Sailor Manyo dual shading inks: Ayame and Hinoki

[A Smug Dill]

For context: 

 

and: 

It is quite difficult to show or illustrate with the facilities and equipment I have here, and having to scale digital images down to no larger than 1200 pixels in any dimension on FPN (because while larger images are technically acceptable in the FPN Image Gallery, the display behaviour for such is less straightforward) doesn't help at all; but I'll try.

 

 

 

Neither my primary scanner nor my phone camera will pick up the true extent or vividness of the pink/violet shading from the inks that I can see; and if the sensors do not pick it up during initial capture, then no amount of colour correction can ‘fix’ it afterwards. I can see multi-chromatic shading even in the writing done with an EF nib (in the top right corner of each section particular to an ink on the page), but I'd expect readers to/could barely see the writing in the downsized images, let alone the shading, and never mind the loss of colour fidelity.

 

So, let's try it with photos shot through a loupe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep in mind that, even though the pink and violet shading is more vivid in those photos, they are still less so than ‘in real life’, where I have the luxury of dynamically changing the relationship between the paper surface and the light source to better see the shading I'm actively looking for on the page.

 

…

 

I'd say Jin Chen Lamp Night is a standout among Chinese chromatographic shading inks in how it renders in large swatches. When it comes to multi-hued shading rendering in writing, the Sailor Manyo ‘dual shading’ inks still more readily fill the interior of pen strokes with the pink and violet shading that comes from heavy application, and create a ‘halo’ effect driving the greens and blues to the edges to form outlines; and the absolute line widths do not even have to be that wide for the phenomena to be perceivable (with unaided eyes, but it is of course more obvious with magnifying visual aids); even 0.4–0.5mm is sufficient, and I've known European EF nibs that write as broadly or more so than that out-of-the-box. How wet the ink trace is would be partly a function of the way/performance how the feed draws ink from the reservoir in a particular pen, and also the speed at which the nib moves laterally across the paper surface without breaking physical contact.

 

I won't and can't argue with @yazeh about subjective perception. My own eyesight is deteriorating from month to month, perhaps week to week, as it is. But, the way I see it (no pun intended), reviewing and/or sharing online digital representations of inks rendering on physical artefacts is not primarily or necessarily about showing fellow consumers/users what they will (perceivably) ‘get’ in outcomes if they spend money and/or effort to buy/acquire an ink, but to demonstrate what is (humanly) possible because of the inherent nature of the product — assumed to be homogenous from bottle to bottle or SKU to SKU — and it's then up to the individual to succeed or fail, on account of their capability, technique, eyesight, choice of paper, etc., in achieving those specific areas of the product's potential they saw demonstrated by a fellow user and liked/wanted.

[Baggins]

Thank you for your post 👍

[yazeh]

@A Smug Dill thank you for taking the time and effort to explore and explain and going through all the trouble of capturing the beauty of these inks. 

I More often than not what's shown in promotional photos is not visible in practice. But only when we apply liberally or with brush pen. 

 

If I base my observation on your loop photos, you answered my question, that the Sailor inks, especially Ayame are far more superior in the dual/chromo- shading department than the Chinese brands. The Night Lamp does't hold a candle (pun intended)

to the gorgeous Hinoki. 

 

But then again we both know that this optical beauty is only visible under certain lights, angles, only with some papers, very wet pens and wide nibs. 

 

And finally it's always a pleasure to appreciate your elegant and gorgeous handwriting. Thanks again. 🙏

[inkstainedruth]

@A Smug Dill Fascinating!  Thanks for posting the images.  

I do have a question -- would you consider these to be a variant of sheening inks, a variant of what people call "haloing" (I noticed that some of the pen strokes seemed to have the darker edges like haloing), or something else entirely?

