Fujino "Straight Line"

The Fujino firm, a company that has produced fishing lines in Atsugi, Japan since 1957 has called several times recognized tenkara experts to design lines such as Takashi Yoshida  for the "Soft Tenkara" and "Tenkara Midi" lines and Masami Sakakibara for the "Soft Tenkara Long Type".
A few weeks ago Fujino announced the imminent release of a new tenkara line designed by a very experience angler who has greatly contributed to the evolution of this fishing technique and is a widely recognized ambassador: Dr. Hisao Ishigaki.

This line, commonly called "level line" is not made of fluorocarbon but of polyarylate, a family of thermoplastics polymers with various industrial use. In the case of this tenkara line it is made of a material called "Zxion" (pronounce "Zekushion" ®) which means that it is consisting in polyester liquid crystals whose main characteristics make it an interesting product to make a tenkara line with: high strength, insensitivity to U.V radiation and very low shape memory. 

As the picture above shows the "Straight Line" has a yellow stain that I call "curry yellow", it is an opaque non-fluorescent yellow which is a good idea as fluorescent yellow for tenkara lines has the disadvantage to make it virtually invisible, except when fishing in low light conditions, and that is a problem especially for beginners.
This line that Dr. Hisao Ishigaki has first designed for tenkara beginners make accurate casting easy as it is stiff enough to be easily controlled and it is dense enough to insure an effective transmission of the casting motions energy. The tip of the line is made of a 30 centimeters section of furled nylon with black markers every five centimeters. This makes a strike indicator which can be very useful for a tenkara beginner. 

This line is available in three different length: 3.50, 4 and 5 meters + 30 centimeters furled section.

Dr. Hisao Ishigaki is, besides a tenkara angler with a forty years experience who has stayed faithful to the principle of simplicity in tenkara and is unanimously recognized as a tenkara ambassador, a renowned ophtalmologist who has among many other things supervised the development of vision training software for Nintendo and that is in my opinion a guarantee of seriousness in the design of this tenkara line.

The furled nylon tip has elasticity enough to absorb the energy of the hook settings and if it is your "thing" you can use the black markers as a fish measure tape as there is five centimeters between each of them.

Fishing with the "Straight Line" is really pleasing, it perfectly matches the objectives of its concept and in my opinion it can go further than matching the specific needs of tenkara beginners as this line allows very delicate kebari presentation.
This line is really a part of what is best among tenkara lines as those created by Hiromichi Fuji, Yuzoh Sebata,  Takashi Yoshida or Masami Sakibara which are all the fruits of a long tenkara experience, a high level of demand and fidelity to the principle of simplicity.