In the last part of the video, you show the unique process for the text printing - what is happening there?

I assume it's kept off the normal blocks partly to allow for "translated" versions. Is it not worth carving on a block, or would it be hard to cleanly carve latin letters, or to print them evenly?

Is it printing from metal type letters, or something else?

Yes indeed - we've kept these separate so that we can do different languages.

As for the plate, it's a 'polymer plate', of the type commonly used for offset printing these days. We could have perhaps carved the lettering, but given the price point of the series this year, we need to keep the amount of hand labour under control ...

Also, it looked like you were applying the pigment with a roller or brayer. That implies that you are using an oil-based ink for the text instead of traditional woodblock pigment.

Isn't that sort of what Hasegawa did on most of his books where he didn't use a carved font?

Also, it looked like you were applying the pigment with a roller or brayer.That implies that you are using an oil-based ink for the text instead oftraditional woodblock pigment.

Yes, it was standard oil-based printer’s ink, going onto a polymer plate, with a brayer.

I could have carved the text on a block, and then printed in the normal way, but at the price point we have here ...

Isn't that sort of what Hasegawa did on most of his books where he didn't use a carved font?

Yes, I think so. The Favourite Flowers seems to have been printed with metal type (no polymer plates back then) and a normal printing process. The unknown question for me is which they did first, the woodblock images, or the text …