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Mino washi paper is produced from the fresh water of the Itadori River, a tributary of the Nagara River that flows through the center of Mino, Gifu Prefecture. Because large, thick paper suitable for the collotype printing of manga art is necessary, we decided to produce our own washi paper for this project.
Yukiyo Terada is the artisan who produced this paper. She learned how to make washi paper from Masashi Sawamura of the Hon-Mino-shi Preservation Society for seven years before starting her own business. While continuing to make paper using traditional methods, she also takes on new challenges.
Step 1: Chiritori
Kôzo, a plant from the mulberry family, is the raw material used to make the paper. For washi, daigonasu kôzo grown in Ibaraki Prefecture is most often used. Its fibers are long, tough, and beautiful. The kôzo is soaked in water and boiled until soft. Then, remaining bark and debris are removed. This process, known as chiritori, produces white paper. For this project, the chiritori process took approximately nine days. About a hundred sheets of paper were made from the kôzo and 55 select sheets were delivered for the manga art project.
Step 2: Making Nebeshi
Roots from the tororoaoi (sunset hibiscus) plant in Ibaraki Prefecture are pounded and crushed, and then soaked in water to extract mucilage. This mucilage, known as nebeshi, is mixed into the washi paper, and this causes the kôzo fibers to intertwine evenly, producing a smooth paper surface.
Step 3: Kôkai (Part 1)
Kôkai is the process of beating or cutting raw material to give it the characteristics necessary for paper production. The kôzo is first beaten with a mallet and spread out. On the head of the mallet are ridges that extend to the edges radially, and the struck surface of the material is impressed with a flower-like pattern. For this project, this process took approximately half a day.
Step 4: Kôkai (Part 2)
Next, a machine called a naginata beater is used to break up the fibers into smaller pieces. It has multiple blades shaped like naginata (a polearm similar to a glaive), and the blades are used to untangle the fibers.
Step 5: Making Paper
The board-like tool used for papermaking is called a suketa. Water is added to the kôzo and nebeshi, mixed thoroughly, and then strained and spread out into sheets using the suketa. About 2,000 bamboo strips, each about 0.6 mm thick, are used for the Kyoma-ban suketa used to make paper for manga art. The delicate appearance of Mino washi paper is produced using this type of bamboo screen.
In normal papermaking, the suketa is only swayed vertically. The process of making Mino washi paper is characterized by the gentle horizontal swaying of the suketa that is performed in addition to the vertical movement. This allows the fibers to intertwine evenly, producing a texture that is beautiful even when sunlight shines through it, such as on a shoji paper sliding door.
Furthermore, for this project, we had the MA logo of Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage added as a watermark. A stencil cutout is attached to a thin silk sheet called a sha, which is laid on top of the bamboo screen so that the paper where the stencil is laid becomes thinner, forming a watermark.
After the washi paper is finished, it is placed on a shito (paper bed) and dehydrated under pressure for about half a day.
Step 6: Drying
The washi paper that is spread out is then dried. A steel plate dryer is used for this process.
When producing traditional washi, the paper is pasted on a single board of tochi (Japanese horse chestnut) and dried in the sun. However, for our paper, a dryer was used because the paper is quite thick, and we needed a smooth surface for collotype printing. The drying time and temperature must be adjusted according to the air temperature and humidity.
Terada made the following comment:
"The papermaking process is a series of tasks that require constant attention. For this job, I especially took particular care in adding the nebeshi. This is the preparation just before the paper is made, but if this is done properly, the color of the ink on the surface and the appearance of the MA pattern on the watermark will be different. I put my heart and soul into the work, hoping to produce good paper. I'm happy if it turns out better than usual."
Movie by Toyokazu Fujita (HIORYES Inc.)
