...

One piece of stationery I had while I was at college was a pencil known as the “Kuru Toga”. It was made by Uni and I found it via a YouTube channel known as “JetPens”, they were a company that sold stationery from foreign markets to America. One video introduced me to the Kuru Toga family of mechanical pencils along with other mechanical pencils. They were pretty cool as they had this mechanism inside of them that rotated the lead inside, ensuring that the fine point of the lead was always used and you don’t have to manually turn the pencil yourself.

I really wanted to get one, but there was one problem: I didn't have a card at the time. Back when I got the Graphgear 300s, I was in the physical college store to buy them. I didn’t buy them online or with a card in-store, I was using physical US dollars. The Kuru Toga is a Japanese domestic item, so you HAD to buy it online. Especially if you wanted the special variations, like the Advance that I got later on.

I looked online to see if there were any of them sold in-stores, in America. I found out that they sold them at Staples in little kits that came with lead and little erasers for the compartments containing the lead inside the pencil itself. I was down bad for the Kuru Togas because I searched the nearest Staples near me and it was 5 miles away from me. I didn’t have a car so I took the smelly public transportation to get to my Kuru Togas. The kits were 11 bucks each and I have never been happier in my life to get something for 11 dollars. One complaint I do have with these budget Kuru Togas is that the plastic is a little cheap feeling and YES it will be important later.

For the rest of my time at college it was a centerpiece of conversation I had with new classmates because the thing was just so damn cool. I even showed it one time to my design professor and she was blown away. I felt so happy to talk to people about something I loved because I am a very lonely person. Didn’t have many friends and the ones I did have I never kept in touch with as I didn’t have any social skills to know how to start up a conversation.

A little while after college, I was going to use it to start writing something. That being many ideas for art projects I had always wanted to do. So, I got it out, gripped it in my hand, clicked the cap and…

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The tip broke into pieces and for the life of me I didn’t know how. In a way I did, but I was baffled as to why it did it. My theory is that the spring inside the pencil just gave too much pressure at the tip because I will admit I was pressing the cap a little too hard to extend the lead. But… WHY?!?!?!? Shouldn’t it have been tested enough times so something like this didn’t happen? I was just doing a function that’s normal for a mechanical pencil and it just popped apart! The plastic at the tip was in small pieces and I was so shocked that I had to take it all in as to what just happened. I felt so sad that day.

But… At the time I did finally have a card. With the death of a Kuru Toga, a new Kuru Toga was born into the world…

BAAAMMMMMMM!!!

Here is the new sexy red "Kuru Toga Advance" I got recently.

This new Kuru Toga Advance is just incredible. The metal body is so sleek and ergonomic, the metal tip is able to retract into the body so that it can’t bend due to dropping, AND THE RED COLOR IS JUST SO GOOOOOOD. This is one of the best pencils, heck, just one of the best pieces of stationery I’ve had in my life. Please buy it, for whatever thing you want, just buy it! It’s the best at writing and perfect since the “Advance” variation of the Kuru Toga turns the lead a little more so that longer streaks of writing or drawing can go uninterrupted.

That’s all I have to say about this beast. There is still a whole lot more I want to talk about, but there’s something special coming in the mail for the next blog. It may be tomorrow or the day after, it really depends if I can set it up right. Thank you so much for reading and I sees you all next time.