Although I enjoy beautiful, unique, stylish design of products from all over the world, there are 2 categories of items, which I am pretty confident about that you can buy high quality products for best price in Japan. If you have not bought souvernis for your friends or families yet, you may find one in the end of this article.
Japanese manufactorers developed products with Japanese craftsmanship which is obsessed with detail. Marketing team hates to leave any white space, even though a certain quality and function are already equipped in existing item. They want to add more and more value on it. That is why there are crazy number of choices for just 1 item, for example, a pen.
First category is 'Stationary.' I highly recommend to visit a stationary shop while you are staying in Japan. Here are some items which I would like to highlights.
1. FRIXION - A magic pen
This is most geniuine stationary I have ever used. It is a ink pen, but if you scratch what you wrote with the back end of the pen, it completely dissapears, without a trace. From 210 yen ~
They have various thickness, so you can use them to high light lines, or to write letters. I like highighting books, text books, with yellow marker but I had been annoyed to look it back full of yellows after certain period of time. You can literlly erase the ink on the page whenever you like with several scratch.
To know how geuine it is.. please watch this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6UJJPK4HpI
The story behind development is a lovely one. A research engineer came up with an idea to create an ink which change its color according temprature when he was watching beuatiful autumn color of maples which changes day by day. If you are not relactunt to write your signature on certain documents, why not try to use this pen?
2. Sharp pencils
Japanese pencils are super. It is durable and beautiful. You can get functional, durable item for just 100-200 yen for each.
3. Copic Marker
Among those who are engaged in design industry, copic marker has high reputation all over the world. I think you can buy them online in your country too, but I think price should be higher since it includes transportation fee. The price is around 350 yen per each in Japan. Why not buy stocks of your favorites colors from 345 colors.
4. Eraser tape
There are variety of eraser tape with different size and breadth, so you can find the one fit to your hand best. Some has both rubber and tape together, so you can erase writing by pen and pencil.
5. A letter pad for short messages
We have a tradition to add a small, slim letter together with gifts, invoices, or items to be returned. It is used to tell everyday gratidude.
They often use hight quality of paper, and beuatiful drawings on it, so it is fun to collect.
6. Stickers
I, as a litte kid, was obsessed with stickers. Even though I hated every week's piano lesson, I managed to do because I could get a pretty sticker for each lesson on my attendance seat. I think beautiful colors and designs of sticker has a magic for girls and boys, only because it is sticky and attachable.
7.others
There are so many items you can find in stationary store.
Secondly, there is another category of items I would like to reccomend, which is 'Umbrella'.
If you travel to Japan in June, or September, you will notcie we have many rainy days and it keeps raining for long hours.
Although umbrella are sold everywhere all over the world, I noticed the quality is very high in our country especially as for portable one.
They are compact, light, and durable with multi use (sun parsasol & water-proof ).
The price ranges from 500 yen ~ 20000 yen. I think you would not be dissapointed with its quality if you buy one for 1,000-2,000 yen. They are sold literally everywhere from convenience store to department stores. Please have a look and find your favorites.
