What does it mean to write? Writing is a very simple task one can do with only a pen and paper. And yet, there’s an incredible amount of power to it, such as expressing your feelings to someone, gathering your thoughts into one place, leaving behind a record of present events to look back on in the future . . .

We’ll be using the Hobonichi Techo 2019 release to take another look at the action of writing, pondering and discussing what makes it so fun and what makes it so mysterious.

In this special article, we’ve taken a closer look at 10 people who draw and write in their professional or personal lives, checking out their favorite writing tools and hearing all about their writing process. We hope you enjoy reading all about the wide variety of approaches to writing.

What does it mean to write?

vol.3

Jun Miura

“Following the handwriting of someone you admire will free you from worrying whether your own handwriting is good.”

Jun Miura writes everything by hand. Even now, he has written years of serialized manuscripts by hand. We asked him about his well-experienced thoughts on writing by hand.

ProfileJun Miura

Born in Kyoto in 1958. Debuted as a manga author artist while studying at Musashino Art University. Subsequently worked as an author and musician and participated in a variety of fields. Worked on the Kansai TV network show “Shin TV Kenbutsuki,” with volumes “Hiroshima - Onomichi” and “Hiroshima - Tomonoura” on sale now on Blu-ray.

——: So we hear you write all your manuscripts entirely by hand.

Miura: That’s right, I write everything out on manuscript paper from Kokuyo.

——: Have you ever wanted to switch to writing on the computer?

Miura: I can’t figure out why keyboards are lined up the way they are. And I don’t know how to play Mahjong.

——: Huh? Yeah, okay.

Miura: Mahjong involves arranging a mixed pile of tiles. I just can’t do the rearranging part. So when I’m sitting in front of a computer, I’m stuck just staring at the keyboard. I assume some professional arranged the keys of a keyboard together in a way that makes sense. br br And you know how keyboards are labeled with Roman letters? I don’t know them very well.

——: Why is that?

Miura: When I was in elementary school, I studied the Esperanto language for a short time.

——: The one that the poet Kenji Miyazawa liked to use?

Miura: It was created to serve as a universal language. Esperanto uses the Roman alphabet, except it’s a little different. So I’m not good at working with the standard Roman alphabet on a keyboard.

——: I see, so the computer keyboard is an issue for you.

Miura: Right. That’s why I write everything by hand. That means my deadline is one day earlier than everyone else submitting to the same magazine. That’s so their editor can type up my handwritten manuscript for me.

——: Wow, that’s a lot of trouble to go through. Do you always use a mechanical pencil when you write?

Miura: I’ve used one ever since elementary school. I don’t have a go-to mechanical pencil, but I always use 0.7 mm B pencil lead, and they all have an attached eraser. Most people use 0.5 mm lead in their mechanical pencils, no questions asked.

——: That’s true, I do as well.

Miura: I write really hard, so if I used lead that sharp I’d tear up the paper. I tried a lot of leads out, up to 1.0 mm, but 1.0 mm made my pinky totally black. When I tried out lead hardnesses up to 2B, it was the same result. So I settled on 0.7 mm B lead. Everyone has a lead that fits them the best. For me, using 0.5 mm lead and struggling to use it would be no different than wearing glasses with the wrong prescription and just saying, “Boy, it sure is hard to see.”

——: Yeah.

Miura: Well, it’s all mathematics, in the end. People should choose a lead thickness and darkness that best fit their writing pressure and paper of choice.

——: I see. I’ll give it a try. I think people have fewer opportunities to write by hand nowadays, since they use computers and smartphones so often.

Miura: People think of handwriting as something that can be good or bad. But people may not want to write by hand if their handwriting is bad. I went a totally different direction, so it’s not a matter of good versus bad anymore. But when I was in junior high school, I even took penmanship classes.

——: Did you want to improve your handwriting?

Miura: I went to a boy’s school in junior high. One of my classmates was the son of a family that ran a temple. I really wanted to be friends with him, so I took a penmanship class that was held at his family’s temple. You have to write really nicely in a class like that, and I hated it. In my second year, I discovered some records by Takuro Yoshida and fell in love with his handwriting.

——: Ah, Takuro Yoshida.

Miura: He had handwritten liner notes printed on his album then, and I really liked the way he wrote “Yes sir, I’m feeling fine.” I copied the way he wrote it, and to this day my handwriting is inspired by his. Later on I copied Makoto Wada’s handwriting, too. That’s how mine came to be what it is today.

——: So what we’re seeing in your handwriting is your own mix of Takuro Yoshida and Makoto Wada.

Miura: Right. Copying the handwriting of people I looked up to was my escape from worrying about whether my handwriting was good or bad. I’d like everyone else to remember they’ve got that same option.

——: That’s a good idea to live by.

Miura: Last year we’d talked about writing in the techo using a pseudonym. If someone really lacks confidence in their handwriting, they can write the name “Bad Handwriter” or something in the techo’s owner entry. Then if anyone sees it they can think “Hey, the handwriting isn’t that bad.”

——: So you can overcompensate if you need to. Add that to copying the handwriting of someone you respect and trying out different lead thicknesses, and we’ve learned a lot from you today!

Miura: The most important thing is to start by looking for a mechanical pencil that suits you. It’s just like getting fitted for a pair of pants. They’re uncomfortable whether they’re too baggy or too tight, so it’s important to find something that fits just right.

(Next time we’ll be talking with Nami Iijima.)

Share