It’s late. My boyfriend is sleeping on the couch, having dozed off to an episode of Hell’s Kitchen. I’m plucking away on my keyboard, tucked into the corner of the living room on a desk far too small for me but the only size our one bedroom apartment can support. Lines of text flash by my eyes. I’m scrolling through a document for the eighth time, trying to find a piece of writing I know I put here.

I’m wrong. It’s not there. I consult my massive table of contents document and find it’s not there, either.

I sigh. Pick up my phone. Scroll through whatever app I hope will distract me. Tonight, it’s TikTok. There’s a skit about Covid-19. A book review. A recipe I won’t make because our closest grocery store can’t keep its shelves stocked. Another Covid-19 skit.

It’s July 2020. I haven’t left the apartment in days, except to take my dog on meandering walks around our neighborhood, making sure we don’t bump into anyone. I haven’t see my friends in person since March. And this damn sketch wants me to think it’s funny.

I scroll in anger. That’s all I do lately. The next video is someone flipping through their planner—a dainty little thing, not much bigger than my hand. They’ve decked it out in stickers and highlighters. Cute. Two scrolls later, I get another video of someone with the same planner, though this one has a different cover.

Hobonichi, they’re called. Specifically the Weeks. Apparently a new line is dropping soon. I pull up the website, peruse, and close the tab. They ship from Japan and I don’t want to pay for that. Except, the videos keep coming, showing different planners and all their pros and cons. After a while they do their job. They convince me I need a planner.

Maybe, I tell myself, I’ll keep better track of things if I write them down.

Spoilers: I was right.

I didn’t buy a Hobonichi though. I added a $10 planner to my Amazon toilet paper order. I used the hell out of that thing, organizing the last six months of 2020 down to what felt like minutes. For 2021 and 2022, I got a planner from work and used it for a combination of professional and personal planning. This was, in retrospect, an awful idea.

For 2023 I wanted separate planners. The yearly one from work would handle my job planning, great. But I wanted something special, something fun, for my personal stuff. I remembered those videos I once saw and bought a Hobonichi weeks, hoping the smaller size would make me use it more. It’s portable. There’s less pressure to fill the pages. Perfect.

I went with the Brownie Plaid that first year. In 2024, I got a Hiroko Kubota (Another Night of Falling Stars). In 2025 I went with the Liberty Fabrics. In 2026, I decided I wanted to go bigger. My 2025 Weeks was so full. But I didn’t want the daily entries of a cousin, so it was time to research other brands.

That was my mistake. I went with a Sterling Ink, which is a beautiful, minimalist planner. It was perfect for the first two months—its simplicity helped me structure my year and my goals. And then it was just… too simple. It never inspired me to pick it up. Writing in it became the fastest 10 minutes I could manage every Monday morning before work. I never opened it otherwise, though I’m determined to finish out 2026 with it.

All this to say, I’m back to Hobonich. I bought the beautiful poppy red (after my husband yanked the blue graph plaid from my hands) at a local stationery store in September, about two weeks after buying my second Kaweco fountain pen, incidentally also in red.

They’re a perfect match. It’s heavenly.

Naturally, I have to match an ink to them, right? Right.

I gave myself limits. I could use the reds I already have, plus buy no more than six samples. I did my research. Read all the blog posts, looked at all the swatches, asked my more experienced fountain pen friends. I narrowed it down to nine inks—three I already had: Diamine Red Dragon, Diamine Poppy Red, and Diamine Tiger Lily.

(Look, I like Diamine.)

The six new ones I bought included Diamine’s Wild Strawberry, Diamine’s Wax Seal, Tom’s Studio Strawberry Jam, Taccia’s Aka Red, Kobe’s Motomachi Rouge, and Robert Oster’s Rubine.

I love looking at ink swatches. It’s so charming seeing all their differences.

The above swatches were to familiarize myself with the inks. I wanted to know them before really testing them. Right away, I had my favorites: Wild Strawberry, Poppy Red, and Aka Red. I also really loved the sheen in Motomachi Rouge. That green-gold is a fun twist.

Then it was time for the Hobonichi swatches.

Red Dragon, I knew, was too dark. It was mostly included as something to compare other inks to, since I use it a lot in my usual journaling. Similarly, Rubine ended up too dark and cool. Wax Seal was also too cool, and Tiger Lily was way too orange (though, I don’t know if this picture shows that).

The rest were all so hard to choose from. I wanted a warm, bright, “true” red. If it had to lean pink or orange, I’d prefer it lean orange. Right away, Motomachi Rouge stands out on this paper as the best one. It’s really, truly, the perfect red.

Except it bleeds like hell on Hobonichi’s paper. It’s just too wet. I’m really sad about it.

That leaves me with my top four:

• Poppy Red – on the pink side.
• Wild Strawberry – I adore this one.
• Strawberry Jam – also on the pink side.
• Aka Red – By a hair, our winner! It’s a smidge brighter than Wild Strawberry. There’s just enough orange to make it vibrant and warm. And, if there’s any ink brand I love more than Diamine, it’s Taccia.

I’m going to take the top four (top five, really—I’m not giving up on Motomachi yet) for a test spin before making the final call. I’m looking forward to my red year.