Japanese Pens FAQ
What Makes Japanese Pens Different?
Technically, most of the best known pen brands are Japanese. If you’ve used pens from Pilot, Uni-ball, Zebra or Pentel, you’ve used Japanese pens. They’re very common in the West, and many of the best-selling pens in the world are Japanese. But there are some types of pen that are more specifically Japanese, and less often found outside Japan. Or just such specialist types that you don’t tend to find non-Japanese brands doing them well.
Very fine tips. Japanese writing uses quite intricate characters, where one Kanji character represents a whole word or idea. To write such detailed characters in reasonably small spaces, very fine-tipped pens are very popular in Japan. Because of this, Japanese pens are often available with much finer tips that we’d usually get in the West, and their super-fine pens can still be very smooth.
Brush tips, sometimes called Fude pens (foo-day) are often used for writing with a bit more character. Filling in a form would need a very fine tip. And a simple rollerball or ballpoint would be fine for writing a note. But if you’re trying to express love, sympathy, or other more emotional messages, a brush pen would be the thing. Our English letters don’t really work like that, but these fude pens can be great little brush pens for calligraphy or art and sketching.
Fancy pens decorated with techniques like ‘maki-e’ or ‘raden’, where coloured gold foil or tiny shell pieces are inlaid into layers of urushi lacquer. There’s still a very strong tradition of craftsmanship in Japan, where people spend decades honing one very specific skill to perfection.
Are all these pens actually made in Japan?
Not necessarily. While Japanese companies do often like to keep all their manufacturing inside Japan, many also have factories or contractors elsewhere. Just as many Western companies have things made in China, so do many Japanese companies.
What are some of the best Japanese pen brands?
That depends very much on what you’re interested in. For fountain pens, Pilot, Sailor and Platinum are probably the most-loved brands. For art materials and tools, like brush pens and paints, Kuretake makes some fantastic quality paints and brushes; but don’t ignore Pentel’s art pens, especially for lower-priced stuff.
