Shosaikan-Syosaikan Seiran Blue is one of two Sailor-made inks from the Shosaikan pen shop based in Tokyo with the other being a green-yellow. They are both in the lovely Sailor Tall or Vase bottles. I visited the store in 2018 on my trip to Japan; it’s a beautiful and spacious store with lots to offer (and lots of high end pens!). Before visiting the store, I acquired this ink via a forwarding service.

This ink is decently saturated (but not high) blue-black like ink. There’s some depth to the darkness and the hue is a nice dark cerulean or metallic blue. The colour changes slightly with the paper leaning more green on yellower paper types and slightly more purple on some paper as well.

The lubrication and flow is both on the high end with the ink being a delight to write with. A very smooth and glossy feeling. On less fountain friendly paper the ink performs pretty well but loses some saturation. Examples of this ink on 16 different paper types is at the end of the review.

As mentioned the ink comes in the very beautiful and well regarded Sailor Tall bottle (also sometimes called a Vase bottle). On the top of the cap is a round blue logo of Shosaikan and on the side of the bottle is a gradient strip with Japanese text identifying the ink.

The chromatography is pretty and interesting for a blue-black ink. Starting with a blue- green it breaks into a magenta-pink that ends with a very dark blue before again breaking into a vibrant azure. Dry time is on the slower side for both inks but not much higher than normal.

Water resistance isn’t strong but a pink-grey line is left behind.

52gsm Ivory (White) Tomoe River

On Tomoe River the ink is well saturated with a little brightness to it, when compared with Rhodia. There is also no smearing on Tomoe River.

• Sailor Ink Studio #940: this ink is very similar but a hair greener;

• Aurora Blue Black: is too much less saturated;

• Kobe #38 Kitanozaka Night Blue: is less saturated and a little greener;

• Diamine Midnight: is also quite similar but darker and a hair less saturated;

• Diamine Deep Dark Blue: is darker, more purple leaning, and a little less saturated;

• Diamine Oxford Blue: is darker and noticeably more saturated;

• Noodler’s Ink Blue Black: is more teal than blue and is darker and more saturated;

• Noodler’s Ink Manhattan Blue: is lighter, more less teal leaning and a little less saturated; and

• Noodler’s Ink Blue Upon the Plains of Abraham: is quite similar but darker and more teal.

Sailor Ink Studio #940 is by far the closest but Diamine Midnight isn’t far off! If you are just after the colour then you can’t go wrong with #940 as an alternative. Made by Sailor it will write similarly as well.

The shading is fairly low with low frequency and low contrast. The gradient can be a little more sudden on the finer nib. Not a high shading ink on Tomoe River for sure. There’s no haloing.

This is a dual sheening ink with a dull pink-silver sheen being the default colour and a brighter more saturated green developing on the wetter lines and swatches. Not the strongest dual sheening ink but a pretty one nonetheless.

Both the Sailors have similar sheen with #940 being the closest and Kobe #38 showing stronger green sheen. Aurora and the diamines have coppering or pink sheens and the Noodler’s have Noodler’s strange silvery sheen.

80gsm White Rhodia

On Rhodia the ink is darker and a little less saturated plus slightly less teal leaning. No smearing here either.

• Sailor Ink Studio #940: isn’t as similar on Rhodia being lighter and more teal leaning;

• Aurora Blue Black: is too much less saturated;

• Kobe #38 Kitanozaka Night Blue: is very close on Rhodia but a hair more teal leaning;

• Diamine Midnight: is lighter and less saturated;

• Diamine Deep Dark Blue: is less saturated;

• Diamine Oxford Blue: is darker and noticeably more saturated;

• Noodler’s Ink Blue Black: is more teal than blue and is darker and more saturated;

• Noodler’s Ink Manhattan Blue: is fairly similar but lighter, and a little less saturated; and

• Noodler’s Ink Blue Upon the Plains of Abraham: is quite similar but darker and more purple this time.

Kobe #38 shines on Rhodia as the closest with #940 not far off and neither is Diamine Midnight.

The shading isn’t improved on Rhodia, if anything it’s a little less. Very low here.

The sheen has also decreased to almost none and what little there is is the full red sheen. No green on Rhodia.

Similarly essentially none of the comparison inks have any sheen.

A beautiful bottle with a tasteful label and a rich useful blue-black with some pretty dual sheen on the right paper. Perhaps not the most unique blue ink (especially within Sailor’s output) but if given the option I’d pick it over the Ink Studio and I, personally, think the bottle is worth the extra cost. You should be able to buy the ink via a forwarding service from Shosaikan.

Moving forward I’ve decided to change up my reviews a little mixing the look of these with the look of the overview designs like here and here. This should result in more consistent and more useful visual examples of the ink. I’ll be using Lamy pens that take Safari-like nibs for the review and I’ll be using the same six nibs every time. This will mean consistency for me between reviews and a better understanding by me of the performance of the nib (that I can then convey in text) as well as a consistent visual rendition. Everything is the same between reviews so you can see how an ink is wet or dry or sheeny or shady. The review will present all visual information on the one page; water resistance, smearing, dry time, chromatography, writing samples and swatch samples. The comparison writing will still be written with a James Finniss Serendipity (from Pensive Pens). The only loss will be Shading, Sheen, Flow, Bleeding (etc.) list and accompanying quality/quantity hybrid indicators such as high, low or moderate. These indicators are, however, somewhat vague. While I will still be describing this stuff in the text review, a consistent experience with nibs will result in a better indicator of these things in the photos themselves. I look forward to the next step in these reviews!

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