Paper, pen and sticker lovers unite. A Japanese-inspired stationery fest takes over Union Station

When Friedia Niimura moved to the U.S. from Japan successful her mid-20s, she shared a imagination with galore Angelenos: acting, oregon possibly fashion. A TV and media property successful Japan, it seemed a earthy fit, lone she didn’t instrumentality to the competitory gait of Los Angeles.

So she dove into 1 of her different passions: paper.

“When I came to L.A., I noticed determination weren’t a batch of specialty stationery boutiques,” Niimura says. “When you’re successful Japan, they’re everyplace and you instrumentality them for granted. That’s however I would walk my days off. I would spell to the stationery and browse and instrumentality my notebook and draw.”

Friedia Niimura extracurricular her store Paper Plant Co., which occupies 2 Chinatown storefronts and shares a abstraction with Thank You Coffee. Niimura spent her teen years successful Japan earlier changing her career.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Niimura created a spot wherever 1 tin bash conscionable that. Chinatown’s Paper Plant Co. is her stationery outpost, made of 2 tiny storefronts that stock a abstraction with Thank You Coffee and boast outdoor seating. A communal destination since 2020, the store has earned a estimation for specializing successful notebooks, stickers and pens from Japan. Or, arsenic Niimura describes Paper Plant’s aesthetic: “cute.”

“When we prime thing and we each go, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s truthful cute,’ past we cognize it’s going to bash truly well,” Niimura, 45, says. “I don’t cognize however successful Japan they ever travel up with cute scenarios and cute scenes and cute gestures. It’s astir similar there’s a schoolhouse connected however to gully dogs doing cute things, cats doing cute things.”

Paper Plant volition connected Oct. 11-12 play big to Bungu LA, believed to beryllium the archetypal due stationery festival successful the city. Niimura has handpicked Bungu’s 60 oregon truthful exhibitors, with the immense bulk of them traveling present from Japan. Bungu is inspired by akin events Niimura has gone to successful Tokyo oregon New York. Paper Plant, for instance, exhibited past twelvemonth astatine a festival hosted by Brooklyn’s Yoseka Stationery.

“There was a enactment each day,” Niimura says, describing the New York fest. “It was conscionable my store manager and I, and we were like, ‘How travel L.A. doesn’t person one?’ And past who would bash it? It ever came backmost to us, since we person that narration with Japanese creators.”

Like astir everything Paper Plant-related, Niimura has been figuring it retired connected the fly. Paper Plant, for instance, was initially funded astir wholly by recognition cards, a concern program Niimura wouldn’t urge to others. Bungu volition instrumentality implicit portion of a concourse astatine downtown’s Union Station, and the anticipation is to marque it an yearly event. The extremity for the archetypal twelvemonth is to simply interruption even, arsenic Niimura jokes that she doesn’t yet cognize the last outgo of staging a festival.

“We had to besides rent retired a beforehand sidewalk, which was different $10,000 that I hadn’t added to the budget,” Niimura says.

The response, however, has been overwhelmingly positive. Popular Japanese firms specified arsenic Hobonichi volition beryllium successful attendance, but Niimura says she made an effort to unafraid vendors that person ne'er earlier sold successful the U.S. Advance tickets of $25, for which astir 1,500 were made disposable per day, person sold out. There will, however, beryllium walk-up tickets sold each time of the show. Niimura is hoping to pull 2,500 radical per day.

Stickers, says Paper Plant Co. proprietor Friedia Niimura, are hugely fashionable astatine the moment. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Paper Plant Co. makes and sells archetypal greeting cards. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Niimura herself is inactive discovering caller joys successful the stationery world. She notes that lone precocious has she go smitten with fountain pens.

“In Japan, fountain pens are geared toward older gentlemen,” she says. “And they’re expensive. The truly bully ones tin beryllium thousands of dollars. We person ones that are a mates hundred, but besides beginner ones for astir $20. I started disconnected with those, but I precocious got a mates 100 dollar ones, and it’s beingness changing — the mode the ink comes retired is truthful smooth. Once you person one, it’s hard to spell backmost to a regular pen.”

As portion of Bungu, Niimura is encouraging attendees to research L.A.’s nationalist transit and the walkability of Chinatown. Maps volition beryllium fixed retired astatine Bungu for which guests tin cod 3 stamps, 1 astatine the event, 1 astatine the Chinatown Metro Rail presumption and 1 astatine Paper Plant. Those who implicit the mini scavenger hunt volition beryllium fixed a escaped acquisition astatine Paper Plant, which Niimura is keeping a secret.

With the emergence of collage and zine-making workshops, younger generations are connecting with insubstantial and Niimura notes that one-day planners and scrapbooking contiguous person go particularly popular.

“I consciousness similar thing work-wise, radical person connected their phones,” Niimura says. “But there’s this inclination of scrapbooking everything — receipts for the day, the java cupful holder, stickers. They telephone it ‘junk journaling.’”

Junk journaling, says Niimura, is fueling successful portion the sticker inclination of the moment. Paper Plant sells a wide array of stickers and besides makes its ain — a dog, for instance, wearing a Dodgers hat, oregon a antheral wearing a canine arsenic a hat. “The mini stickers are for the journalers and the planners,” Niimura says. “They person truly teeny-tiny ones. It’s for the calendar. You usage a sandwich sticker for luncheon with a friend.”

The charm of Paper Plant’s 2 storefronts, wherever 1 tin find lamps shaped similar bread, diaries with adorable cats connected the screen and those fancy fountain pens, belies the information that 2025 is simply a stressful clip for the stationery business. Niimura sighs arsenic she notes that she’s had to rise prices this twelvemonth owed to tariffs imposed by President Trump.

“Everything has benignant of gone up,” Niimura says erstwhile asked however the tariffs person affected her business. “If its coming from China, it’s a lot. If it’s coming from Japan, it’s a small bit.”

And yet that doesn’t deter her optimism. Niimura notes that successful a way, she’s surviving retired 1 of her puerility dreams, arsenic she erstwhile envisioned her status beingness including a gig astatine a stationery shop.

“I ever thought I would bash this aboriginal successful life,” she says. “I thought I would beryllium the aged woman putting retired a motion and being down the register.”

And now, Niimura speaks of Paper Plant and Bungu arsenic thing of a mission.

Chinatown’s Paper Plant Co. occupies 2 Chinatown storefronts, and sells everything from stickers and stationery to lamps shaped similar bread.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

“This analog benignant of things shouldn’t dice conscionable yet,” she says. “I deliberation it’s important. Creativity starts with a pencil and a paper. Now my son, too, doesn’t person a cursive class. That hurts. You tin admit idiosyncratic by their handwriting. My lad calls cursive ‘fancy writing,’ and I don’t privation that to die.”

Think of Paper Plant and Bungu, then, arsenic a mode to support a mislaid creation alive.