Muji 0.38 support group

service journalism for the stationery freaks

Hello friends—

I know a lot of people are anxious about their beloved Muji 0.38 disappearing if Muji vanishes or goes into Bankruptcy in the UK, but I am here to tell you that you can make your own, lol.

As you maybe know already, I mostly use fountain pens these days—this is a variety of mental illness, lol. The pandemic hit and I got very into analog and old things like film photography and collecting vinyl. Anyway, the other thing I got really into during the pandemic was reading criticism and literary theory. This entailed a lot of marginalia, so I bought a bunch of gel pens and felt tips so that I could underline to my heart’s content. The result is that my writing life is now neatly (though not evenly) divided between non-annotating (fountain pens) and annotating and marginalia (gel pens and pencils).

My favorite pens at the time were the Papermate InkJoy and the Tül pens I had stolen from lab before departing for my MFA in Iowa City. What you need to understand is that I was underlining a lot during the pandemic. Like, a lot. I would kill like two Tül felt tips and an Ink Joy in three days. I was marking and WRITING up a storm in those margins as I made my way through the works of Leslie Fiedler, Lionel Trilling, and Alfred Kazin. As I made my way through Edith Wharton and Henry James, pouring an ocean of ink into those books as I tried to build real, concrete ideas about how fiction worked. The issue came when I needed to replace the pens. I’d always go out and buy new ones when they died. But then I stopped being able to find replacements for the Tül pens I had stolen from lab. I didn’t know where I could get more. And I wanted very much to replace them because they have a really hot form factor.

It was around this time, in the summer of 2021, that I discovered the Muji pens. I discovered them as every minimalism fetishist discovers them perhaps. On a trip to New York, stumbling around, coming across those gorgeous polycarbonate pen bodies and the beautiful, rich colors. I was spellbound. I went home and immediately bought a lot of them, but soon came to the same issue, which was that I didn’t know what to do when I ran out. All of this sort of came to a head one day when I was back in Iowa City, kind of pining and hoping for my life to change. I had just killed another Ink Joy and didn’t have a refill. I had a Tül pen but it was broken. And I just kind of wished that I could just use the Tül refill in the Ink Joy. But of course that wouldn’t work. But then I tried it. And it did.

And suddenly, I had this needle tip in the Ink Joy, and a whole world opened up to me. Later in 2021, when I moved to New York, and could go to Muji any time I wanted, I realized what a range of pen bodies they had. I bought a bunch of empty ones by accident. But I am glad I did because I had the sick-o idea that maybe I could just put some refills in there from the pens I already had. Let me tell you…my life has not been the same.

This is how I found out that in fact, most of the pen brands that we buy in stores all use the same generic gel refill.

This is how I came to my favorite “graphite dupe” set-up that I use for a lot annotating. It involves a standard Muji pen body with an LR-7 refill in gray. The effect is that I can have gray underlines that look somewhat like graphite without having to sharpen a pencil.

So I thought for this newsletter, I’d walk you through this set-up just in case like me, you are despairing about the potential of Muji disappearing or even if you’re just into trying new wacky things. It’s pretty easy, and you probably already have most of the materials you need lying around.

Step 1: the body

This is pretty straightforward. You need a pen body. For the purposes of this process, I am only talking about the Muji Pen bodies, the Papermate Ink Joy pen Body, and the Tül pen bodies.

The Muji pen bodies come in a variety of colors—black, white, transparent, polycarbonate, etc—and form factors. This process should work in both the clicky and capped versions. I don’t have any experience with their multi-pens. It should work for either the 0.38 or the 0.5 because the pen bodies are identical. The only difference is the size of the gel insert.

You just have to be able to unscrew some part of the pen to take out the gel refill that’s inside and to be able to screw it back on. It’s pretty simple.

Step 2: The refill

Even the beloved 0.38 is available:

The Pentel Energel LRN5 or LR7. You can also use the refills from Papermate Ink Joy and the Tül refills. Also, all of the Muji refills that you buy are basically identical to the Energel refills, but with Muji branding.

It’s likely that there are many others that will fit. I don’t know, I haven’t tried those so I can’t say.

You can use almost any size or color, needle point or bold tip. You can order them from Amazon or other retailers. Just make sure it’s LR or LN.

Step 3: Assembly

So once you get the pen body open, you just take out the refill that’s already in there and put in the refill from Step 2, close it up, and you’re good to go.

That’s really it.

I have a ton of favorite set-ups. Lately, I’ve been using a really deep burgundy refill in Muji polycarbonate body. But I’ve also used Hot Pink for years in both the Muji polycarbonate body and the Tül bodies. It’s great for annotating because it’s bright and vivid. I also go between regular point and needle tip. From 0.38 to 0.5 to 0.7. You can get refills in all kinds of sizes and colors. The options really are endless.

If you have any questions, let me know!

B