Customer Reviews

I AM IN LOVE.

I am obsessed with writing instruments & once I find a great product, I'm loyal for life. When my fiance told me about this pencil, I couldn't believe my ears. I had to order it immediately. (Note: Shipping here at JetPens is absolutely terrific!) When I write, I write in all capitalized letters so this involves me picking up the pencil for each letter. This works wonderful with my writing style. If you prefer to write in cursive, this product may not work as well for you. You literally need to lift the pencil off of the paper in order for the lead to rotate.

I am so happy with this pencil so far. The grip is nice and squishy, but not annoying to hold or too bulky. The pencil itself is nice and thick, which is a nice change from the original Kuru Toga (which is also great). I am definitely considering buying at least one more of these in another color. Love it!

I don't usually like pencils this thick, but the Kurutoga is fantastically proportioned. As a chronic pencil-spinner I wasn't sure if this pencil was going to help or hinder my writing but I definitely approve. Smooth writing action, effective if small eraser, and all-around good looks. Worth the price.

I do like using this pencil quite a bit. At first I was hesitant to pick up this particular Kuru Toga because it looked pretty thick compared to the original, but the gel grip and the color of the pencil body won me over. And man, I'm glad I did decide to go ahead and try it out! I don't like thick pens or pencils at all, but this one still feels really nice in my hand. The lavender color is very nice, mine's a bit richer than it is in the preview pictures. Since the grip is white, I was a little worried about it collecting and showing dirt very quickly. But to my surprise, I haven't had that problem--Mine still looks the same now as it did a few months ago. And of course, the pencil itself works very well. I actually use this pencil for drawing rather than note taking most of the time (which it is also absolutely great for too!). While I typically don't draw hard enough to use the Kuru Toga mechanism to its full potential, I still enjoy having the mechanism because it provides a slight but really good firmness when you push the lead down on paper, which keeps the lead very stable and smooth as you drag it across the paper. All in all, a very nice pencil that works as good as it looks. ;)

This pencil is great!!

love...Love...LOVE! Great pencil!

Awesome pencil! It is basically a combination of the original Kuru Toga and the alpha gel. The pencil saves lead, prevents lead breakage, and is comfortable!

Simply outstanding. The soft grip and sharpening feature aids in neat writing. The gel grip on the pencil is famous for protecting an egg from breaking when dropped on concrete, thus the grip is extremely soft and comfortable when compared to other grips. There are only two cons for this pencil: One is that the grip is slightly firmer than the original alpha-gel; the second is that the sharpening feature doesn't work if you write in cursive. Overall, this pencil is wonderful. I highly recommend this product for both long periods of writing, and short note taking.

I love this pencil so awesome truly amazing :) worth the money

this pencil is good and bad. the good part is that the grip is squishy and your writing comes out neat. the bad part is that the led always gets stuck and u cant get it out.

Anyways, here\'s a real review. I bought this pencil from somewhere in Japan and I\'ve been waiting to see these on Jetpens for sometime. The grip felt like a slightly squishier version of the Dr. Grip. This is a very nice pencil for writing, since the original Kuru Toga doesn\'t have much of a grip. You can take off the plastic outside and decorate the inside of the barrel much like a Dr. Grip. However, the tip isn\'t retractable and you can pull on it too...but that\'s not much of a problem for me. The plastic barrel feels kind of cheap and easy to scratch. Overall, I love this pencil. If you\'re thinking about getting it, stop thinking and get it.

I love both the kuru toga and alpha gel lines that Uniball has out, so I thought I would try this combination of the two.

THE GRIP-
I like the grip. Defiantly not as squishy as the regular alpha gels (like the Uni-ball Alpha Gel HD Shaka Shaker Pencil), but I prefer this one because it is not s squishy as to make you have an unstable grip, but is still more comfortable than a standard kuru toga.

THE MECHANISM-
So far has been working just fine. I write in cursive, so this may not be as effective as writing in print, but I still like it. One of my 2 kuru togas got blocked up and I wasn't able to clear it so I had to throw it away. Will update on the lasting power later.

OVERALL-
I like the product. Only thing I could suggest would be having metal instead of a coating on plastic on the shiny section in the middle since that scratches easily. Oh, and also having a price cut. This is kinda expensive.

I have had this pencil for about 3 weeks now and here's my two cents. It is an awesome pencil, its intuitive, comfortable and very light. The Kuru Toga technology is pretty helpful when taking notes etc, however, the technology requires for you to lift your pencil. This means that when drawing lines etc, the pencil doesn't spin the lead.

And to add, the gel is similar to the Alpha Gel HD series, not as squishy as the originals.

However, my biggest complaint is that it STOPPED working for me after 3 weeks. By three weeks I finished the lead that came with the pencil and when I loaded the new lead 0.5 the pencil stopped working. I've been trying different solutions but I've reached a dead end and a useless pencil.

Basically the pencil doesnt push the lead out, it just moves freely through the pencil. If anyone knows a fix for this please let me know...

