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You should probably view this review with extreme caution. First it's for a Sailor ink. Second it's a Japanese exclusive ink for the Kingdom Note shop. So this means it's not readily available here in the US or anywhere else outside Japan. You should probably just use the "back" button on your browser now and save yourself all the aggravation of wanting an ink you probably can't get. I presume if you've gotten this far you are one of the hardcore Sailor ink lovers. And while a color may deter you, pretty much anything else won't. The salivating emoji will take control and have its way with you. How you view this ink will depend on the pen used. In a fine pen the ink was very interesting. Loading up a wetter pen actually wasn't an improvement. This is contrary to what you might expect. The ink has a most unusual dye combination. It appears the yellow one is less water-resistant while the brown is more so. A very unique ink I think. Pen: Edison Beaumont (F-steel), Edison Mina (M-Steel) Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, Rhodia=Rhodia 90g ivory. Camera: iPhone 7

So far over the past five years Kingdom Note has collaborated with Sailor to produce a thematic group of inks exclusive for the shop. In 2015, the series was on Crustaceans of Japan, or more specifically, the waters of Japan. Cambaroides japonicus Birgus latro Marsupenaeus japonicus Uca arcuata Macrocheira kaempferi Originally I was only able to acquire a couple of these, and recently these inks came back in stock, except for the M. kaempferi, and I was able to get two more. I've previously reviewed two of these inks, the C. japonicus and the U. arcuata, The links are above in the list. This review is for the B. latro, the Coconut Crab. The ink is a mid-to-dark value brown that does not lean red, with excellent shading, fast dry times, and is nearly waterproof. The ink sometimes appears close to black. In that regard it is similar to Sailor's Do-you, but the coloring is different here, and the value typically lighter. The lubrication is exceptionally smooth. The ink comes in the standard Sailor "jar" bottle. The Wikipedia page for this species provides interesting information about the creature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_crab Pen: Edison Premiere (M-steel) Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, Rhodia=Rhodia 90g ivory. Camera: iPhone 7

So far over the past five years Kingdom Note has collaborated with Sailor to produce a thematic group of inks exclusive for the shop. In 2015, the series was on Crustaceans of Japan, or more specifically, the waters of Japan. Cambaroides japonicus Birgus latro Marsupenaeus japonicus Uca arcuata Macrocheira kaempferi Originally I was only able to acquire a couple of these, and recently these inks came back in stock, except for the M. kaempferi, and I was able to get two more. I've previously reviewed two of these inks, the C. japonicus and the U. arcuata, The links are above in the list. This review is for the M. japonicus, the Japanese Tiger Prawn. The ink is a mid-value brown that does not lean red, with excellent shading, reasonable dry times, and is nearly waterproof. The ink comes in the standard Sailor "jar" bottle. The two earlier series of "Insects" and "Wild Birds" were very rich inks with heavy dye loads. The "Crustacean" series veers away from that going for more moderate dye loads, excellent shading, and perhaps some other interesting qualities, in this case, water resistance. The handling is fairly typical for Sailor inks with above average flow and lubrication. Originally I was one of the complainers when Sailor switched from heavily saturated inks to this new style. While I personally want an ink to be readable, so I don't want it to be too light, I find these new inks to be perfectly acceptable and quite nice. Of course the difficulty outside Japan is obtaining these inks. Even if they are in stock, most of these shops do not ship outside Japan. So they are not impossible to obtain, but more effort and expense is required. Pen: Pelikan M400 (M) Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, Rhodia=Rhodia 90g ivory. Camera: iPhone 7 And while we're on the Japanaese Tiger Prawn, here is some scientific reading for you. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0044848605004163

Some time last year Kingdom Note came out with two new lineups of bespoke inks from Sailor. They were the "Jellyfish" and "Crustaceans" lines and these pretty much replaced their previous collections of "Wild Birds," "Mushrooms," and "Insects". This was at a time when obtaining these Sailor inks became difficult for even those living in Japan. Some stores discontinued selling online, or even began limiting purchasers to just one or two bottles of ink, and another chose to raise prices over 100%. Kingdom Note is not one of those stores, but availability of their inks has been quite limited, and some have simply remained "SOLD OUT", perhaps seemingly forever. That's the way the sushi roll falls apart. The five inks in the "Crustacean" series were/are: Cambaroides japonica "Zarigani" — a blue ink Uca arcuata "Fiddler crab" — a light olive green ink Birgus latro "Coconut crab" — a dark brown ink Marsupenaeus japonicus "Prawn"— a light brown ink Macrocheira kaempferi "Giant crab" — a light red ink This species is listed as "threatened" in Japan. http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/153751/0 Recently I decided to check the Kingdom Note site, and found a few of these inks and their Crustacean cousins available. The writing samples shown there are decidedly unimpressive, seemingly using a XF nib. This would probably be fine if you were going to write Japanese characters, but many chasers of ink seem to want to use it in medium to broad to stub nibs and go to town with it. So there were few takers here when they came out. But I decided to take the plunge. Only the blue and light olive green inks were available. This is a review of the blue ink. Just fyi, the stash of this ink KN had is sold out, but it is listed as "in negotiations". Perhaps that means they're trying to have Sailor make more. One can always hope so. The ink now comes in a standard Sailor Jentle box with a custom sticker pasted on the front. The bottle is standard Sailor Jentle with the dumb insert. The images of the box and bottle taken with iPhone4. As always, I test inks on papers I use and these are Mohawk via Linen=MvL, Hammermill 28 lb inkjet paper=Hij, and Tomoe River=TR. The images of the reviews taken with a Nikon Coolpix P50, so a bit dated, but it seems to do better than the iPhone in representing the ink color. I couldn't find anything wrong with the ink but it didn't excite me. From my original notes I liked the Jellyfish blue more. Other than the waterfastness of this ink, I'm sure there are inks with the same look as this one. The ink blot of a paper towel indicates that this is a single dye formulation. The waterfastness test showed this ink to be completely water resistant. Which was a great surprise.