Sakura Color (サクラクレパス)

In 1925 the Osaka firm solved a primary-school problem: dry pastel smudges, wax crayon does not blend. Its answer, the Cray-Pas, crossed the two and created an entire category, the oil pastel, now universal.

Half a century later the Pigma Micron answered another need: a black pigment ink, waterproof and acid-free, that does not bleed under watercolour and does not yellow in twenty years. Mangaka, architects and natural-history illustrators adopted it for the same reasons, and its range of nibs — down to 0.20 mm — became a de facto standard for fine linework.