Pencil sharpener that connects stubs embodies ‘mottainai’ spirit

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Pencil sharpener that connects stubs embodies ‘mottainai’ spirit

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MATSUBARA, Osaka Prefecture--Artists and writers might complain about the Tsunago pencil sharpener’s inability to sharpen pencils, but they would be missing the point.
The Tsunago device is called a “sharpener” on the website of Nagasawa Bungu Center, a Kobe-based company that handles stationery, but it is described as “being unable to sharpen a pencil.”
“Tsunago” means “let’s connect” in Japanese, and the device is intended to reduce waste, not create more in the form of pencil shavings.
“The sharpener is for connecting pencil stubs for reuse instead of resharpening a pencil,” said Yusuke Nagata, who is in charge of online sales at Nagasawa Bungu Center.
“After it was released in 2015, the sharpener went viral on social media sites and through TV, making itself so popular that customers have to wait two to three months before it is delivered,” Nagata, 42, said.
The maker of Tsunago, Nakajima Jukyudo Co., was founded in 1933 and produces mainly sharpeners under subcontracts with stationery makers.
The company has only two permanent employees and 15 part-time workers. Junya Nakajima, 51, is the third-generation president.
Its small factory in the town of Matsubara developed Tsunago to share its policy of “mottainai” (don’t waste) among consumers.
The basic idea of the sharpener was suggested by an outside inventor around 2012.
Although Nakajima Jukyudo normally does not accept proposals from outsiders, its officials were impressed by the concept.
President Nakajima said his company uses pencils to test the blades of finished sharpeners, and the shortened pencils had been simply tossed out.
“I felt that simply throwing away the stubs was a waste of material,” Nakajima said. “The concept of sharing ‘the spirit of mottainai’ through pencils moved my heart.”
Soliciting 5 million yen ($46,300) through a crowdfunding campaign, Nakajima Jukyudo spent two years developing Tsunago.
The sharpener makes a hole at the back end of a stub so that the front edge of another short pencil can be inserted to connect the two.
According to Nakajima, the company made repeated adjustments, such as slightly thickening the inserted part, to enable users to easily and comfortably connect the stubs.
“We could achieve that because we have techniques to design pencil sharpeners by a hundredth of a millimeter,” Nakajima said proudly. “If the blade of a sharpener is misplaced even a bit, pencils cannot be sharpened neatly.”
Nakajima, who proposes that pencil shavings be reused to create “pencil flake art,” like statues and collages, refers to himself as “a mottainai evangelist,” hopes that use of “the waste will lead to a belief that mottainai is elegant.”
Yoko Arimoto, 41, a homemaker in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, started using Tsunago four years ago.
“I do not want to just toss away the short pencils because they show how hard my kids work,” said Arimoto, who has three daughters from elementary school age to junior high school age.
Arimoto said her children now ask her to “connect” the stubs.
“I can feel a sense of satisfaction about fully using my pencils,” said her daughter who is an elementary school third-grader.
The mother expressed appreciation of the girl’s remark, saying, “She apparently understands how important it is to make full use of things.”
So far, 170,000 units of Tsunago have sold in and outside Japan. Its package bears the words “sharpener to connect wishes” and “made in Osaka, Japan.”
“My hope as a business operator in Osaka is pitching products made in Osaka to the world,” Nakajima said.
As an evangelist, he said he is determined to connect children and others around the globe through the mottainai spirit based on pencils.