Want more Tomoe River? Check out the latest roundup of Tomoe River Notebooks to Try (in 2020)

Disclosure: This is not a sponsored post

One type of paper that drives a lot of fountain pen enthusiasts wild – the Tomoe River. Tomoe River is great because it’s fountain-pen friendly, bleed-through and feather resistant, and surprisingly, it’s only 52gsm (it’s very thin).

Tomoe River paper notebooks are quite difficult to come across. There were only a few that made Tomoe River papers such as the Taroko and Nanami. Now, there are more options so we have compiled a list of these notebooks and where you can get them.

Hobonichi Planners

The Hobonichi Techo is a notebook is a Japanese planner that was designed to be flexible and intuitive. It uses the 52gsm Tomoe River paper so that it could contain hundreds of pages and still remain compact. It comes in several variants such as the Original A6, the Cousin (A5), the Weeks (Weekly layouts), and the 5-year.

• Read more about it here.

This started my love affair with Tomoe River. The Hobonichi might be one of the best planners out there to the point that I wanted to give up using the Bullet Journal entirely. What makes it great is the fact that it’s versatile despite being pre-dated. It has graph lines that won’t obstruct your vision but still guide you when you draw or write.

Here’s what it looks like inside an A6 Hobonichi.

There are 2 days for each spread and that goes on for an entire year. Because the paper is so thin, the book is only about 1.5cm thick (1/2 inch) which is almost the same as the standard dot grid A5 Leuchtturm!

The thing about the Hobonichi is that the cover seems flimsy because it’s made out of cardstock so more often than not, Hobonichi owners opt to buy a cover along with it. There are several Hobonichi covers from Hobonichi itself but there are other options out there as well.

The Author by GLP Creations

I found this notebook through Gourmet Pens and SBRE Brown’s reviews on YouTube. It has fewer pages compared to the Hippo Noto but it is also has a faux leather cover and looks really nice. This seems to also be a good Bullet Journal notebook especially because it is numbered!

We reached out to the GLP Creations team to tell us more about their notebooks. They said:

The Author was created out of a passion for fountain pens and the desire for the perfect travel notebook for writers that prefer writing with a traditional fountain pen.  It therefore uses a 68gsm Tomoe River paper which is acid free, so will stand the test of time.  It’s smooth without being slick and a pure joy to write on.  
We also gave the notebook 192 pages which are all numbered, and a contents section for referencing.  Part of the design brief was that the notebook had to be flexible and light enough to carry around, yet sturdy enough to be hardwearing and written in on any surface.  The notebook also had to be incredibly comfortable to write in for extended periods of time, including at the start and end of the notebook.  192 pages is the perfect thickness to give you a good sized notebook, which is still incredibly comfortable to write in all the way through the notebook without aching your hand.  The notebook is A5 slim, so just slightly narrower than a standard A5 notebook, which increases the handling and portability incredibly.    

Some features:

• Durable, protective and stain resistant cover
• Elastic closure
• Bookmark
• Rear Pocket for writing references, business cards, goal cards and inspirations etc

The Author comes in five finishes at present in both lined and dot grid paper:

• Black
• Anthracite
• Cocoa Brown
• Tea
• Royal Red

Check out the latest review from SBRE Brown.

Hippo Noto

The Hippo Noto has only recently come up in my radar because I’ve been looking for blank Tomoe River notebooks that could be my next Bullet Journal notebook (currently using a Rhodia Goalbook). Rhodia is great but again, there’s something about the Tomoe. The notebook is created by Krys of Squishy Ink and was a Kickstarter project in 2017.

I don’t own one yet but this notebook really ticks a lot of boxes in my search criteria.

It’s a strong contender as my next Bullet Journal notebook (if I can get my hands on it, that is). It’s slightly smaller than the standard A5 but that’s because it has 500 pages! The paper is thicker than that of a Hobonichi (68gsm) so it’s more opaque and there is less ghosting.

Bonus: It ships from the USA and they will be releasing the numbered Hippo Noto notebooks soon!

Check out their Kickstarter campaign here.

Goulet Notebooks

Oh yes, the Goulet Pen Company has their own Tomoe River notebook! I am a huge fan of the Goulet Pen company as they have been a huge part of my fountain pen journey. Brian Goulet is a big fan of Tomoe River paper and also thinks it’s magical. They have several staple-bound notebooks with 68gsm Tomoe River paper in various sizes. They’re thin notebooks so you can use it as you would a traveler’s notebook refill.

Elia Note

One of the newest things that I’ve stumbled upon is the Elia Note. The Elia Note is what a Hobonichi would look like if it weren’t a planner – at least on the outside. Elia Note notebooks have a blank, ruled, and dot grid variants with 52gsm Tomoe River paper (similar to the Hobonichi).

Read: Review – Elia Note Journal

What’s great about Elia Note is that they also offer these beautiful covers for their notebooks.

It ships from Malaysia and you can get yours at https://elianote.com or Wet Paint.

Colorverse Nebula

The newest on this list is the Colorverse Nebula. They released their new line of Tomoe River notebooks early this year so it is fairly new. They are blank but Colorverse includes a line sheet that will serve as a writing guide.

You can get these from the Goulet Pen Company or from the Colorverse website.

Learn more about it from Brian Goulet.

Want more? Check out the 2020 roundup of Tomoe River Notebooks to Try