Sailor - Manyo - Sakura

Sailor - Manyo - Sakura - Ink drop

Sailor Sakura is part of the Manyo series. I love the simple, square Manyo bottles. They are so much more efficient than the wide, round Jentle series bottles. Manyo inks are based on flowers from the Manyoshu, an ancient anthology of Japanese poetry. Sakura is, of course, Cherry blossom or Cherry tree in English.

Visually, this is a strikingly beautiful ink. It’s graceful, delicate, and sophisticated. However, like a ballet, underneath the beauty, it’s technical and complex. The base color is a stunning, soft peach-pink. It’s a decent shading ink, and lovely lights and darks give the ink personality and movement. In the splatter, a darker, orangish sheen edging can be seen. Areas of pooling show a beautiful, powdery, milky pink glow from the center. Sheen is absent in writing, but a slightly darkened halo helps define stroke profile on most papers.

Sailor - Manyo - Sakura - Ink Swatch Card

As a writing ink, Sakura performs well. Inks like this can be difficult to read, but that’s not the case here. It stands out quite nicely. It’s fantastic on premium papers, where strokes were clean and crisp on all. Shading was visible on all, as well, but really stood out on Rhodia and Fabriano. Halo varied, but it was strongest on Apica. Drying was fastest on Kokuyo and Apica at 10-20 seconds. Slowest was Mnemosyne at 20-30 seconds. Sakura does well on office copy, too. Strokes were largely clean. Finer nibs really help here, as this is a very low viscosity ink. Shading was very nice, but the halo disappeared. Drying was under 5 seconds.

Sailor Manyo inks really are exceptionally good. Sakura is both beautiful, and a nice writing ink. If you already have an ink or two from the Manyo series, and aren’t sure which to get next, look for Sakura. Inks in this color range sometimes get overlooked. Don’t overlook this one!