Fujicolor 100

On March 29th of this year, Fujifilm posted a notice that they would suspend shipments of 35mm and 120 color film, both negative and slide, to its Japanese customers. As someone who had been visiting Japan for almost a week by that point, it was not surprising, as it seemed like Japanese stores had not seen a shipment of color stock in quite some time. For the most part I was greeted to “out of stock” notices in every camera store I had visited. While this was frustrating enough for me, a tourist seeking out those rarified “only in Japan” emulsions, I can imagine it being much more demoralizing for local film photographers–at least I was going to get on a plane and go back to the US, where there would still be scattered stocks of Fujicolor 200 and “Superia” 400, plus Kodak, which was also rare on Japanese shelves.