My Struggle: Making My First One-Sheet Zine with Risograph
I had always admired Zines, but when it came down to it, I didn't know what to write about and couldn't find a reason to make one myself. However, things took a sudden turn, and I managed to finish a Zine in just 10 days after deciding to do it.
Even though I hadn't been able to get myself moving for several years, I suddenly found myself planning the structure of my next Zine. What on earth happened?
What is the purpose of making a Zine?
End of January
I had the opportunity to listen to an editor I deeply respect, someone who has been involved in little press for over 20 years. A certain part of their talk really resonated with me regarding the philosophy of Zine making.
"Speaking for yourself" doesn't mean you are always thinking about yourself. It means not being afraid to state your own thoughts, and being able to say, "Even so, this is what I think," about things you couldn't say before because you were worried about what others might think. I believe that is what it means. And I think that by expressing yourself in that way, you can finally meet your "peers."
I consider "peers" to be different from "friends"; they are like comrades with whom you can face something together. The way to connect with peers who share the same perspective isn't necessarily just by spending time together. Having continued personal publishing for many years, I strongly feel that you can meet such peers by making printed materials.
February 6th (Fri)
As I edited the interview and compiled it into an article, I felt a sudden sense that the act of "making a Zine," which had felt somewhat unreal, was suddenly encroaching on my own life.
February 7th (Sat)
While I was thinking about themes I wanted to write about, nothing really came to mind. I suddenly searched for things like "Zine printing" and learned that various printing shops offer Zine plans. I didn't even know how many pages I wanted or what I wanted to write, and I felt the image of a Zine drifting further and further away from me. Looking back now, I think that starting to think about printing before writing even a single character is exactly why I stumble at the start of so many things.
Why did I choose Risograph?
February 8th (Sun)
While I was feeling frustrated because I couldn't visualize the finished product, I suddenly remembered! I took out ROMI's "Don't Wait, Find It and Make It," which I bought at the end of last year, and reread it. I thought it might be too early to be particular about paper and printing, but perhaps because I'm still feeling my way through, it might actually be okay to try printing first.
What is Risograph?
Let's find a Risograph studio
Once I made up my mind, I immediately started looking for a studio where I could use a Risograph printer. The official website of Riso Kagaku Corporation, which manufactures Risographs, has a page listing studios that have installed them! It feels like a list of authorized dealers, so it's reassuring.
Since the number and types of ink colors available, the presence of workshops, hourly rates, and plate-making costs vary by studio, it seems best to choose according to your needs. I wrote down the shops I was interested in in my notebook and followed them all on Instagram. There were studios I already knew, but I also discovered many wonderful ones I hadn't heard of. On Instagram, you can catch announcements for events like workshops, and they also introduce other people's work, which is helpful. Just looking at them really boosted my motivation.
February 9th (Mon)
Even during my work break, I felt restless thinking about Risograph. And then, I discovered this post.
Strike while the iron is hot, they say, so I'm going this weekend. Plus, there are spots available. I'm anxious about whether I can actually create the data in a week, but I feel like I have no choice but to go!
Chatting with other participants about Zines and brainstorming ideas
I am a shy person. Moreover, the idea I had in my head at the time was a 'Lite' version of the 'One Thing a Day' project I've been doing on note since the beginning of the year (I was thinking of compiling it into a book once I had about a year's worth, so this would also serve as a trial run).
I don't want strangers to know about my messy room...! Judging by the studio's Instagram, it seems like many illustrators and designers create works centered around photos and illustrations. I feel terrified imagining the moment I, having crawled out of my messy room, reveal a text exposing my life's shame in front of such wonderful creators. Even someone like me, who has released so much dark history into the sea of the internet, realizes anew that putting things on paper requires so much resolve.
I'm hesitant. But I have reliable seniors in Zine making. The other day 2year-end reflectionsnotethe Tsudoi Editing School I wrote about has a Discord channel where all the graduates gather. And among the graduates, there are many who have published wonderful Zines.
I immediately vented my weakness on the Discord channel, and my peer Non Suzuki-chan gave me a push. (Thank you...!) Zine making is a lonely battle of facing oneself, and I truly realize the value of having others around me who are also working on Zine making.
