I think you must be right about the Kanji, not to mention scientific/mathematical notation. Reviewing your post about the Tombow LV-KEV pencil, one can’t help noticing the high incidence of closely parallel fine strokes in Japanese character formation for which no counterparts in the Roman alphabet come immediately to mind.

Seriously, thank you for your thoughtful comment.

Could it be that different languages and scripts tend to have different requirements, and that super-fine erasure makes more sense when writing Kanji, or perhaps fine scientific notation?

I am certain that for very fine detail work in graphite drawing, such as creating realistic and precise highlights in a portrait subject’s hair, no other product can take the place of this eraser. Stephen is right, you wouldn’t use this tool to remove lines of text. You might use it to remove one letter at a time, to correct an errant serif or diacritical mark. But really for most people, unless they write extremely small, to use the MONO Zero to correct one’s handwriting is to use a scalpel where a carving knife will do. I find Pentel’s Clic Eraser more than adequate for almost any careful erasing job I can think of. In the one percent of cases where it is too blunt an instrument, Uni-ball’s E-Knock eraser is a nice intermediate size between the Clic and the Zero, is much easier to come by, and has a much longer useful life than the Zero. But at the extreme edge of eraser performance, that one tenth of one percent of cases where absolutely miniscule corrections or adjustments need to be made, I see no practical substitute for the Zero on the market. One thing to understand about the refills if you can find them is that a significant portion of their length is a plastic cartridge which provides rigidity and secures them within the housing of the MONO Zero stylus. So I will save my Zero (a great artist or drafting professional might be Saved By Zero) until such time as I can acquire a plentiful stock of refills. For now I don’t want to wate a valuable resource.