On the sixth day of Inkmas, the ink fairy gave to me…
Kyo-no-oto #6 Adzukiiro ($28 for 40ml bottle)! Yes. There is are NEW Kyo-no-oto colors and my own personal ink fairy made sure I got a sample of it ASAP.
Like all of the previous Ky-no-oto ink colors, this is a muted yet rich color. It’s a sophisticated brick red. There is an ever-so-slight undertone of pink but the overall quality of this color is much more ruddy. It’s a red-burgundy but not pinky at all, I promise. My photos may have skewed cooler than intended.
There is some shading in the ink and Kyo-no-oto is a bit drier ink than others. It almost feels sandy to me which works well, especially on less agreeable papers though in some fine Japanese nibs you may have issues with hard starts. The advantages of the softer, more sophisticated colors and the ink that sits up on the page might be worth keeping some scrap paper for priming your pen every now and again.
For color comparison, Diamine Syrah is probably the closest in hue. Diamine Oxblood is a little more orange-y. Oster Maroon 1789 is more reddish and Bungbox Tears of a Clown more orange-brown. Montblanc Shakespeare Velvet Red is much darker, redder and there is no shading to speak of. Both Grenat and Antoine de St-Exupéry lean a bit cooler.
I tend to convince people to buy at least one bottle of Kyo-no-oto. For the bottle alone, because I think the bottles are beautiful in their simplicity. It’s the only ink bottle I have on my desk at work. So, if this color speaks to you or you think it would make a great gift, I say buy it.
TOOLS
- Paper: Rhodia Uni-Blank No. 16 with 7mm guide sheet
- Pens: Empire vintage traveling dip nib holder with Zebra G titanium nib ($33.50 per 10-pack), Esterbrook #2442 nib in a Shawn Netwon custom nib holder
- Swatches: Col-o-Ring Ink Testing Cards
- Brush: Blick Studio #0 Synthetic Round
- Ink: Kyo-no-oto #6 Adzukiiro ($28 for 40ml bottle)
DISCLAIMER: This item was sent to me free of charge by Vanness Pen Shop for the purpose of review. Please see the About page for more details.
To my eyes its seems a red-black thing going on. Not sure how similar to Diamine Red Dragon which is my go to red, though, I’ve not had it in a pen in some time..hmm.
thanks for the review(s).
Enjoy the season
M
I had a swatch of Red Dragon too but found it to be too deep to be a good comparison. But it was close. I think Adzukiiro is more orange-y where Red Dragon has more of a red-black quality. Its so hard to quantify. And some of these colors, it’s easier to see the color differences in large swatches than it is once they are in a pen, especially finer nibs.
“There is NEW Kyo-no-oto colors…” There are new colors.
Thanks for catching the grammatical typo. I knew I’d mess that up. I think I was waffling between saying that Adzuikiiro IS a new color and there ARE new colors, then I fumbled.