Oh, whatever, I'll just sign up! 2,000 yen, paper size is A4 or A3. It says 'a work composed within one page.' What is a work composed within one page?
Anyway, I have to finish the data in the next 6 days.
Creating data for a one-sheet Zine
Tuesday, February 10
I was shooting for work until late at night. But tomorrow is a holiday, so I'm still optimistic that I'll manage somehow. By the way, I looked up what a Zine that is completed on a single sheet is like and learned the concept of a one-sheet Zine.
I encourage myself with groundless confidence that a one-sheet might work. Actually, this compactness was very suitable for a beginner like me. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to try making a Zine for now.
Wednesday, February 11 (Holiday)
Even though it was a holiday, I slept through most of it due to the fatigue from the previous day. What a disaster. I woke up in the evening, folded some copy paper, and tried making the shape of a one-sheet Zine. I tried laying out the things I wanted to write there. Excluding the front and back covers, it's just 6 small pages. Even though it's just that, I can't imagine what to write at all. Oh, what should I do?
I gave up on writing text, went back through my camera roll, chose some nice photos, and placed them. It looks somewhat decent. But a sense of anxiety crosses my mind that this might not be what I really want to create right now.
Saturday, February 14
Thursday and Friday passed while I was buried in work. Before I knew it, it was Saturday. I have to take the data to Kuramae tomorrow morning. I'm already starting to give up.
I don't have time, but I had an errand in Ginza that I had planned from before, and I had a picnic on a bench in the East Garden of the Imperial Palace. It was sunny and warm, completely spring. However, my head is full of anxiety. I brought a book with the intention of reading, but I'm not in the mood at all, and I'm touching my smartphone while thinking about the Zine (read the book, will you).
Seeing a social media post from a certain brand there, I suddenly felt a connection to various things I had been thinking about recently. I talk to my husband, who is watching YouTube next to me, as if I'm hitting a wall. I like to organize my thoughts by talking rapidly to someone who will at least nod along, even if they don't need to listen seriously. I remember doing that since I was a child, talking to friends at school, talking to the bathroom wall at home, and venting to a world where I didn't even know who was there on the newly created Twitter.
I got home, made dinner, ate, got out of the bath, and opened my PC. It's finally the last spurt. Somehow, I suddenly decided to try writing down what I had just said out loud.
Among food, clothing, and shelter, I am particularly interested in the changes that clothing brings to human life and values. I am a former internet-loving kid from about 15 years ago.
Searching for the afterimage of what I sought in the early days of Twitter, I decided to try making a Zine.
I will try to leave here things that I might have written in the middle of the night and deleted by morning.
3:42 AM · Feb 15, 2026
Thinking I couldn't get my thoughts together at all, I let YouTube play in the background as a substitute for BGM. I don't know what the algorithm was thinking, but I ended up on a choreography sample video for Sakanaction's "Shin Takarajima" uploaded four months ago. It was 2:00 AM, and I was so sleepy that my consciousness was hazy. After sensing that my husband had fallen asleep in the bedroom, I played Shin Takarajima at full volume through my earphones and danced in the hallway with a straight face, mimicking the dancer's choreography (moving both hands up and down). It's honestly scary to write this down, but I must have been that cornered and high on adrenaline.
After listening to Shin Takarajima over and over, a lot of videos of Sakanaction's bassist, Ami Kusakari, showing off her virtuoso techniques started being suggested to me. They were so cool that I watched them intently. Thinking, "If I can finish this ZINE, I want to go to a Sakanaction concert," I started to feel genuinely anxious. 3:00 AM.
No matter how much I write, the things I want to say don't come together, I'm sleepy, and words without any logic or substance are piling up in front of me. Looking back at it now that it's finished, the extra words I added while feeling lost are all superfluous and embarrassing. Even so, I can't fix them anymore. Paper is scary.
5:00 AM. To make it to the workshop starting at 10:40 AM, I want to start getting ready by 8:00 AM. Even if I finished now, I wouldn't be able to sleep at all, but I'm still not done.
