Sailor Kingdom Note "jellyfish Series" Thysanostoma Thysanura

[white_lotus]

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 "Jellyfish" series were/are:

 

Chrysaora helvola "Yanagikurage" — an orange ink

Porpita porpita — a blue ink

Thysanostoma thysanura "Purple jellyfish" — a purple/red-violet ink

Mastigias papua "Kite jellyfish"— a pink ink

Aequorea victoria — a light green ink

 

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. The orange, blue, and purple inks were available. This is a review of the purple/red-violet 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.

 

My basic view is I liked this ink and was pleasantly surprised. But some people are probably going to hate this color. It's not really a purple as in a blue with a lot of red in it, but a magenta pushed towards violet. This ink didn't seem to be "less saturated" per se than other Sailor inks, in fact it seemed quite saturated. On the MvL the blue shows up more, but on the other papers the magenta dominates. In fact, it's almost identical to KWZI Violet #2.

 

It's certainly a very reasonable good ink with very good flow and lubrication, some shading from light to darker orange. A bit slow drying on the MvL, but quite fast on the inkjet paper. I didn't notice any problems with hard starts, and the like, and it cleaned out of the syringe-filler pen I used quite easily. So I'm glad I got this ink and am not disappointed.

 

 

The ink seems made up of two dyes, a turquoise/light blue, and a magenta. It's quite possible that under the right conditions you may see some sheen. The papers and pens I use don't typically bring that out.

A lot of ink was laid down and while some washed away, there was much that stayed in place. The ink seems to be water resistant to some degree, more so than many other Sailor inks.

[visvamitra]

I guess this one wasn't made for me

[lapis]

Thanks for a very good review. Good information about the availability (and/or unavailability), nice pictures and writing. However, I don't like this color... it hurts my eyes (honestly).

 

Mike

[white_lotus]

Thanks for the comments. Yes, it's a most unusual color. My guess is many won't like it. It won't be my favorite, but I can tolerate using it every now and then.

[Ghost Plane]

I kind of like it

[lgsoltek]

I think Solferino is prettier.

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for the review. This one looks really pretty -- but I keep going to myself "Well, you *already* have Iroshihzuku Yama-budo, and the original formula of Noodler's BSiAR, and MB Lavender Purple, and Pelikan Violet, and Edelstein Amethyst, and two bottles of Lamy Dark Violet...."

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[cleosmama]

It looks a lot like L'Amant to me.

[Tas]

Sorry white_lotus, but "Eeeww" to all of these "jellyfish" so far - way too colourful . . .

http://www.taskyprianou.com/me_too_bright.jpg

[swanjun]

Definitely a very informative review, and I'm glad to see pictures of this one, but sometimes magenta just doesn't do it for me, and this is one of those times. I do like the Joyful-2 Ikaho Magenta and SankoDo Tokugawa Enbotan, though!

[amberleadavis]

I kind of like it

 

 

I think Solferino is prettier.

 

 

It looks a lot like L'Amant to me.

 

 

Well, I was going to say that it looks like L'Amant, but not quite as dark. I love Solferino, but Solferino is bluer, I think. I actually like the ink.

 

Thank you for doing this review!!

[tambone23]

Thank you for this review! I bought this ink and I have to say, I LOVE it -- especially when I use it my Sailor Imperial Black, there's something about it I find really bewitching. I find straight pink a tough color to enjoy, but there's something to this violet hue I really like.

[Pensei]

This is the only KN ink I have managed to get my hands on, and I love it. Thanks for the elaborate review.