uni Kurutoga Advance Upgrade Model 0.5mm Mechanical Pencil, White Body (M510301P.1)

I’ve been using the Uni Kuru Toga Advance Upgrade Model 0.5mm mechanical pencil for a bit now, and it’s easily one of the best pencils I’ve owned. The standout feature is the rotating lead mechanism—it keeps the tip consistently sharp as you write, which makes a noticeable difference in how clean and precise your lines look. It’s especially great for neat handwriting and detailed work. The build quality also feels like a step up from standard mechanical pencils. The metal grip adds a nice bit of weight and balance without being uncomfortable, and it gives you a more controlled, premium feel in hand. The grip itself has just enough texture to keep it from slipping, even during longer writing sessions. Another thing I really appreciate is how well it prevents lead breakage. The tip design and internal mechanism work together to make writing feel smooth and reliable, even if you tend to press a little harder. Overall, this pencil strikes a great balance between smart engineering and everyday usability. Whether you’re taking notes, sketching, or just want a consistently sharp writing experience, this is a solid upgrade from your typical mechanical pencil.

I’m a sucker for Japanese stationary, so needless to say when I bought this product, I was blown away. The mechanics in it making sure that the lead in the pencil rotates as your right amazing I’m very finicky about having straight lines so the writing qualities is amazing. It is sharp every time because of the rotating lead mechanics in the pencil. Because all you need to do is buy more lead for the pencil obviously the thing last forever you’re writing all the time and you still have led to go so the value for the money on this thing is amazing. It’s very windy and I like that because it gives me a sense of being able to act your white things down so the size of it is perfect. It works really well. It’s made out of metal with plastic parts inside so if it fits in all my backpacks, it fits anywhere that I need to put it because of the size it’s amazing. I would highly recommend this pencil. I absolutely love it.

Just received my Kuru Toga Advance Upgrade 0.5 mm mechanical pencil. TL;DR = What an Excellent Pencil! And the W-speed engine makes a big difference. Prior to owning this, my "go to" pencils were: (1) the Pentel GraphGear 1000 0.5mm (limited edition black), (2) the Pentel GraphGear 1000 0.7 mm, and (3) a standard Uni Kuru Toga 0.7mm (black barrel). My standard Uni Kuru Toga *works*, but is a distant 3rd place because of two issues. First, the lead sleeve doesn't retract, leaving it to poke holes in my pockets, digging into me if I move wrongly, and/or accidentally getting broken off on a hard surface. Second, while the Kuru Toga engine *works* (and is awesome), it was designed for writing Kanji, Hiragana, and Katakana. Those use MUCH shorter strokes than the Western (Latin) alphabet, so the lead is turned more gradually than I would like. Enter the Kuru Toga Advance Upgrade. PROS It has the new W-speed engine. (I assume the "W" stands for "Western Scripts.") This rotates the lead roughly TWICE as fast as the standard Kuru Toga engine so that it stays sharper when writing in English. I can confirm this works, and works well. The lead sleeve is retractable. I could wish that it had the niftier mechanism found in the Pentel GraphGear 1000, but it certainly works well enough that I can carry it in a pocket without breaking it or having it stab me. The lead sleeve "rides" up with the lead as you write. This little trick reduces the number of times you have to click to feed the lead, and is a welcome feature. (If you want a true auto-feeding pencil, Uni makes the Kuru Toga "Dive" which advances the lead every time you lift it from the page. It even has a feed speed adjustment!) The color is vivid. Mine is a deep vibrant red and the metal and plastic parts all match without color variation. It is a beautiful, professional looking writing instrument. CONS The Kuru Toga Advance Upgrade is both shorter and lighter than my GraphGear 1000. This may be a "PRO" to you if you prefer a less-weighty pencil, but I would spend an extra few dollars in a heartbeat if they made a heavier, all-metal version. The sleeve requires pressing on a hard surface to make it retract. This is just a MINOR nit! But I prefer how the GraphGear auto-retracts when I squeeze the top of the pocket clip. Coolness Factor? My standard Kuru Toga has the window that shows the engine. When I pull this out in front of any fellow pen/pencil afficionado, they ALWAYS immediately ask about it! Of course, my "Advance Upgrade" pencil looks a WHOLE lot more professional... but I'd certainly buy a version that had the clear window around the engine. Better yet? Sell a version that has swappable lower barrels -- you could then "dress it up" for professional meetings, or "geek it up" when you want the coolness factor. (Are you listening, Uni?) .

I have always loved 0.5mm sized pencil lead, and thought it to be the perfect-medium in line thickness when writing, yet most pencils do not allow this to happen, as after several strokes, the lead flattens out at the angle you are writing, and becomes thicker. The Uni Kurutoga pencil solves this by rotating the lead as you write, allowing the tip of the lead to remain thin enough to sketch/write at the desired thickness. It does take some getting-used-to, as if you write too lightly, the trigger mechanism for rotation will not activate, and if you push too hard, it will break, but this should not take too long. I have broken the lead many times, but I think I just write with too much pressure. Beyond that, I love the weight of this pencil, especially that its concentrated towards the bottom, making writing motions much easier. However, the grip does get pretty uncomfortable after being held for a while. Overall, this is a very high-quality pencil, especially for the price. I will likely never buy another 0.5mm mechanical pencil.

I love this pencil. I originally owned a UNI Kuru Toga Elite pencil but felt that the lead had too much give to it. This pencil has a nice metal barrel to grip and writes really smoothly. The rotating led really does help it stay sharp. Would definitely buy again.

