Sailor - Manyo - Kakitsubata

Sailor - Manyo - Kakitsubata - Ink drop

Kakitsubata, is part of Sailor’s Manyo series. Manyo inks are named after flowers mentioned in the Manyoshu, an ancient anthology of Japanese poems. Native to Japan, Kakitsubata is known as the Japanese Iris in English.

Sailor - Manyo - Kakitsubata - Light to Dark

Sailor’s Kakitsubata closely resembles darker examples of the vibrant violet to dark, stormy blue flower from which it gets its name. It has a dusty, pastel appearance, and the rich blue of blueberries. This isn’t the strongest shading ink, but in lighter areas it’s a classical pastel, and a beautiful, powdery-soft, translucent blue-violet. In the splatter, areas of pooling are edged in a shy red-copper sheen. On some papers (on Apica it was quite pronounced), this sheen beautifully highlights stroke profiles. Overall, this is a lovely, rich ink that works well in both casual and professional settings.

Sailor - Manyo - Kakitsubata - Ink Swatch Card

As a writing ink, Kakitsubata performed very well on the four higher quality papers that I tested. On each, stroke profiles were crisp, clean, and well-defined with no feather or bleed. It was best on Apica, with a nice sheen edging, and strong, dark stroke halo, but drying times were 25-35 seconds. Kokuyo showed very nice shading, but little sheen. Rhodia and Mnemosyne ranked third, but they were still excellent overall. Drying times were 15-25 seconds on these three. On office copy paper, strokes lacked the same crisp profile, but it was still pretty good, and very usable.

This is a very pleasant ink, and at times it can be quite beautiful. It’s slightly darker than I normally prefer, and I’d love to see more frequent variation. I’m happy when inks work well on all of my test papers, so versatility is a big plus here. If you’re looking for an unusual blue, I recommend Sailor Manyo Kakitsubata.