Japan's animators in pencil peril over production halt
03/02/2021 05:33
By Chang-Ran Kim and Sam Nussey
TOKYO, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Japan's animators are losing one of
the tools of their trade after Mitsubishi Pencil 7976.T said
this week it would scale back a long-running line of coloured
pencils.
Mitsubishi Pencil will reduce its 7700 line of hard coloured
pencils to a single red iteration starting in June. The three
colours to be cut - orange, yellow-green and pale blue - were
saved from a broader cull in 2015 after an outcry from the
animation industry.
"The 7700 line is an indispensable tool for animation
production, with a large impact on individuals and companies
anticipated by the end of production," the Association of
Japanese Animators said in a statement.
Japan's iconic manga and anime industries have adopted a
growing range of digital tools, but many artists still put
pencil to paper during the labour-intensive production process.
Mitsubishi Pencil said procurement problems led to the
decision. A company spokeswoman declined to elaborate, saying
which raw materials are in short supply is a "trade secret."
The company, which dates to the 1880s, does not disclose
sales figures for the pencils, she said, adding "we've enjoyed
steady demand from a core group of users in the animation
industry."
Traditional animation dominates in Japan, in contrast to the
computer animation popularized by Disney's Pixar studio.
Although useful for precision work like animating and
technical documents, hard pencils can be unforgiving to the
amateur.
"The 7700 line doesn't sell anymore," said Naoya Nagatsuma,
the 11th-generation owner of Tokyo stationery store Soumaya
Genshirou Shouten.
His centuries-old business still carries the red 7700
pencils, which used to be popular with architects for drafting
blueprints.
That work has long since been digitised. "I probably sell
about one 7700 red pencil for every 3,000 regular red colour
pencils." Nagatsuma said.
(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim and Sam Nussey; editing by Gerry
Doyle)
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