Kokuyo Twin Ring Edge Title Notebook [2 Sizes]

Looking for a Tomoe River Paper substitute? You’ve just stumbled upon it. Hear us out – we’ve tested this paper extensively and in our opinion, it’s the closest thing we’ve found to a TRP substitute! It has a very similar thickness, texture and performs in much the same ways that Tomoe paper does. What’s not to love?

One small detail which it does not share with TRP is its lack of ability to give ink colours a glossy sheen – whereas Tomoe River Paper will make ink pop off the page, this paper (whilst undeniably superb) doesn’t quite do that. However, that’s a very negligible detail when everything else about the paper is pretty spot on. We really put this paper to the test and applied thick drips of ink on the sheets; much to our delight it did not leak through to the other side! Hands down, this paper wins a spot right up there with good quality fountain pen paper and at a very reasonable price too.

So what’s the notebook like?
It’s a double wire-bound system with 50 sheets in the A5 book and 40 sheets in the semi-B5. We like the layout of the pages and the format that’s been used: each page is divided into sections so you have a margin on the sheet which is useful for colour coding, perhaps different colours for different topics and then each section can be assigned to various tasks or topics. Alternatively, if you don’t want to carve up your notebook into sections, simply use it as a lovely fountain pen friendly notebook.

Depending on how you like your lines, you can choose between 7mm or 6mm lines. For reference, the cream coloured notebook in both the A5 and B5 has 7mm lines and the black notebook in both A5 and B5 contains 6mm lines. 

The paper is archival quality, pH neutral, and acid free: those things are all great to have in a notebook because it means the sheets will never crisp or yellow over time. We tried lots of fountain pens on it (LAMY, Kaweco, TTLB, Attache) and we still haven’t experienced any bleeding or feathering. Various highlighters worked just fine on the paper as well, with very, very minimal show-through, but otherwise still really acceptable. 

All in all, this little notebook comes highly recommended.

Specification