Icons in Japan

I can think of very few truly iconic pens in Japan. On the contrary, in the West it seems that all major brands have one or several icons that both identify and symbolize their glory—Parker 51, Sheaffer’s PFM, Waterman Patrician,… They all are well known and documented, and it is not too difficult to find them as they were produced in fairly big numbers. Whether the price is high or low is a different question.

Two Parker 51: the one on top is an aerometric filler; that on bottom, vacumatic.

But in Japan, I was saying, the case seems different. Pilot’s Capless family of pens –more a concept than a single pen given the number of variations and evolutions along almost 50 years of history—is one of them. Another is the all metal pocket pen Myu 701, also made by Pilot. Both, Capless and Myu, fit the three characteristics previously mentioned: well known, well documented, relatively common.

Capless, Capless, Capless. Different models from the mid 1960s to the present time.

The obvious question is why these differences between Western and Japanese markets. Why didn’t other Japanese companies –other than Pilot, that is-- create true symbols of their brands? Is that something that is done on purpose? Is it a secondary effect of the great admiration for foreign pens Japanese stylophiles profess?

Pilot's M90 and Myu-701. The former is the modern re-issue of the icon from the 1970s.

On another text I will speak about another possible icon, or almost-icon, in Japan.

Platinum Glamour – Sailor Sei-boku

Bruno Taut
July 7th, 2012
etiquetas: Pilot, Japón, estilofilia