The Paper Plane : Nakabayashi Yu-Sari paper

Saturday at 04:14 PM

The Paper Plane – Nakabayashi Yu-Sari A5 Paper

I've been enjoying this little corner of the web for some time now, mainly focusing on inks and pens. But these are more or less useless without the humble paper or notebook that will let you capture your thoughts. So here comes the "Paper Plane", where I review some of the paper and notebooks that I've enjoyed using over the years. Today's guest: Nakabayashi Yu-Sari notebook paper.

Established in 1951, Nakabayashi offers a broad selection of high-quality stationery products that embody that typical Japanese “shibui” feel. Shibui (meaning “subtle” or “understated”) is a Japanese design philosophy that values restraint, natural materials and a quiet depth of character. Unlike extreme minimalism, which sometimes prioritises emptiness, Shibui finds richness in simplicity through texture, craftsmanship and an interplay of light and shadow.

I recently bought a 30-sheet pack of loose leaf A5 Nakabayashi Yu-Sari paper, that perfectly embodies this principle. I have used their Prime notebook paper before, and liked it a lot. So I had high hopes about this heavier 95 gsm Yu-Sari paper.

Yu-Sari paper is specifically designed for writing with fountain pens, with emphasis on reasonably short drying times, zero bleed-through, and a balance between smoothness and optimal writing experience. And this shows:

The paper is very smooth, with a bit of a “cushioned” or “spongy” feel to it. The writing feel is excellent, pens glide easily across the page, with just a touch of tooth so that you still experience the contact with the paper. You can feel the quality and craftsmanship that went into the creation of this 95 gsm paper.
The paper does an excellent job of showing ink colour – in a silent instead of a loud way. Inks get a bit of a muted-down and pastel-like look on this paper. This gives a feeling of tranquility: a page full of text remains quiet and restful to the eye.

The word “Yu-Sari” stems from an archaic word meaning “sunset” (YU = sun, SARI = past), with night quickly following the setting of the sun. Exactly like the ink dries quickly on the sheet after writing. Don’t expect lighning fast drying times, but for such high-quality paper the ink dry time is fairly short with finer-nibbed pens (20-30 seconds with the M-nib Safari). I’ve tested the paper with multiple nib sizes and multiple inks, and drying times are short enough not to be an issue.

I did notice that there are exceptions to this rule. Some inks – like Graf von Faber Castell Olive Green – take an eternity to dry, up to several minutes, especially on the spots where you dotted your i’s.

This Nakabayashi paper is a master in showing off ink properties like shading and sheen. With an ink like Pelikan Edelstein Tanzanite, the sheening is absolutely impossible to miss. At not too steep an angle the red-gold sheen blasts from the page.

Yu-Sari is a fairly heavy paper at 95 gsm, but still the paper has a compact and light feel. The fibers are densily packed and the surface is well-smoothed out and coated, giving it that polished and cushioned feel. The dense fiber-packing also means you don’t have to worry about bleed-through. I used the following bleed-through test method: I fill a square first with horizontal strokes and then with vertical strokes, which lays down quite some ink. I then repeated this process up to five times. With the 5th repetition, I managed to get some minor bleed-through, but I had to work really hard to get to that point. With normal writing – even with the wettest pens – bleed-though will never be an issue.

The dense packing of the fibers also means that the ink shows minimal spread. Writing strokes appear well-defined and clean with a sharp edge. The ink stays exactly where you lay it down. I don’t have needlepoint nibs in my collection, but I assume that this paper will do great for extra-fine precision writing.

Conclusion
This 95 gsm Nakabayashi Yu-Sari paper pleasantly surprised me. It’s a great choice for fountain-pen writing. I liked the slightly cushioned writing feel, the muted appearance of inks, and the crispness of lines on this paper. And at 8.90 EUR (taxes included) for a 96-sheet A5 notebook, this high-quality paper is very reasonably priced. An excellent paper, that I will add to my test set for doing ink reviews.