Nah, mechanical pencils are a niche, and those Japanese ones are a niche within a niche here in the Netherlands too. In Japan they are common, mainly due to the writing system that is very well suited to mechanical pencils, so they are common in schools.

I use the Uni Kuru Toga in its fancy aluminium variant for both Dutch (mostly random notes and DIY measurements) and Japanese (I'm Dutch, but proficient in Japanese). For writing kanji, the self-rotating core just can't be beat. The line thickness remains a very neat 0.3mm with 0.5mm pencil lead due to the cone at the writing end staying, well, a cone.

Fortunately, these pencils can be ordered worldwide these days via various resellers. In Japan you get the luxury of just being able to walk into a 文房具屋 (a stationary shop) and buy one starting from ¥500 or so.

The Kuru Toga is so versatile, I have three with different lead. But I do want to investigate these others :D About thirty years ago, I had a Faber-Castell where the lead sleeve retracted and automatically dispensed new lead so finally I will be able to get a similar replacement. It’s not always Japan!

I guess you're talking about Faber Castell gripmatic.

They are still in production. Problem is they are plastic and the brand and model fades after using it heavily, which makes hard to guess which @#$! lead size you need (I use Staedler leads because the case has feeding mechanism that feeds the lead into the pencil without having to touch the leads with your hand. Neat and tidy).

Hoi! I am in the Netherlands as well, which site did you use to purchase the Kuru Toga? I am interested in buying one too

PenStore.nl is like a Dutch version of Jetpens. Really nice. Alternatively something called japanstore.nl has the fancier versions.

I think I used amazon.de the last time. The standard plastic 5mm one shouldn't cost you more than €5 there. Good luck!

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Overengineered certainly fits the bill, but boy do I love mine (Pentel Orenz).

At 0.2mm it’s great for a math, especially with the number of super and subscripts I find myself ending up with.

The redesigned clutch on the one pencil is a Kevin good idea I wish all pencils have. Being able to write till the last 0.5mm of lead instead of wasting 10mm.

10mm doesn’t sound like a lot, but standard lead is only 60mm long, so we’re talking about wasting 16% of the lead. It gets even worse if it happens to break into shorter pieces.

I feel like lead distribution/packaging/format is suboptimal. You can only buy leads in very small quantity, compared to the size of their container, and their short length, as you say, means you have lots of losses. Maybe longer leads would mean more breakage, but I feel like there is room for improvements in terms of general waste.

All my German pens and colored pencils are for art, interestingly. Great investment it's been over the years, keep on coming back to faber-castell, but it does seem to be the focus of what is made in your country.

You had me at overengineered.

> Are these pencils common where you live?

In my experience in the US (Texas), most school students only use mechanical pencils for regular work. It's more convenient (no sharpener), and cheaper than a regular pencil.

I grew up in Iran and these were very common back in the day. I personally had a very bad reaction to the sound of pencil on a paper and i could only write using these.

Im amazed these aren't common here.

Where I grew up mechanical pencils were common but they were either very utilitarian (stick of graphite that you would adjust by twisting the 'shaved' portion of the pencil), goofy, or the regular click to extend. I got one of the kuru togas at a friends recommendation when I was working on my hand writing and it is the first time in over thirty years that I've had a pen or pencil that I've kept and maintained. It wasn't even expensive, about ten dollars, buying 'disposable' pens and pencils had cost more.

Getting japanese supplies in Europe ain't easy. Most of the stuff you find in Amazon is from this party suppliers and is overpriced.

I guess in Germany you can buy some stuff from Müller. Whenever I visit Majorca (I know, sometimes it feels you're not in Spain but in a small länder) I go to the stationery section in the Müller located in Plaza de España.

I know that mechanical pencils with a dampened tip where used in Germany at least since the late 80s. This was the heyday of technical drawing and it is where I encountered them. I believe that they were rarely used even back then.

I have a couple of Rotring 800’s that i adore because of the disappearing tip(makes them much more packable!) However I’m the only person I know who has anything not disposable.

I grew up using a lot of mechanical pencils, but I was too reckless and the cheap ones I used broke easily.

Now I just use a standard #2 pencil.