Taroko Design Breeze A5 Notebook with Tomoe River Paper incl. A5 Pencil Board Shitajiki Office Product

I am left handed, and very particular about my notebooks. Can't be too thick since my hand spends a lot of time on the sides of the notebook, and this notebook has the perfect thickness (183 pages). The cover is a thick but bendable cardboard and should hold up fine. It is an A5 size (exact size as my midori MD A5), so I imagine would accept a nice leather cover quite well. Page numbers, index up front, subtle dotted grid are all great as well. Nothing extraneous.As for the paper, well I like to write with fountain pens, pencils, and rollerball pens. This paper excels at all of them. I tried the 52 gsm Tomoe River paper a couple years ago and wasn't thrilled with it. This 68 gsm thickness is seriously much better. Pencils are smooth, with just a bit of feedback on the paper for control. My fountain pens don't feather, and show nice shading without bleed on my medium and fine nibs. These can also be used as a standard work notebook because they are very smooth with the micro gel pens and mechanical pencils that I like.In short, this notebook is perfect. Smooth, but not overly smooth. All of my other notebooks, from Leuchtturm to Rhodia, Midori, Apica, Life are all great for a few pens or pencils, but this thing is great for all of them. Jack of all trades, master of all. Best execution of a Tomoe River notebook I've seen.Now, if they make another one in B5 format, I'd be all over it.

Mine had a quality control issue, had to return it -- the spine had a little tear in it and part of the reinforcing spine covering wasn't glued on properly. Have to give it 4 stars for this, since it's likely just a fluke, but otherwise, a really outstanding dot grid A5 journal. The paper is perfect of course, and the dot grid is crisp but not overbearing. The features you already know. Not a huge fan of the cover material itself, but that's just personal preference. I feel it will scratch up too easily. The overall design and execution is excellent, except mine apparently. Four stars for now! :-)UPDATE: I got my replacement and the quality control is much better. I'm upgrading to 5 stars. Now I still wish Taroko would change the cover material itself, which scratches easily, but it will be going in a leather cover, so I'm not too worried about it. Nanami has better covers IMO. But other than that, this is an extremely well executed dot grid Tomoe River notebook. I also wish Taroko would make other versions of this with different layouts, such as 6mm lined and 5mm graph/squared versions. But given the few alternatives with this page count, size and paper, this is still a winner.Now if only it would come back in stock. It's been out of stock twice in the past week.

Amazing notebook that is super fountain pen friendly, but I feel like I never have anything worth writing in something that feels and looks so beautiful.

I've tried nearly a dozen premium notebooks on Amazon. I have three favorites and this is one of them.Also check out the GLP, and Bond Travel Gear's A5 notebook. Both are also 68 gsm tomoe paper, but they have differing strengths.

I'm a self-diagnosed notebook addict and a definite paper snob. This notebook has a fantastic layout with the dot grid, index, numbered pages, and even space to track your fountain pen inks in the back. It easily lays flat and the cover is relatively stiff. Size is the standard A5 and I couldn't be happier with the price and value. Branding is minimal and doesn't interrupt the interior sheets like many others.

Best you can get for the price and I actually think it feels more valuable than the price, pages do ghost if you put a lot of ink down though

Product was not for me but for my daughter. She is happy with it.