Muji High Quality Smooth Paper Note A5

[Pinkys.Brain]

Here a short review of the Muji DinA5 notebook made for fountain pens. Well, it does not say, that it was made especially for fountain pens, but that you can use fountain pens. At the Muji homepage these are listed as "High Quality Smooth Paper Note A5" notebooks. There's also a DinA6 version.

Cover: Black, softcover. The spine is covered with black bookbinding tape
Pages: 72 sheets
Paper: lined (6mm), "smooth paper", light beige. I do not know the weight, but I guess about 80g/m²
Binding: the signatures (sewed binding) are glued.

Smoothness: quite smooth. Good for fountain pens.
Feathering:There is some when using juicy pens or flexing
Showthrough: Some, but not too bad
Bleedthrough: only with wet writers
Drying time: quite good.

Overall the paper is not too bad. The notebook looks quite slick, and I will use it at work (because of the looks). It costs 350 Yen which is okay, I guess. A very positive thing is that the notebook lies almost flat because of the glued binding.
Unfortunately there is better paper out there. The Maruman Mnemosyne 80g/m² is better when it come to bleedthrough and showthrough, but it is more expensive. Tsubame notebooks are not as smooth as the Muji notebook, but they provide more options: Grid, lined, blank, Japanese grid for Chinese characters, vertical lining, diary, etc.). Tsubame paper is also thicker (83g/m²) so there's even less showthrough/bleedthrough. But they look like school notebooks.
So the Muji takes the third place behind the Maruman Mnemosyne and the Tsubame.


p.s.: I am moving more and more away from Clairefontaine/Rhodia as they are harder to get buy here in Japan and are much very expensive. I also prefer the shorter drying time of the Japanese notebooks as I am a left-handed.

[KrazyIvan]

Does not look half bad. I keep forgetting about Muji until someone else posts a review.

[Pinkys.Brain]

They now also have dot grid notebooks. But they are not labelled as made for fountain pens and also include 5% recycled paper ("High quality recycled paper)... I will have to get one the next time I enter one of there shops.

Here's a link to their dot grid paper, but it is hard to see the dots as the pictures are very small:
http://www.muji.net/store/cmdty/detail/4934761797007

[KrazyIvan]

They do specifically advertise the high quality paper as for fountain pens. They also raised the price and made a wire bound version since the last time I was on the Muji USA site.

[Pinkys.Brain]

The dot grid paper and the paper of the notebook I reviewed are not the same. Only the reviewed one is specifically labelled as fountain pen friendly (at least in Japan). That was the reason why I did not buy the dot grid one.
They felt similar, though, so maybe the paper is the same. At least the color was different: The dot grip appeared to be whiter than the fountain pen paper.

It is actually strange where they lay the focus in advertising the notebooks:
The reviewed run is advertised as "High quality paper that provides a smooth writing experience". The Dot grid paper on the other hand is labelled as a "notebook made of high quality recycled paper that is easy to open (= lies flat because of the glued/sewed binding).

[Bogon07]

Thanks for the review. It is good to see some of the Japanese stationery being showcased.

Maybe Muji will popup in the Sydney Kinokuniya.

[KrazyIvan]

It is nice to see the fountain pen friendly distinction in the advertising. So often you have to guess if a notebook will work with fountain pens. If you have a chance to touch the paper beforehand it helps, but even then I sometimes get it wrong.

[Pinkys.Brain]

It is nice to see the fountain pen friendly distinction in the advertising. So often you have to guess if a notebook will work with fountain pens. If you have a chance to touch the paper beforehand it helps, but even then I sometimes get it wrong.

This notebook is actually the first one I have seen here in Japan that specifially targets fountain pen users. No other (Japanese) notebook I have seen here so far was labelled as fountain pen friendly. Fountain pens are in no way mainstream here in Japan, so targeting their users does not seem to be that important... ~_~

[KrazyIvan]

I have no way of basing this on fact and it is pure conjecture on my part. I can be very conspiracy theorist minded at times, so take this with a grain of salt.

A while back a thread popped up on these notebooks (the old version) at FPN. The fountain pen friendliness was put out there. Shortly after, they sold out. A person on FPN started selling them and I suspected they were the ones that cleared the Muji USA site out. I wonder if anyone at Muji came across the FPN thread and decided to use the fountain pen friendliness angle.

[Pinkys.Brain]

I just thought that since they offer a fountain pen it would be the sensible thing to complement it with a fitting notebook...

[manoeuver]

I have no way of basing this on fact and it is pure conjecture on my part. I can be very conspiracy theorist minded at times, so take this with a grain of salt.

A while back a thread popped up on these notebooks (the old version) at FPN. The fountain pen friendliness was put out there. Shortly after, they sold out. A person on FPN started selling them and I suspected they were the ones that cleared the Muji USA site out. I wonder if anyone at Muji came across the FPN thread and decided to use the fountain pen friendliness angle.

I should hope so. If a certain population is latching on to a product and the manufacturer doesn't make it easier for them to find or acquire it, that's just a waste.

[Bogon07]

I should hope so. If a certain population is latching on to a product and the manufacturer doesn't make it easier for them to find or acquire it, that's just a waste.

Also stupid. Why deny your business extra sales.

[john]

I've bought a few note books from Muji last week. When I wrote with my M nib146 , the paper seems like friendly with the fountain pens. But I found that the ink will not dry until it evaporated. The paper is smooth, not breeding through and feathering. I'm not sure if there is plastic content in the paper or not. Take more than two minutes for drying that make me crazy.

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