Once you use the Kuru Toga Advance mechanical pencil models, you will NEVER want to use another pencil or mechanical pencil ever again. It is impossible to go back to regular pencils and mechanical pencils, because that is how incredible this pencil is. The rotating mechanism ensures that the lead is always sharp and consistent, unlike regular pencils where the lead wears down on one side unevenly. The lead on this mechanical pencils wears down evenly on all sides for consistency. While the ordinary Kuru Toga rotating mechanism was great for Japanese writing, the Kuru Toga Advance mechanism is best fit for native English users for a smooth writing. While I was expecting the grip to be awful, the punching grip (as Mitsubishi calls it) is actually amazing at preventing the pencil from sliding off my hand. While there is a slight learning curve for this pencil, it is so worth it to expirence this mechanical pencil.

TL: DR A freaking great high-quality mechanical pencil with many quality of life features that set it apart from everyone else. It has very minor drawbacks with the eraser. Purchase of separate eraser recommended. I have used this for a few months now, and I have to say that this is hands down! The best mechanical pencil I have ever used. I'm going to be honest with you all I've tried using other mechanical pencils after buying this to compare, and nothing besides this feels right anymore. The look fits any environment from professionalism to studying with friends. The weight and is perfect, and the material is top quality. Because of its ingenious lead shield, my lead has never been broken or wasted. The engine mechanism that sharpens the pencil lead as you write has actually improved my handwriting. Kuru toga is absolutely a quality brand that confidently boasts their craftsmanship in their work and is worth every well-spent cent. Now I know I have said nothing but positive things, but there is one drawback. Unfortunately, the high-quality eraser is super tiny and is hard to replace if you get to that point. The next flaw is also eraser-related, so the only way to refill the lead is from the top... yeah, that means no bottom-feeding the pencil lead, or you could damage the mechanism according to the box. The workaround I figured out is relatively easy all you need is to remove the current eraser and just leave the cap on then buy a separate eraser. Now, this other potential "issue" is dependant on your preference; the pencil lead size is 0.5mm, which is not bad, but I know others like 0.7mm pencil lead. Other than that, I have had no further problems with it. If you are looking for something that is high quality from top to bottom and feels great to write with for hours on end stop here and make this the final mechanical pencil you will ever buy.

So, to give some context, I got this for writing, and I got it as a curiosity since I absolutely love the original Kurutoga. I discovered the Kurutogas when I was still in Japan a while back. Due to the way Japanese is written, I was looking for the thinnest possible pencil that was still useable comfortably. 0.3mm pencils are not the best choice since the lead is so thin that it has a bad tendency to break, especially if you like using soft lead. 0.5mm became my go to due to that. The Kurutogas let you write with a thinner line than normal 0.5mm pencils, so it was a great solution to get what I was looking for, a nice easy to use pencil that gives you an extra thin line. I recently fell in love with dark graphite in pencils, since it gets close to the darkness of a nice pen, but it's immensely smooth to write with in most situations. The normal Kurutogas do spin the lead, but 2B is basically the limit for how soft you can go and still get a thinner than normal line when writing normally. I wanted to use 4B lead but it wears down too quickly for the normal Kurutoga engines to keep sharp. When I saw the Kurutoga Advance and I knew that would be the answer. I actually really love this pencil, and I don't think I'll ever actively use any other pencil at this point for writing. The build quality is excellent, it is decently weighty, and it's comfortable to use since there is some minor texturing for grip and it's a little thicker than most other pencils. The advanced engine makes it so using 4B lead is now an option for me. You can actually keep a thinner than normal line at almost all times due to the fact that the advanced engine turns twice as fast. It also has the nice feature of a retractable tip as well, so you are less likely to break it when storing it. Basically, if you are looking for a nice mechanical pencil for writing, and you want to use softer lead while being able to have the thinnest lines possible, this is the choice in 0.5mm.

The kuru toga W engine works flawlessly( better than normal kuru toga engine), the weight balance is towards the tip so you don't require more force to write and it is stable, the metal body and the retractable with okayish eraser tip makes this pencil my go to pencil, I write everyday with it and have about more than 1 year of experience, I love the pencil but there are some negatives too, the metal grip is good but I would like a more squishy grip like in the kuru toga alpha-gel but that doesn't have the w-engine which is a game changer. Talking about the engine, the vertical tip wobble is more and horizontal is less( reason: w-engine uses bigger gears), but these things hardly matter to me as it is a joy to write with it. Highly recommend for daily writing and can last years if taken care of.

Hafif ve ergonomik. Çok severek kullanıyorum. Eşime de aynısından aldım. Tavsiye ederim.

Jest godzina 17, 23 przewoźnik napiął że próba doręczenia o 18 ,33 nie powiodła się. Jestem cały czas w domu i nikt nic nie próbował. Po raz kolejny ten sam numer.

シュッとしていて重心も使いやすく書き心地も少し硬めな印象ですが使用頻度は高いシャーペンになりました。ただししっかり作られているためか少し重量？密度があり、固い床に落下させると高確率で芯が折れます。でもペン自体が壊れることはなさそうです。

Best deal by amazon sg. Shopee / lazada (singapore) are selling at a higher price which is around 1.5 times more than how much amazon sells. Came in original packaging too 👍 The bottom of the pencil is all made from metal and only the top is made of plastic. The weight distribution of the pencil is all close to the tip which makes for a very comfortable writing expetience. Didnt realise how much i love and needed the line consistency from the kuru toga as i tried switching back to my old fure fure corone and immediately hated the big fat line and having to manually turn the pencil to get a sharp thin line only to be back to the fat ugly line in just a few seconds. All these problem are solved here with this pencil and the metal premium feel of the pencil is also what i didnt know i needed too 😂 Writing with a plastic pencil and a metal pencil makes ALOT of difference.