Best Japanese Stationery for Work: 8 Tools I Use Daily

Three months into running Fujinote from our Shibuya office, I realized my desk drawer was becoming a graveyard of office supplies that promised efficiency but delivered clutter. The breaking point came when I spent five minutes hunting for scissors to open a package while our meeting with a pen manufacturer waited. That afternoon, I cleared everything out and started rebuilding my workspace with only tools that genuinely earned their spot. Here's what made the cut.

Most portable scissors are terrible. They're either so small they're useless or they come with caps you'll lose within a week. The Saxa Poche solves both issues with a slide mechanism that extends the blade when you need it and retracts when you don't. No cap to misplace, no fumbling with safety covers during video calls when a package arrives.

At 10.7cm long, it's genuinely pen-sized. I keep mine in the pen loop of my notebook and forget it's there until I need it. The 3D glueless blade structure is what sells it though. The stepped blade design minimizes contact area, so when you cut packing tape (which I do constantly for inventory), the adhesive doesn't gunk up the blades. After six months of daily use cutting everything from paper to twine, my Poche still cuts clean without the sticky blade problem that ruins most scissors.

Kokuyo's Campus line has been around forever, but the Campus Business series refined the format specifically for office work. I use the 7mm grid version for meeting notes because the grid helps keep diagrams and quick sketches readable without being as rigid as lined pages.

The paper is 70gsm, which sounds thin but handles fountain pen ink without bleedthrough. I tested this specifically because several of our manufacturers asked if their pens would work for note-taking, and even wet writers like the Pilot Custom 823 with a medium nib don't ghost through. The microperforated pages tear out cleanly when you need to share notes, though honestly I rarely do because the binding lies flat enough to scan pages easily.

Finding a pen case that holds actual working supplies without turning into a stuffed pencil burrito is harder than it sounds. The Piiip nails the balance with a clamshell design that opens completely flat on your desk. The capacity is legitimately surprising: I fit four pens, the Saxa Poche scissors, a 15cm ruler, a small stick of Dot Liner glue, and an eraser in mine without forcing anything.

The key is the two-layer construction. Frequently used items sit in the top tray with immediate access, while backup supplies and less-used tools go in the lower compartment. When it's open on my desk during meetings, everything is visible and grabbable without digging. Closed, it's slim enough to slide into a laptop bag's front pocket. I've tried at least a dozen pen cases over the years, and this is the first one where I'm not constantly reorganizing or removing items to make things fit.

The standard plastic Jetstream 4&1 is perfectly serviceable, but the metal edition fixes the one issue I had with the original: the weight distribution felt too light and plasticky for me. The metal grip section and lower barrel add just enough heft to make it feel like a tool you'll use for years, not months.

Having black, red, blue, green ink plus a 0.5mm pencil in one body sounds gimmicky until you're annotating documents. I mark up supplier contracts regularly, and switching between pen colors for different types of edits without juggling four separate pens genuinely speeds up the process. The Jetstream ink itself remains the smoothest hybrid ink I've tested. It writes immediately without that scratchy startup some ballpoints have, and it dries fast enough that lefties don't smear it. The 0.7mm line width is bold enough to read in margins without bleeding.

I resisted tape glue for years because the early versions had terrible adhesion and the tape would peel off within days. The Kokuyo Dot Liner changed my mind completely. Instead of a continuous line of adhesive, it applies dots in a specific pattern that somehow holds better than solid coverage while using less adhesive. The theory is the dots allow air to escape, creating a better bond.

In practice, I use it constantly for temporarily attaching photos to presentation boards and securing loose receipts in notebooks. The 8.4mm width covers enough area to be useful, and the tape applies smoothly without that stuttering some tape glue applicators have. You can reposition items for about 30 seconds after applying, which saves you when you mess up the placement. After that, the hold is permanent enough that I've had photos stay attached for months in notebooks I carry daily.