Kaimei Bokuju
The Pioneer of Bokuju Born in Meiji Era

Date：27, Jan, 2015
Investigated and Written by Misaka Youhei
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Talking about Japanese stationery, some must think of writing brushes, not pens, erasers and others. Well, you, never forget an important partner of the brushes, please. Kaimei Bokuju is the pioneer of Bokuju; Indian ink.

How was Kaimei Bokuju made? Let me turn back hands of the time clock and get back in 1890s; Meiji era. There were also Japanese penmanship lessons at the elementary schools and a male teacher though “What on earth a waste of time grinding an ink-cake every time we are writing.” Taguchi Seiji was he, who developed the pioneer of Indian ink later on.

The wind blew so strongly on his mind and finally pushed him into getting out of the school. Taguchi entered Tokyo Institute of Technology for studying chemistry, especially about colloid, hard. It means he desired to make liquid sumi that worked usually without adding any water. They had to have ink sticks for getting sumi at the time.

Study after study, repeating tries and errors, finally in 1898, Taguchi made his dream come true. His “Kaimei Bokuju” became a big hit because they had neither pens nor personal computers at the time and so used writing brushes for keeping accounts. The liquid sumi helped them so much.

Japanese penmanship; Shodo is a kind of the art. It is said that it means a way for concentration and disciplining our mind to grind ink-cakes. It is easily supposed that there must be arguments both for and against the simplification. But Indian ink exists not just for Shodo. They also use Bokuju in order to make an ink rubbing of a fish and illustrate manga. They say Tezuka Osamu; God of Japanese Manga was very fond of the Kaimei Bokuju. Over the first field which Taguchi Seiji stared fixedly, Kaimei Bokuju has spread and shown its superiority.