Pi Notebook
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Pi Notebook is the trade name of a notebook produced by Japanese stationery manufacturer KING JIM and sold by Loft, which began selling the product in June 2017.
Overview
The notebook is characterized by its ruled lines, a series of pi (3.1415926535...) Originally, the product was forfeited. Still, when it was posted on X on March 14, 2017, Pi Day, it received a string of requests for commercialization and was released in June of the same year as a collaborative product with Loft.
History
= Background to Launch =
Pi Notebook was a project that came up at a meeting around 2016. The meeting aired on June 12, 2016, on TBS's TV program Gacchiri Monday! However, the project was abandoned before it went up for commercialization presentation.
However, the response was overwhelming when KING JIM posted it on Twitter along with a photo on March 14, 2017, Pi Day. As of March 17, three days after the tweet, the number of retweets exceeded 12,000. King Jim commented on the post, "We are always trying to create products with a free spirit. We hope this post conveys that atmosphere."
Then, a representative from Loft saw the tweet and contacted the company, which decided to commercialize the product on March 14. After that, King Jim's designers came up with the cover, details, and other designs.
Then, on June 19 of the same year, King Jim and Loft announced that they would commercialize the product in 2,000 copies each.
= Post launch =
On June 23, four days after it was announced that the book would go on sale, it was sold in advance at the Loft Net Store, an E-commerce site of Loft, and at Ginza Loft, which opened on the same day, for 314 yen excluding tax. The Ginza Loft sold a limited number of 314 copies and placed POP hand-drawn by King Jim's Twitter representative. The Loft online store, which began selling at 11:00 on the same day, sold out just 17 minutes later at 11:17, and the Ginza Loft also sold out within the day of its release.
Later, on July 25, the product went on sale at all Loft stores nationwide and at the Loft online store for 380 yen, excluding tax.
Following the massive success of the Pi notebook, on March 9, 2018, the company began selling its second product, the "Miscellaneous Ruled Notebook," in which "Japanese era name," "Ogura Hyakunin Isshu," "prime numbers," "country names," and "city names" are ruled lines in the notebook. Furthermore, at the "Stationery Festival 2020" event held at the Loft in July and August 2020, the company released its third series of notebooks, in which "Elemental Symbols," "New Japanese era name," and "Jōyō kanji " are ruled lines.
Reaction and Evaluation
In January 2018, Asahi Weekly interviewed Loft for its "Loft Heisei Hit Items," the Pi notebook was listed in the stationery category. In addition, the miscellaneous ruled notebooks released as the second version directly led to sales, with total sales exceeding 25,000 in the three months from its release to the end of May 2018.
Some believe even this rejected project led to commercialization because King Jim's official X account interacted daily with users and created a fan base.
Products
; Pi notebook
: Sales began in June 2017. It is available in two colors, green and white, inspired by blackboards and whiteboards, and is priced at 380 yen without tax each. It has 50 pages, is A5 in size, and has twin-ring binding. On the notebook's cover, in addition to pi, there are various circle-related mathematical formulas and figures.
:The ruled lines of the notebook contain a series of pi numbers (3.1415926535...), which are not too conspicuous and are adjusted to a size where the numbers can be read. The numbers on a single page of this notebook amount to about 3,800 digits. Also, "3.14" is written in the date section.
;Miscellaneous ruled notebooks
: The second volume will be sold in March 2018, and the third in July 2020. The second volume's "Japanese era name" lists all the Japanese era names from Taika to Heisei, "Hyakunin Isshu" lists all the waka poems by 100 poets, "Prime Numbers" lists prime numbers from 2 to 5107, "Country Names" lists the 193 member countries of the United Nations as of May 2017, and "City Names" lists all Japanese city names in national, local public organization code order. The third volume includes "Elemental Symbols," "New Japanese era name," and "Jōyō kanji ".
Notes
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