450 years is a long time for one man to make ink. I'm concerned for this man and his feet.

His workplace looks like one of those super organized farm games. So satisfying to see.

Sees ink stick. My brain: eat it

Every so often I come back to this video. Unsure why but there is something that really resonates with me here.

Many of craftsmanship in Japan stubbornly resist replacement by machine. Here's an example, which is in fact rare & curious even for most of us Japanese. They usually have a very long history, some of which could boast of century-long continuity, while others, unfortunately, disappearing due to unsustainability in modern lifestyle.
The level of skill/performance by those maestros is simply stunning, beyond our (Japanese) imagination, say, unrealistic by human! Precise & infallible, like Swiss watch, it's they who work like machine! Reaching that level becomes Art, entertaining & mesmerizing to watch. Allow us preen ourselves a bit, will you?

PS. The style/structure of the workplace (+ residence?) is also impressive, leaving inkling of samurai era!

This is fascinating. I never even heard of ink sticks and ink stones before watching this video. Also, I already knew that calligraphy was in both China and Japan, but didn’t know the former had such an influence on the latter.

This is so woefully inefficient and hazardous to his health. You can work smart and not hard without sacrificing quality.

I appreciate their dedication to traditional methods and not prioritizing efficiency above quality, but can they really not think of a better way to collect the soot? The best way is really to have some poor man going back in forth in a smoke-filled room, sucking in lungfuls of the very same soot he is trying to collect?? Come on, now.

Hes been making it for 450 years dude looks good for his age. Taking all that ink into his skin and all lol

Man, I really wonder what soap he uses

I'm from the Blackfoot tribe, but he REALLY has black foot 😮

The guy breathing all that smoke…

Idk but working in that room with 250 Oil Lamps sounds pretty unhealthy😅

I swear. I bet their is a documentary abt why Japanese paper is so expensive. & their is an old Japanese men who's been making paper for 1000 years

The Japanese are very interesting people.
On one side they live in a high tech society and on the other they still carry on with traditions passed on from their ancestors  hundreds of years ago.

I’m very impressed with these people. Such dedication is very amazing

"Soot"....Semantically speaking, is quite simply "Carbon Black".

At the very end he says the company will lose money instead of make a low quality ink stick. So he's making 6,000 at 1,000 a pop hell that's 6 million , I'm gonna say they're doing okay.

I really wanna eat it

very hygenic with foot pressings 😂