A while back I picked up this awesome set of Pilot Iroshizuku (via JetPens) sample inks in 15ml bottles. You can also grab an individual sample size or full size bottle of Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo here from JetPens. I’m bummed that I took so long to getting around to trying and writing about this great looking ink.
Taking the cap off this small bottle of the Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo Wild Grapes ink gives you some insight into the intensity of the color of this deep reddish purple ink. Obviously looking into the bottle, the ink is going to look a bit darker than it will once you load up your favorite fountain pen with it and start writing.
The next picture here of the Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo Wild Grapes ink shows my TWSBI Diamond 580 1.5mm stub nib after I loaded some in the pen. Here you can start to see some of the different lighter and darker shades that the ink will offer up when you look at the remains of it on the nib.
Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo Wild Grapes Purple Magenta Writing Sample:
The two pens I’ve been testing the Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo Wild Grapes Purple Magenta in are my Pelikan M205 with a fine nib, and my TWSBI Diamind 580 with the 1.5mm stub nib. With the thinner fine nib on the Pelikan M205 the Yama-budo lays down a nice and slightly lighter looking shade of the ink with some faint hints of shading. It does however run through the nib with a nice steady and consistent flow, never having skipped. It also didn’t tend to result in any nib creep, only showing some very slight specks of ink on the nib. Switching over to writing with the TWSBI Diamond 580 with the much larger 1.5mm stub nib, you see a bit darker view of the ink being laid down on the paper. It also shares similar characteristics as when writing with the smaller nib, where the shading is definitely present but its fairly subtle as compared to some other inks.
This close up scan of the Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo Wild Grapes writing sample was done on the bright white paper in one of my favorite notebooks, which is the Black n Red brand. This picture shows a better contrast between the fine and the 1.5mm nib in terms of how much darker the majority of the writing is with the wider nib. In both cases though, the ink tends to have a similar color as a medium bodied glass of red wine, not quite that deep purple that you see in the bottled picture above, but still a pretty robust and better than average level of saturation. The ink performs very well on this paper with zero feathering and almost no spreading while I was testing with it. To my surprise, this ink also performed well when it comes to one of my biggest pet peeves which is show through onto the other side of the paper. Now this has as much to do with the paper as it does the ink, but with a darker color ink like this I generally expect the worst in terms of show through. I was very pleased to see though that show through with this ink, pen, and paper combination is very very minimal and doesn’t distract if you want to write on both sides of the paper.
I’m hard pressed to have anything bad to say about the Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo Wild Grapes ink. It performs well and looks great. It even makes me think that I should expand my perspective on what I’d consider “business appropriate” inks since it is such a dignified looking ink in my opinion. It might not be suitable for the most conservative of work places, however its definitely not a flashy or gaudy ink thats going to draw unwanted attention. I’m a big fan of the the Pilot Iroshizuku Yama-budo Wild Grapes and if this color range is up your alley, you won’t be disappointed. Grab yourself some over at JetPens and check it out for yourself though.
Quick update on my stupidity of leaving the ink in my TWSBI for almost two months when I put it in a drawer and forgot about it. See the picture below, be very careful with this ink or any ink for that matter. Proper pen maintenance is important.
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