Some of the paper made in Tosa is thin enough to see light through. The workshops in Ino use water from the Niyodo River, and the district has long made paper at the thin end of what is possible. Thinness is a distribution problem: the fibre has to be spread evenly at a very low density, which demands clear water and a particular speed in the movement of the screen, both at once and without hesitation.

The paper museum opened in 1985, is open from nine until five, and has permanent demonstration and hands-on areas where the process can be watched from a metre away. Tosa washi is described as having been made more than a thousand years ago, and the poet Ki no Tsurayuki is said to have encouraged papermaking here, so this is a district with unusually early documentation. Kōchi city is about thirty minutes away by car, and notices seeking successors in papermaking are posted locally, which is a plain way of saying that the trade is still looking for hands and has been for some time.

Thin paper is not fragile so much as difficult to handle. There is a correct way to lift a dry sheet, and an unpractised hand tears it from the edge inward, so the first thing you are taught at a hands-on session is not how to make the paper but how to pick it up. That order tells you something about the material. Thinness of this degree requires a technique for making the sheet and a second, separate technique for passing it from one person to another. The second one is the part that gets forgotten, and it is why very thin paper is sold by people who watch how you take hold of it.