Kobe INK - Konan Rouge (S.E.)

Ink ReviewKobe INKKonan RougeRedDark Red

Dec 14

Kobe INK Konan Rouge fountain pen ink splash — **Kobe INK Konan Rouge - Ink drop**

Konan Rouge is one of the special edition colors from Nagasawa Kobe INK. It celebrates Konan University’s long history in the Okamoto area of Kobe, Japan with a color that represents youth.

Kobe INK Konan Rouge fountain pen ink swatches — **Ink Swatches on Cosmo Air Light and Tomoe River**

This is a very attractive, bright mix of black cherry red and plum. On some papers, the base color comes across more as a purple, but on most it’s really a deep wine red. The influence of a bold yellow component gives all but the darkest shaded areas of strokes a consistent pinkness. And the shading here is very nice! It really makes this ink. A green gold sheen is visible in the swatches, and on some papers you’ll find it on stroke edges, as well.

Kobe INK Konan Rouge fountain pen ink swatches on Iroful and Takasago Bank papers — **Ink Swatches on Iroful and Takasago Bank papers**

Writing performance is mostly exactly what you might expect from a Kobe ink. Flow and feel are both consistent and pleasant. Kobe inks are made by Sailor, and it’s a writing experience that you’ll likely recognize. Strokes are clean and sharp for the most part, but I did find occasional eruptions of micro-feathering on some papers. In the normal pace of writing, it performs best. When it does appear, feathering seems to occur at the saturated ends of strokes. The pen I used (medium Jowo nib) is quite a wet writer, so a drier writing nib may eliminate this problem entirely. As you can see in the longer writing sample, it isn’t something that occurs enough to put me off the ink, but it is something I adjust for if using the ink for everyday needs.