This series is a project in which Hagiwara (who runs with him in #WednesdayBudouzakaRen) listens to the stories of two people who have created milestone items (founder Nishioka) and used them (mid-career hire Yoshida) and delves into them.


・The long-awaited arrival

Hagiwara (hereinafter, Hagi): Recently, new products have been coming out almost every month.

Nishioka (hereafter, Nishi): They'll release it (laughs).

Hagi: And there are many of them. Which one will you pick out this time?

Yoshida (hereinafter Yoshi): It's a handheld flashlight.

Nishi: The reason we decided to make it is that everyone uses the headlamp " MS-i1, " right? The battery " MS-LB3 " that powers it is excellent. It would be a waste to use it only as a headlamp, so we actually had the idea of ​​using it to make a handheld light even while developing the " MS-i1 ."

The aluminum battery case is a material that is often used for flashlights, so I thought it would be a good idea to release it as a sibling model. And so, my long-awaited dream finally came true. So, I guess one of the reasons I made it was because the battery was good.

Hagiwara (hereinafter, Hagi): When you say "good," do you mean the performance of the battery?

Nishi: It has a capacity of 3,400mA, so it can also be used as a mobile battery for smartphones. It's the perfect size for a compact handy light. There are lights that use batteries, but if you want something brighter and last longer, you need a lithium battery.

Nishi: The letter after "i" in the alphabet is "J," so the product name is " MS-J1 ." It's our 10th product.

Yoshi: We talked about alphabetical order in the 7th episode of "Oshi! Mai" G Series .

Nishi: Broadly speaking, there are three types of lights: headlamps, lanterns, and handheld lights. In the early days of Milestone, we also released a lantern, but it's no longer in production and is no longer available. We've always wanted to make handheld lights, but we couldn't quite come up with the perfect one, due to issues like LED specs and batteries. Personally, I feel like we've finally made it into the handheld light genre as a light manufacturer.

Yoshi: This time it's a handheld "light," not a "lamp."

Nishi: Yes, it uses white LEDs. I wanted to use both white and warm white LEDs, just like the MS-i1 , but unfortunately, due to its compact size, space is limited and I couldn't fit two LEDs in, so I prioritized brightness and longevity in terms of specs and went with white LEDs.

The brightness is 1000 lumens, and it lasts for seven hours on high mode, but it also has an endurance mode similar to that found in headlamps. The circuit is purposefully designed to gradually reduce the brightness to 200 lumens over a two-minute period, so that it's imperceptible to the human eye. This allows for longer battery life and allows for overnight use without needing to change the battery. If you were to maintain the same brightness at 1000 lumens the entire time, the battery would drain so quickly that it probably wouldn't last even an hour. This creates heat issues, posing a risk of burns and putting strain on the LED itself, and while the LED won't burn out, it could short out.

Yoshi: 1000 lumens certainly gets hot. Enough to keep you a little warm when it's cold (laughs).

Nishioka: Keeping it lit at 1000 lumens all the time is like having a big hole in your gas tank. If it's constantly leaking, the driving time will be shorter, so it's a matter of how to make the hole as small as possible to get to your destination. If the hole is too big, you won't be able to reach Tokyo, and you won't be able to get to Nagoya either. You might even be able to get to Shiga (laughs).

Yoshi: Around Hari Interchange, I guess (laughs) *Hari Interchange: A highway interchange about 60km from Osaka

Nishi: That's one example. The capacity is fixed.

Yoshi: It's all about using energy efficiently. Medium is 270 lumens for 10 hours. Twenty percent is 54 lumens. Low is 71 lumens for 53 hours. Twenty percent is about 15 lumens.

Hagi: How bright is 15 lumens?

Yoshi: I'll take a look. (Returning from the dark room) 15 lumens should be enough to find a contact lens you dropped on the floor. (Laughs)

Hagi: The switch is lit up.

Nishi: This is the battery level indicator. When the battery level is between 100 and 80%, it lights up green. When it is between 80 and 20%, it lights up yellow. When it is below 20%, it turns red. So you can see the remaining battery level at a glance.

