Midori Dark Red
Midori’s Dark Red was the first ink I’d seen from Midori. They do, apparently, make several colors in this range, and they seem to have shown up at a few stores like Cult Pens and Yoseka. I got mine at Vanness Pens on clearance a while back, and they don’t seem to have them any more.
These inks are made for the 15th anniversary, and they’re meant to coordinate with, or invoke the colors of, Midori paper products. This particular one is a reference to the dark red line in the margin of Midori notebooks.
I’m a bit on the fence about this ink. It’s a nice dark red. Totally fine. I did ink it up around the same time as a similar ink that became one of my favorites, though, so I think that might have jaded me. It looks nice on the good papers, but it has some issues when it comes to the lower-quality stuff.
(Click to enlarge those images above.)
This Giris paper is quite good. Maruman says it’s the top quality, and they’d probably know.
This one isn’t great on the copy paper. Most inks will bleed through a little bit on this paper, but Midori went right through it.
This one isn’t water resistant. I can’t speak for the rest of the line, but keep your water away from this one or you’ll have a hard time recovering your work.
So, I think this one is okay. It’s not one that I would recommend, though. It’s not good on the low-end papers, and the price point is pretty high at $24 for 30ml of ink. For that price point, there are better dark reds.