Boy, if we'd been doing interesting stuff like this in my high school chemistry class, I might have paid a LOT more attention....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[A Smug Dill]

29 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

I do have a question -- would you consider these to be a variant of sheening inks, a variant of what people call "haloing"

 

“Haloing” is almost never due to the sheening property of an ink, as opposed to shading. Sheen requires inks to pool and dry on the paper surface without being absorbed into the fibres, but if there's a glob of unabsorbed ink sitting atop the paper, it's the centre of the glob that would exhibit sheen and not its perimeter.

 

Shading works rather differently; and then there's a difference again between monochromatic shading and multi-hued/chromatographic shading; the latter works (I think) on account of displacement of certain components, instead of the sheer concentration of dye dissolved in the fluid ink that is allowed to dry.

 

In this case, I think the pink/violet displaces the green/blue dyes, as if they were fighting for turf on the page and the former winning, thus ‘forcing’ the green/blue to the perimeter of the pen strokes and drying there to form the “halo”.

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for the explanation!  

Of course, I realized while reading your response that I'd made a typo , and SHOULD have said "or a variant of what people call haloing" (I really should not be posting this late at night -- it's now nearly midnight EST -- and especially after having had a pretty stressful week so far...).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[A Smug Dill]

3 minutes ago, inkstainedruth said:

and SHOULD have said "or a variant of what people call haloing"

 

These Sailor inks will produce the “haloing” effect with the “right” pens on the “right” types of paper.

[A Smug Dill]

 

[yazeh]

Why don't you post these as your mini reviews? These are fabulous works!

[knarflj]

Thanks, @A Smug Dill.  Lovely handwriting, and I appreciate your finding a way to magnify those images so we could see the various colours. 

[A Smug Dill]

On 2/16/2026 at 11:57 PM, yazeh said:

Why don't you post these as your mini reviews? These are fabulous works!

 

Thanks!

 

I stopped reviewing inks a long time ago, having lost sight of a worthwhile purpose for doing so. That ‘AI’ these days sometimes feed to me things I wrote long ago about this ink or that one — and not infrequently misusing or misinterpreting the information content — has become an additional deterrent to me in the meantime. At the core, I don't ‘believe in’ or endorse machine-based information aggregation/digests to ‘make things quicker’ for fellow enthusiasts with genuine interest in pursuing a hobby and/or knowledge, instead of their having to take their time to find and familiarise themselves with different sources, and develop an understanding of what they're looking at (including particular reviewers' styles, such that they know whose word they would want to take for which aspects, having calibrated the degree of alignment in terms of views and priorities with their own).

 

…

 

One tidbit of information I'll add for you, which would have been part and parcel of my earlier style of reviews but I was really of no mind to test for these inks (until you asked about reviews), is that the pink component of all three inks shown is very water-resistant but the blue and green components just washed away completely when the sheet was drowned in a shallow tray of water. While that very pattern of behaviour didn't surprise me, having seen how KittyInkpot chroma-shading inks behave, the similarity between those three inks in that aspect did.

[yazeh]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I have been regularly quoted back by AI and challenge it. 

I noticed the pink component in many of these chromo-shading ink. Though it doesn't necessary mean it's waterproof. I had a lot of difficulty cleaning a pen filled with Fanyantan Sakura Blizzard. Lovely tan ink, but a bull to clean.

 

[inkstainedruth]

Most AI just drives me bonkers.  There is NO sort of checks and balances to see if the information is REMOTELY accurate (mostly it's NOT accurate, IME).  But of course the difference is that unlike a lot of people, I actually DO understand the concept of "Garbage in/Garbage out", and DON'T just assume that it's correct information "by default"....

Didn't think to try to correct the misinformation, though....  So thanks for that....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[A Smug Dill]

6 hours ago, yazeh said:

I noticed the pink component in many of these chromo-shading ink. Though it doesn't necessary mean it's waterproof.

 

No. After about 12 hours of soaking, the pink marks on the sheet have mostly turned into blurred patches of blush.

[yazeh]

On 2/18/2026 at 7:47 PM, A Smug Dill said:

 

No. After about 12 hours of soaking, the pink marks on the sheet have mostly turned into blurred patches of blush.

👍