The Fastest Pencil Sharpener – Kutsuwa’s double-bladed 2MaiBa

Today: A quick look at Kutsuwa’s 2MaiBa pencil sharpener. The packaging tempts customers with the promise “fastest pencil sharpener” and when it comes to manual prism sharpeners I haven’t seen a faster one yet.

This is down to the 2MaiBa’s two blades which will ‘shave’ the pencil from opposite sides.

Kutsuwa

Kutsuwa itself has been around for more than 100 years. They were established in 1910. As far as I can tell they seem to have become quite well known in 1970s Japan with their pencil boxes that feature a magnetic closing mechanism.

I haven’t come across their pencil boxes in the West, but you can find their erasers and their sharpeners outside Japan. Their T’Gaal is probably their most famous pencil sharpener. Other than that they also produce Miffy, Snoopy and Puma themed stationery.

The 2MaiBa

The 2MaiBa is really very fast, only needing around half the number of pencil turns than your average pencil sharpener. It produces a point with an angle of around 23°, but just have a look at this video for more information.

To watch this video in high resolution or full screen jump over to YouTube where you can watch it in 4K. I know that filming in 4K on a mobile doesn’t make much sense, at least not with my lighting. The video is slightly noisy, so wouldn’t have more information that if filmed in a lower resolution ..but I thought why not, and then I can claim that it is 4K.. I should do a comparison to see which noise is more pleasing to the eye.

What’s in a name?

Sola from Pencils and other things explains:

Actually Maiba isn’t a proper noun but two characters stuck together to describe the product (“2枚刃”). Mai(枚) is the unit for counting sheets (of paper, metal, etc.) and Ba (originally Ha, 刃) is “blade”.
So 2枚刃鉛筆削り would be “two-blade pencil sharpener”.

 

Gunther reminded me that I forgot to point out that the 2Maiba’s blades are marked with NJK. NJK is the brand behind the Tsunago. If you have a look at the NJK web site you will notice that they specialise in sharpeners.


The 2Maiba has been added to the sharpener comparison page.

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