Yoshi: This is a feature that wasn't available on the MS-i1 .

N: The battery itself is red while charging and green when fully charged. Even when not charging, it glows faintly green if there is still charge remaining.

Hagi: That's right, it glows just by being there. I thought it would be a shame to throw it away.

Nishi: It just uses natural discharge to light up, so it doesn't waste battery power.

Hagi: On the contrary, you're making good use of it. (laughs)

Nishi: The only accessory is a strap that you put around your wrist to prevent it from falling. In other words, it doesn't come with a battery. The reason is that most people who use the MS-i1 headlamp carry a spare battery. Spare batteries are also essential equipment for long trail races. If the price including the battery were to exceed 10,000 yen, it would be too expensive, so we kept the list price low by saying that you can start by putting in your own battery and using it.

Yoshi: We also put an exclamation mark on the packaging that says, "Batteries not included. Please be careful."

Nishi: Actually, in the prototype stage, it had a dimming function (stepless brightness adjustment function).

Hagi: It's a feature that comes with the MS-G3 and MS-G4 .

Nishi: Dimming is good, but it's hard to read the continuous lighting time. You can only see the time it lasts at minimum brightness and maximum brightness. You don't know how long it will last at the current brightness. It would be easier to tell how long it will last if there were high, middle, and low settings.

Yoshi: The original name was " Endurance Handy ."

Nishi: The MS-i1 also has the subtitle "Endurance Model," so we had the name engraved on the prototype, intending it to be a handy model. But there was a reason we changed it.

・Serious field test

Yoshi: This summer, you and I went to Mount Hotaka in the Northern Alps together to do field tests on various products.

Nishi: I think it was mid-July. I tried out a variety of products, both those already on the market and those that were still to come. One of them was the MS-J1. I was pretty much set on using that. I stayed the night at a campsite in Karasawa and left for Okuhotaka at 3am.

Hagi: It's still the middle of the night.

Yoshi: It was quite a rocky area from the start. Nishioka wanted to try out the flashlight, but I told him to put it in his pocket for a while because it was dangerous to climb using his hands. But then, it got dark and he lost it. There are circle markers on the rocks, but he lost sight of them and ended up in a dangerous place. He was like, "Are we really going this way?"

Nishi: I was pretty nervous. I started to get anxious when I got lost in the dark, and we were on a tight schedule and wanted to get to our destination on time, so I was constantly asking myself, "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

Yoshi: I had the GPX route saved on the map on my smartphone, so I shouldn't have been too far off, but I ended up going in a place that definitely wasn't the correct route. Just as I was wondering what to do, Nishioka-san took out his flashlight. He said that this could project light farther, so I could see the arrow and get back on track.

Nishi: Compared to wide-angle headlamps, the handheld's spotlight had a much narrower beam that could shine over long distances, which was really great. I really felt that this was gear for finding your way, for finding a route, so I told Yoshi at the time that I was going to name it "Route Finder." Once we got down to where the signal could reach, we called the factory and said, "Sorry, but we're going to change the name." What was it again? That one.

Yoshi: It's like turning the table (laughs) even in the Northern Alps.

Nishi: I flipped it over again (laughs). It was good that it was still just a sample, but I think it was a product name that I wouldn't have come up with unless I had actually experienced the situation myself.

Yoshi: It was a pretty tough situation. I wanted to show Nishioka-san a beautiful view of the Northern Alps, so we went to Kitaho, Okuho, and Maeho, but it was foggy the whole time. It was sunny when we got down to Kamikochi, but it was covered in clouds up above, so it was quite tough.

Nishi: I also passed someone who had fallen and was calling for rescue. I thought if I slipped I might die. I'm not very experienced with mountain climbing, but it was the toughest and most dangerous mountain climb I've ever been on.

Yoshi: Maeho was especially like that.

Nishi: The rocks were all wet and there was a strong wind.

Yoshi: It wasn't raining, but it was like water vapor was blowing in from the clouds.

Hagi: That must be quite nerve-wracking on rocky terrain.

Yoshi: I told a family coming up from below that it's really dangerous up there.

