Only a few more weeks until the 2017 Hobonichi Techo goes on sale! To prepare for the upcoming September 1st release date, we’ll be showing off our 2017 edition covers in our own TOBICHI 2 studio in Aoyama, Tokyo. Come check out the upcoming covers in person and see what surprises we have in store for you during this 10-day event!

TOBICHI 2 will be the only place you can come to view every cover in the inital lineup before sales begin. You can see the colors for yourself, feel the texture in your hands, test out your favorite pen in the pen holders, and imagine yourself using the cover as you take your time looking through all the new designs. You’re also more than welcome to take as many photos as you want! There’s also a full-length mirror available, so you can even match up covers with your outfit and see which one will make the cut for your 2017 LIFE BOOK.

Over the past two lineup preview events, many customers have told us that although they came in knowing which cover they wanted, they fell in love with another one once they saw them all up close. We’ll be opening a webpage for visitors to vote for their favorite covers so that everyone can use those votes for reference, whether they were able to come to the event or not.

We’ve prepared a special gift for attendees who come visit us during the 2017 Hobonichi Techo cover lineup preview event. The Handy Cloth is based on the motif of our slogan “This is my LIFE,” and was designed by Yoshie Watanabe from KIGI, designer of CACUMA series.

The Handy Cloth is perfect for everything from wrapping up items to wrapping the cloth around your body.

If you visit any of the shops nearby TOBICHI 2 that have collaborated on a 2017 Hobonichi Techo cover design, just show them the Handy Cloth and you will receive a special limited-edition pin.

You can also visit the local Henry Cuir shop to see a gallery of all the Henry Cuir covers that have gone on sale since the collaboration first began in the 2010 edition. We encourage you to explore all kinds of shops during this limited time event to find out more about each brand!

The 2017 Hobonichi Techo Official Guidebook (Japanese) goes on sale August 22 (Mon) in bookstores across the country, but will also be available early on August 20 (Sat) at the event.

While the official guidebook is written entirely in Japanese, the book’s illustrations and photographs provide users around the world with a handy photo gallery and library of usage ideas.

The book is filled with all kinds of articles and interesting sections. For example, Hobonichi editor-in-chief Shigesato Itoi talks about his memories of MOTHER 2 / EarthBound, manga artist Jun Miura shows us his scrapbooking techniques, Minoru Toyoda shares a comic strip about the Hobonichi Techo, and we consolidate the results of a recent Hobonichi Techo user meet-up hosted at the Hobonichi office.

Also available for sale are other products related to the 2017 Hobonichi Techo lineup.

For the first three days of the lineup preview event, the Hobonichi Techo team will be available for questions, comments, or a nice chat! We would be happy to answer any of your general Hobonichi Techo questions and walk you through the new lineup.

For customers who don’t speak Japanese, we will have English-speaking and Chinese-speaking staff available from 4-7 PM on August 20-21 (Sat-Sun).

During the event, we’ll be taking photos of attendees with their favorite Hobonichi Techo page or favorite cover and covering the TOBICHI 2 studio walls with them. It will be exciting to see the interior transform over the course of the 10-day event with each new wave of visitors and each new wave of printed photographs added to the walls, just like how the Hobonichi Techo slowly transforms over the course of a year as it is filled with memories.

As a token of our appreciation for everyone coming out to see us, we’ll have a special commemorative stamp you can use to decorate a page in your current Hobonichi Techo! It will make you feel like you’ve come on a fun tour when you plop it down onto your page. We hope the design will bring you back to memories of this day!