My Hobonichi Pen Journey

Finding the right pen has been the biggest challenge of my Hobonichi journey. One of the main reasons I switched to the Hobonichi, was the ability to use fountain pens for all of my planning needs. I did not think that one through!

If you are familiar with the wonderful, buttery paper in the Hobonichi planners (Tomoe River Paper), you know that while they absorb the ink beautifully, it takes a bit of time to dry.

I just do not have the patience to wait for the ink to dry, or to take the extra step of using an ink blotter. I flip between my daily and weekly pages frequently, and this is what began my trip down the rabbit hole of finding the perfect Hobonichi pen.

Here is a picture of all the pens I tried, minus the Muji Gel pen…that one was an immediate no go for me.

The Kakuno

This is my favorite fountain pen of all time! It is the extra fine Demonstrator Kakuno Fountain Pen and I ordered it from Amazon because I could not find it anywhere else. This pen fits in my hand perfectly and works seamlessly with my small writing. But like with any fountain pen, the ink smeared because I didn’t give it long enough to dry.

The Platinum Preppy

Then I decided to try out the pen I was using in my Passion Planner, the Platinum Preppy. This pen wrote like the buttery paper it glided on! I loved it. But of course, it smeared :-/

The Uniball Signo .38

Then, like most planner addicts, I scoured YouTube for pen test reviews. That’s how I found the Uniball Signo RTI .38. I played with this pen a bit when it arrived but decided I didn’t like how it felt in my hand. I was about to return it when my husband asked me to give it a try.

I thought “There is no way he will like this pen! He hates fine point pens.” Well, I was wrong. He loves it and has been using it in his bullet journal for the past few weeks. This made me think. If he likes the pen, surely I should too!

I began using it, but noticed the same smearing problem, just not as prominent.

The Hobonichi Pen (Uniball Jetstream Pen)

I thought, why not give the Hobonichi pen a try? I mean it came with it, right? I tried to use this pen briefly when I first received it, and I just didn’t like how my handwriting looked. But this time I decided to slow down and give it another chance. Guess what? I have found my favorite pen for my Hobonichi. It writes smooth, has a very fine tip (.5mm), and is housed in the perfect-sized barrel for my hands. the best part is NO SMEARING. Isn’t it pretty too?!

I do still use this Kakuno fountain en with pink ink to mark my daughter’s events. I don’t do that too often, so it usually has enough time to dry.

I tried to replace it with a Signo with pink ink, but the color was just too bright for me. So, it was back to the Kakuno.

This picture shows where I used the Black Signo pen. You can clearly see where the Hobonichi pen begins.

The ink is a bit lighter, but I am really enjoying it. I’m sure it will take me a bit of time to get used to it. Hopefully, another pen won’t come along and steal my attention!