6:00 AM, I've finished for now. But I'm starting to feel miserable because the logic seems completely chaotic overall.
After that, I continued to use it as a sounding board several times.
7:00 AM. After a few more rounds of sounding board sessions, I was about to lose consciousness, so I decided it was finished. Counting now, it ended up being 3,482 characters. I thought I had written so much, but it's not even 4,000 characters? I want to be a person who can bring out more words from within. That aside, the feeling of crafting words that won't remain in history while feeling like it was just me and the AI in the world during the lonely middle of the night (early morning) was quite spectacular.
At this time, I still didn't realize that I was about to end up exposing even more intense thoughts than the messy room I feared exposing at the Risograph studio.
My First Risograph
After sleeping for an hour, I got ready. At 10:40 AM, I went to the Risograph studio "onten" in Kuramae. It's a cozy space, but there were many reference works, and the staff kindly listened to my concerns. As I imagined, the other three people were making stylish ZINEs composed of illustrations and photos, and I was the only one with a ZINE full of text. However, everyone was kind, and the atmosphere was one where people were immersed in their own work while referring to each other's color choices, so I was able to concentrate on my work comfortably.
Number of colors: 1 color
※If you would like multi-color printing, please consult with the staff on the day.
Taking advantage of that note, I separated the two-color layers, output them to PDF, and brought them with me, and they were able to accommodate two-color printing for an additional fee of 200 yen. (I'm sorry...)
There is no white, and you can print on up to 10 sheets of your choice from 10 colored high-quality papers. The ink colors are fixed, so I agonized over the combination of paper and color. I used blue for the text color, inspired by the former Twitter, and fluorescent pink for the photos and decorative parts. Fluorescent colors have a strong Risograph feel, so I end up wanting to use them, and they are popular because the text can be printed clearly. I liked it too.
I did a test print for each plate, and then adjusted the misalignment by overlapping the two plates. I was moved that they aligned it perfectly on the first try, even though I submitted data with troublesome text alignment.
For printing solid areas, you can choose the roughness of the lines or the jaggedness (I forgot the name for this). It would be interesting to change the roughness for each plate when printing photos or illustrations to create an accent.
While waiting for the ink to dry, I looked at the various art works and ZINEs displayed in the shop. Even with the same plate, the impression changes significantly just by changing the color combination. There were works that created a screen using a total of 4 colors, including the mixed colors where the two colors overlapped and the white paper, and works that expressed a wide range of hues by separating CMYK, which was interesting. For one-sheet ZINEs, there are various ideas that I wanted to imitate, such as not necessarily just punching a hole in the center and folding it, but sewing long, thin strips of paper with a sewing machine or connecting them in an accordion style. (Since my theme is tweets, I'm planning to make one next time that prints the actual tweet screen in a vertical format.)
Memo 📝 Recommended apps for color separation
I included one photo as a token, but I didn't really know how to create data for Risograph. It seems that if you are printing in one color, you can just turn the photo into monochrome, but the studio staff taught me that this app is good to use when you want to express it with several colors of ink. It's fun to just throw photos in and separate them, and I end up playing with it whenever I have free time. Sometimes ideas are born from Risograph, such as "I want to use this color, so let's make it this theme!" so I really recommend Risograph to people who are wondering what to make.
Finished🥲
Well, the manuscript is dry, so I'll fold it, cut it, and it's done✨
I was already quite moved when it finished printing, but now that it's complete, I'm truly happy. Clothes make the man, and Risograph makes the prose. Words that might become an embarrassing dark history I can no longer fix are shining brilliantly for some reason.
It's not even 1:00 PM yet. I'll buy a canelé and some bread on my way home.
It's a Sunday in February that's already completely warm. The beer I drank after getting home and starting in the afternoon was incredibly delicious. I want to keep experiencing this incredibly refreshing feeling from now on.
Thinking that, I spent two days writing this note.
I deleted all the posts on my private Instagram account, so I decided to record my Zine progress on a different account—one I had created back when I was a college student, fantasizing about what I would do if I made a magazine. Actually, the ID for this note is the same. From zero, I want to try making many more things from here on out.