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The story
Founded by Yukio Horie in 1946.1
After dissolving Horie Bunkaido, a Japanese wholesaler of Japanese traditional writing brushes established by his father, Yukio Horie, founded Pentel in 1946 in Tokyo as Dai Nippon Bungu Co., which later would become "Japan Stationery Limited" (Nihonbungu Kabushiki Kaisha). The goal was to manufacture crayons and pastels for use in education. The first products for sale were released in 1951, followed by pencils in 1960.
In 1963 Pentel launched the "Sign Pen", a fibre-type pen that was used by then President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson, who bought a dozen of them to sign photographs, apart from being adopted as the official writing instrument of NASA and going into space with a Gemini mission in 1966. Demand for a Sign Pen was so extraordinary that the Tokyo factories could not supply all requests. The Sign Pen was one of Pentel's most successful products with more than two billion units sold.
In 1971 the company changed its name to "Pentel Co. Ltd." and one year later, the green rollerball pen with water-based ink, was launched. Horie remained as President of the company until his death in 2010.
In the 2010s, Pentel launched the "Pocket Brush", a fudepen that used replaceable waterproof ink cartridges, like fountain pens (and unlike conventional brush pens, which are more like marker pens.)
Brush pens (designed and recommended for calligraphy) have also gained popularity among comic book artists, who choose them to ink their works instead of dip pens or traditional brushes. One of those artists using Pentel was Neal Adams.
From Wikipedia’s article on Pentel, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4