Very beautiful and easy to write with. I have this Turquoise Blue one and it now becomes my favorite mechanical pencil. The plastic clear surrounding of the upper body makes it shining~~The grip is soft so that my finger will not ache after a long time of writing. It's also well balanced.

The grip is not as squishy as your typical Alpha Gel but overall still has a great feel to it.

I was so happy to see this at Jetpens. I've got 4 other Kuru Toga pencils, from the plastic and metal collections, but I saw these Alpha Gel models while browsing Ebay. I had to have one, and love that I could get it in a few days, instead of waiting on international shipping.
The pencil itself is great. I like a wider grip, and the gel is very comfortable. The hardest part of using a Kuru Toga is not rotating the pencil as you write, since it does it for you. I find myself rotating the other models as I go, but the gel seems to help me remember to keep it stationary.
This version is also pretty light, close to the plastic model, so it's comfortable for long stretches of writing. Highly recommended.

This pencil feels soft in my hand. My first thought was that the color was a little darker than it looked in the pictures, but it's still very shiny and attractive. I noticed after a day that the grip was starting to turn yellow, so I wrapped it in plastic wrap as extra precaution. The rotating mechanism requires the tip of the pencil to go in a bit when you write, but that's not a problem.
I find that this pencil is a little hard to get used to. I already rotate my pencils incrementally when writing, so using a Kuru Toga that rotates lead internally is redundant and actually throws me off, especially because I like rotating my pencils in the opposite direction. >:[ I wasn't even aware of the habit.

Amazing balance, feels great to hold in the hand, writes smoothly, and looks attractive. The grip is just so squishy, I love it.

Its a beautiful and easy to use pencil that also helps minimize hand fatigue. Its in my top picks for pencils to use over long periods of time, but I would like to see a slim version with the same core rotation mechanism.

love this pencil!!! finally got a pencil that i can have for a looong time without wanting any other kinds. Its smooth, and as the description sais, the rotating mechanisn allows you to always have a dark mark. I don't like lending out this pencil to anyone because when I do, I look like I'm desperate for it back... makes people uncomfortable, LOL.

My absolute favorite pencil. Combining the brilliant Kuru Toga mechanism with the luxurious comfort of the α-gel grip, this pencil is really the end all, cure all. I don't think I need to say more about why this pencil is so amazing.

Unfortunately, the grip is not as soft as the other α-gels. I still find it a bit more squishy than Dr. Grips, but less than the α-gel Slims.

The only problem I have ever had is when I "death grip" the pencil, my hand (which is bigger than the grip) tends to turn the upper half, so the clip is pressing into my hand, spinning around, and pressing into it again. Highly annoying mid-exam/essay. It might be better if instead of a clip, there was a little "wing" like in the Dr. Grips from Asia. But when I'm not choking my pencil, this is perfect. For times when I'm furiously writing and intensely gripping my pencil, I switch to the regular Kuru Toga pencil.

kuru toga and alpha gel go together like bread and butter. so nice to write with.

I AM IN LOVE.

I am obsessed with writing instruments & once I find a great product, I'm loyal for life. When my fiance told me about this pencil, I couldn't believe my ears. I had to order it immediately. (Note: Shipping here at JetPens is absolutely terrific!) When I write, I write in all capitalized letters so this involves me picking up the pencil for each letter. This works wonderful with my writing style. If you prefer to write in cursive, this product may not work as well for you. You literally need to lift the pencil off of the paper in order for the lead to rotate.

After looking to complete my pencil case with a kuru toga, I chose this pencil. Very happy with it.

Pros
- Combines the kuru toga technology with an alpha gel grip. This makes it better than other kuru togas because it combines two favorites into 1 pencil
- I bought the red grip version because it looked nicer online. The ones with the colored barrels did not appeal to me since I wanted a colored grip. Furthermore, red was more visually appealing than black or the teal colored grip
- More on the grip. There's a simple red grip below the alpha gel grip. Guess this makes it squishier? Looks cool though.
- The grip has more traction than any other alpha gels. Yet, the best grip is still on the non-shaka, HD alpha gels.
- Now for the mechanism. VERY COOL. haha...I don't use my shaka shaker anymore since at times, it just feels cheap. I use the kuru toga for writing notes and the Metal barrel HD for jotting things down.
- Stupid, yes. BUT there's NO japanese "uni" sticker on this!!! I find this awesome since the uni label will fall off over time and looks downright awful after much use. Instead, the labels are printed on the barrel of the pencil which is much nicer. See, little things like this make this pencil a tad better than the other alpha gels.

Cons
- The color of the grip isn't as vivid as it looks online.
- The barrel etc is all plastic. However, the kuru toga mechanism/the main pencil part is metal which is very nice.
- Grip isn't as squishy as other alpha gels. The shaka shaker version is the squishiest, followed by the HD. This kuru toga firmer than both of these grips.
- Not a shaker pencil. + i haven't found a way to take it apart and insert a shaker. downer

woot! so i just got one delievered :] fortunately it looks awesome and is extremely useful. thank you uni-ball for combining the two ingenious ideas together! one thing i have to say is the squishy handle is not as soft as the acutal uni-bal alpha gel. but overall, i was thrilled with the product.