Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo

Hello inkophiles! Because of your bad influences, my supply of inks have steadily grown.  Initially, my current interest in Blue and Blue Black inks started off as a search for that perfect ink to be used with my Visconti Homo Sapien. I wanted a Dark Blue with good shading characteristics because the Homo Sapien is a fire hose, especially with the 1.3mm stub, and the ink must be one that can take full advantage of the nib. Hence, I settled on the Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo, Pilot's version of Blue Black. This is the first Iroshizuku I bought, and in my excitement, I wanted to give this ink some TLC before I wrote a review. 

The Tsuku-yo is a decently saturated ink with enough depth to satisfy most inkophiles' lusts as well as being a highly functional and suitable ink for every application from personal writings to professional correspondence. On the aesthetics side, Tsuki-yo has a very rich and dark Blue Black color with minimal gray undertones that shades like mad, especially in a wet nib. On the more technical side, Tsuki-yo exhibits good lubricity, so it should work well even in the driest of nibs. One caveat, the drier the nib, the lighter the shade. Tsuki-yo dries relatively quickly even on the Rhodia pad paper in the scans. It even has a relatively high degree of water-resistance. It's not archival quality, but your writing will still be legible. 

I hope the following scans will give you a good idea of what to expect with this ink. The scans attempt to show how versatile the ink can be in different nibs.



(1) Pilot VP, Medium - wetness about 5-6/10, (2) Stipula 22, Ti-flex (F) - very wet, (3) Lamy 2K, Medium - wetness about 5-6/10, (4) Parker Duofold, Italic Medium - decent wetness, (5) TWSBI 530, Medium - decent wetness. The writing samples with the above pens are comparisons of various Blues and Blue-Black inks - note the difference between Tsuki-yo and Noodler's Legal Lapis.

A close up of the comparison writing sample.




The following calligraphy samples show variations in Calligraphy applications. The Copperplate was written with a vintage Pilot desk pen equipped with a Fine flexible nib. The Italics were written with an edged dip pen. I hope the comparison with Noodler's Legal Lapis shows that there is a difference in color. The last line of text was written with my Homo Sapien just to show what normal writing may look like with the 1.3mm stub. As the previous scan shows, the stub is capable of rendering a passable version of italics.