Sailor Onago Iro #02 Komorebi is a Sailor made ink that is branded under Sailor (rather than a third party stationery store) and is sold from the Sailor Japan website. They don’t ship it internationally. I am told that Onago Iro translates into English as “girl colours” and Komorebi is the sunlight filtering through trees (Google Translate says “sunbeams”). The Onago Iro line of inks is a set of 10 inks of which this is listed in the second position. I acquired this ink via a friend.
Komoreby is a strongly-yellow shaded brown-green very similar to an olive green, an antique bronze or a drab green. It is somewhat saturated and dark but it is still also a somewhat dull ink. The colour matches quite well, to me, with the idea of yellow sunlight filtering through a green-leaved tree. There is some colour change depending on the paper with some papers bringing out more green and some showing more yellow. At the end of this review there is a collage of swabs and writing samples on 22 different papers. Some variance includes a lack of saturation of the yellow Daiso paper, and a lot of green showing on lower quality paper and Clairefontaine.
The ink is typically well lubricated and wet for a sailor ink. This ink feels smooth and with good flow out of a wet Western medium nib and out of a Japanese fine nib. The ink performs well on all fountain pen friendly paper and decently on low quality paper. There is definitely a lot of spread and some bleeding with the wetter nibs (though not a lot) but limited feathering.
The ink comes in the modern Sailor square bottle. Not my personal favourite bottle from Sailor for sure.
The ink has some decent contrast and a slow gradient. The lighter parts of the shaded line seem a little more yellow and the darker parts a little greener. There is essentially no haloing present. I’d also like to reconsider the handwritten review and give the shading a moderate-high rating instead of just moderate.
Sailor Onago Iro Komorebi has a moderate silver sheen on Tomoe River paper. This silver sheen has a hint of blue in the right light but should definitely be classified as a silver sheen. I also incorrectly labeled this sheen low; it is definitely a moderate sheen for Tomoe River 52gsm at least! The silver sheen adds a little cooling to the otherwise warm feeling ink colour. While mostly hovering to the edges of where the ink pools there is some general coverage of the written line as well which is nice.
On Rhodia 80gsm paper the sheen is low-to-non-existent. There’s a tiny his in the edge of the wet part of the swatch but on the written line, even with a Pilot Parallel, there is none. Rhodia really isn’ a sheening paper and it shows here.
This ink doesn’t sheen on as many papers as I would have expected. While there were traces of sheen on some other papers (some more than the Rhodia above even) most were uninterestingly paltry. The sheen does show nicely on Midori paper as well as Life and Tomoe River 68gsm. Franklin-Christoph (an underrated paper) is rather subtle still.
The chromatography is very interesting! Starting with a blue leaning steel grey the grey colour progressively gets warmer until it breaks into a dark green-black and finally a brilliant pure yellow. Not what I expected!
The dry time is fast-moderate on 80gsm Rhodia and moderate to slow on 52gsm Tomoe River. Water resistance is surprisingly OK. The green and yellow wash away leaving the steel grey of the chromatography above behind. On great but certainly readable!
The ink is darker and a little yellower on Rhodia paper. The ink performs well with no feathering or bleeding and is decently wet and smooth. There is no smear.
Noodler’s El Lawrence: is dark and desaturated and slightly greener;
Noodler’s Burma Road Brown: is a similar darkness but less saturated and greener as well;
Sailor Tokiwa Matsu: is much too green and is lighter;
Anata Brand Hinoki Yellow Simi Ink: is way too dark and also greener, the name notwithstanding;
KWZ 150 Confederation Brown: is very similar but a little lighter and a little yellower;
Diamine Dark Olive: is too light and too green;
Diamine Salamander: is somehow a grey blue/teal on Rhodia(??); and
Robert Oster Crocodile Green: is too light, too green and too saturated.
The two Noodler’s inks aren’t that far off but they aren’t that close either. On Rhodia KWZ 150 Confederation Brown is the closest - but that might be more difficult to get than Onago Iro right now!
None of the inks, apart from two, present with sheen on Rhodia. I’m still getting an annoying amount of feathering that shouldn’t be there on some of these inks! Sailor Tokiwa Matsu has a tiny amount of it’s rusty sheen but the only one with real sheen is the Anata Brand Sumi ink with it’s silver sheen. This would compare nicely too Komerebi if it showed on Rhodia!
On Tomoe River, Onago Iro Komorebi is lighter and slightly greener. There is no real smear and the ink is very wet and smooth.
Noodler’s El Lawrence: is darker and browner with less saturation but is fairly similar;
Noodler’s Burma Road Brown: is less saturated and looks more grey because of it but is also in the ballpark;
Sailor Tokiwa Matsu: is too bright, vibrant and green;
Anata Brand Hinoki Yellow Simi Ink: is a little too green, but not that much, but way too dark;
KWZ 150 Confederation Brown: is again very similar but too saturated;
Diamine Dark Olive: is too light and too green;
Diamine Salamander: unlike on Rhodia, where it is a grey blue/teal it is a desaturated green brown on Tomoe River - fascinating - way too desaturated and brown compared to Komorebi; and
Robert Oster Crocodile Green: Is more yellow but still too green and too light.
The two Noodler’s, especially El Lawrence are closer on Tomoe River - apart from being a little darker it’s not too far off. I’d say it is closer than KWZ Confederation Brown this time which is just that bit too saturated and green.
The silver sheen of Komorebi compared nicely with both the Noodler’s (which are weaker) and especially KWZ 150 Confederation Brown. Anata Brand Sumi Ink’s sheen is a golden-yellow that almost looks like a brown sheen! Slightly different from Komorebi though. Both Diamine’s have a very matte powdery ‘sheen’ to them. It seems to form like sheen but doesn’t refract. The Robert Oster presents similarly but has a dull golden colour to it. Tokiwa Matsu has to have the most unique sheen I’ve seen and is probably my favourite sheen; it looks like rust!
This ink cannot be simply ordered online from outside Japan and as so is not easy to acquire from outside Japan. You need to use a proxy service to buy the ink (in my experience lately, forwarders will ask for an MSDS for fluids and inks which is often difficult if not impossible to get) and get it sent to where you live. Or you could use a friend. Because of that it’s not affordable to buy just one ink and would be much better to save up and buy a few. Otherwise shipping could cost more that the bottle!
The whole line has some interesting inks in it, I also have #03 Houkago, but iI’m definitely considering picking up some more before they are no-longer. I quite like these dark green-brown inks and it is a unique colour in my collection. Greener than some, yellower than others, more saturated, less saturated… This is what I’m also looking for in my collection these days; inks that fill gaps!
As usual, images of the ink on other paper types is below.
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