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 donโt ship it internationally. I am told that Onago Iro translates into English as โgirl coloursโ and Komorebi is the sunlight filtering through trees (Google Translate says โsunbeamsโ). 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.
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Ink Review: Hankyu Maroon
Hankyu Maroon is a Sailor made ink exclusive to the Hankyu Department Store. Hankyu Department Store, which separated from the Hankyu Railway Company in 1947, is a department store whoโs main store is located in Osaka. It has further stores nearby and in other cities further away but the only place to buy these inks is from within Osaka, I believe. There are 5 inks under the Hankyu Brand: Wakaba, a light green; Sumire, similar to a light Imperial Purple; Kurikawa, a rich brown; Hanaasagi, a rich dark teal; and this, Maroon.
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Kobe's ever increasing list of inks were for a while only available from Japan. These were more easily available than some other Japanese exclusive inks because they shipped internationally from Nagasawa's - the store that sells Kobe inks - Global Rakuten store. More recently they began being sold by some US stores such as Vanness and Pen Chalet and this year they came to Australia which I'm, personally, pretty happy about. Kobe #07 "Kaikyo Blue" is named after the water under the Akashi Kaikyล Bridge, a suspension bridge, and the longest in the world, in Kobe, Japan.
A new store called Desk Bandit has opened in my city (that does international and national deliveries with free-shipping thresholds and a 15% discount code if you subscribe to their Newsletter) and I emailed them asking whether I could write something small about them. After ordering a few Kobe inks, some Colorverse inks, and an Opus 88 Koloro from themthey added an extra bottle of Kobe Kaikyo Blue to my order. This isn't a sponsored review in a traditional way, but it is in another sense in that I think the people behind the store are doing a great job getting new and interesting stock and at good prices plus these are local to my so I have my own selfish interest in their success! I'll talk a little about them later in the review but there will be no affiliate links and I'd like stress that I was the one who reached out to them.
Read MoreInk Review: Pent Ebizome
The Pent inks from the Pen-house store in Japan have been out since the last half of 2017 but they recently expanded their retail presence into the US via Vanness Pens so I thought now would be a good time to show off some one of their inks. The inks are, of course, made by Sailor for the Pen-house store. There are eight total inks with two for each seasoning the year: Himekeshi (a pink, and Aomidori (a teal) for Spring; Gensoukai (a blue), and Matsukaze (a dark green) for Summer; Shukei (an orange), and this Ebizome for Autumn; and Jakujoya (a blue black), Yukizukiyo (a light blue), and Sakura (a pink) for Winter. Pen-house recently released eight new inks from the series in the new square 50ml bottles.
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