Nishi: I think it was great that we were able to conduct field tests on such a harsh day.

Yoshi: If it had been a beautiful sunny day and I hadn't gotten lost, I might not have changed the name.

・Even trail running

Nishi: Handy lights can be used for a variety of purposes, and it's reassuring to have light in any situation, even in disaster prevention.It may sound like an exaggeration, but I seriously think that light is a ``tool that saves lives.''

Of course, I made it hoping that it would be used for trail running, and Yuya Kawasaki, who won this year's Hasetsune (Japan Mountain Endurance Race - Hasegawa Tsuneo CUP), said he wanted to use a handheld flashlight, and he actually did use one then. He said it was great, so I'm really glad I made it.

Yoshi: To put it mildly, it's the "Hasetsune Winner Model" (laughs).

Nishi: To put it in a roundabout way, that's what it comes down to (laughs).

Nishi: I can proudly say that this is gear that will help you compete, and although you can see with a headlamp, I think it's gear that you can use when you want to see further in the direction you want to see.

Yoshi: To be honest, when I tried using a handheld light while running, I told Nishioka-san that the light would move when I swung my arm, which made me feel dizzy. But when I met Kawasaki-kun, who was a guest runner at the Nordisk Mountain Trail in INABE, he asked me how I held it while running. He told me that the hand holding the light should be fixed around my waist, and the light could be adjusted while running. I realized that if I ran that way, it wouldn't move and I could use it. That's when I finally understood how to use it.

Hagi: In the past, I often heard that if you were going to run the "OSJ ONTAKE100", you needed a handheld flashlight.

Yoshi: Yes, there were. I remember using one, but I think that was back when waist lights weren't common. I guess it was because we were riding on rough terrain.

Hagi: I carried it with me while I was running because I wanted to make sure the light was shining properly on my feet.

Yoshi: Also, in Tomo-san's (Tomokazu Ihara) documentary film "Main Quest," which I watched last month, the characters lost their way at night, and it's incredibly difficult to navigate at night. In those situations, having a light that can shine brightly far into the distance can be useful in places where it's easy to get lost. It's different from trail running races with well-marked courses, though. Like rogaining or orienteering. You don't run the "OMM (Original Mountain Marathon)" at night, do you? (laughs)

Nishi: It should be useful for reading maps at night, when the difficulty increases, like in adventure races, and it would definitely be useful for fastpacking and long-distance mountain climbing.

Yoshi: When you're not staying overnight or when you're traveling at night.

Hagi: Even if you don't intend to move at night, it's reassuring to have one when you have to move after the sun goes down, or when you're trying to find an unclear route. I want one when I'm really lost.

Nishi: Come to think of it, last month I was shooting with Kawasaki-kun, who I mentioned earlier, as a model, and he almost slipped while we were moving (sweats).

Hagi: Huh?!

Nishi: We were walking side by side, with me in the lead, Yoshi behind, and Kawasaki behind him, but then I accidentally put my foot on a loose rock. I was holding a camera with a heavy lens in my left hand, so I lost my balance and almost fell into the valley on the left.

Hagi: Scary!

Nishi: The lens that was in the backpack on my back also rolled off the cliff. The whole thing went in slow motion, and just as I was thinking I was going to fall off the cliff, Yoshi grabbed my outstretched hand. I said "Fight!" and he replied "Go for it!" There was no time to call out to each other (laughs), but he saved me and saved my life.

Yoshi: The model, Kawasaki, went down the cliff to pick up the lens that I dropped.

Hagi: I'm glad it wasn't Hotaka (laughs).

Nishi: That's true. You might end up flipping over, so you have to be careful on the mountain (laughs).

This time, we asked them to tell us about the Route Finder handy light, which they are proud of as a light manufacturer. It is an item that will come in handy when you are running or stopping to enjoy the mountains to the fullest.

Many years ago, when I got seriously lost on the Takashima Trail and felt lonely, I wish I had this light. It's a life-saving tool that I'd like to have in my backpack.

So, see you next time!

Text and composition: Ken Hagiwara