaboshiWhen I first received the lead holder where the nose met the wood there was a slight overhang where the wood was slightly larger than the nose. This slight overhang was barely .5mm, but it was just where my fingers rested as I wrote.  Because the wood is cedar and soft this soon wore down with regular use.Kitaboshi KitaboshiThe lead holder is almost exactly pencil sized. It is so similar to a regular wooden pencil in weight and feel that transitioning to it from a regular wooden pencil is no problem. It is well balanced and feels good in hand. Because the lead holder is just over 6 inches in length the clip doesn’t press into the soft bit of my hand, so that is a definite positive.KitaboshiThe only downside I can think of with this pencil is that because it is made of soft wood it dents rather easily. While the minor dings and dents that have appeared as I’ve used the pencil might drive some people nuts, I am not bothered by them. They aren’t as bad as the bite marks my Carl A5 makes as I sharpen regular pencils, and aren’t noticeable.KitaboshiOverall, if you are looking for a good lead holder to help you to transition from wood pencils to lead holders, this is a good option. I find it good looking and comfortable to use.

I picked up mine form Jetpens with my own cash money. Or well cash money I had deposited into Paypal, which I then used electronically to pay for the leadholder. Whatever, you know what I mean, I paid for this.

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Review: Tombow IPPO!

The Tombow IPPO! is a Japanese pencil targeted toward kids for working on their handwriting. The pencils have bright attractive colors with one of their six sides white. It makes for a really neat looking pencil. The end is capped  off and neatly banded with a bright silver foil. The grade of the pencil is marked on  2 sides with the company name and dragonfly image on a third. I find these to be tidy and sharp (heh) looking pencils. That single white stripe reminds me of wide racing stripes on cars. Tough and serviceable but bright and fun. There are three different colors in each 12-pack. Mine had a bright lime green, a light blue, and dark blue. The pencils arrive in a nice hard plastic case that is reusable as a pencil case. It doesn’t clasp shut but overlap, so would need a rubber band to hold it shut, but is a great way to protect your pencils on the go.IPPO!Inside, the soft B core is well centered in an unknown wood that sharpens with ease. I tested out a variety of sharpeners and was happy with all results, from long points to stubby points. Point retention with this B pencil was good but not great. It is a B pencil, so it is soft, but it’s also not the softest B pencils I’ve tried. It’s delightfully dark without using undue pressure, and is smooth. It’s not the silky smooth experience of a Pearl but has a touch more feedback. It’s fantastic.IPPO!IPPO!

I really enjoy this pencil for written journaling. My words are nice and dark, and it doesn’t smudge too much, but will. For sketching it does well, but for deep dark areas another pencil in a softer grade will be needed.

These were purchased from Jetpens. They ring in around $1 each. The bright colors are fantastic and are eye catching. I can’t help but to have one of each color sharpened and ready for use.