My Hobo for next year arrived! I’m not a big fan of social media in general, but I have to say it is convenient for keeping track of new products and sales dates. So, although I wasn’t in any hurry (I was passing on the covers this year), I ended up placing my order on the day they went on sale, just to be done with the whole thing.
The box this year is a pretty shade of light turquoise.
The English-language planner is its usual self (it now has a serial number at the end but is otherwise unchanged in the most important aspects), and as it has been featured ad nauseam in the blogosphere (including my post) I will skip this and concentrate on the Weeks instead.
The standard weekly spread; it is available in the Japanese edition only and shows all the Japanese holidays in red. The only thing I’m worried about is whether there’s going to be enough space to paste things on in the right-hand page.
It has a few additional lines for memos at the bottom of the week. I agree with many out there who think the quotes just take up space, but the publisher seems to think these are an integral part of the Hobonichi so they probably won’t be going away anytime soon.
One surprise was the generous amount of free notepaper added on at the end. 71 pages – almost one-third of the book! The format is somewhat like the IDEA Notebooks I wrote about earlier, only the Hobonichi is narrower.
The good-to-know general info pages at the end feature the seasonal festivities associated with the lunar calendar, and year charts (for lack of a better term). The latter, which is actually an age-calculation chart, is especially useful because Japan still uses this antiquated year-numbering system based on the Emperor’s reign (for instance, 2015 is Heisei 27, i.e. the 27th year of the reign of Emperor Akihito), and surprisingly for a modern Westernized nation, often does not bother to note the corresponding year based on the Christian calendar. This is especially frustrating when you’re trying to figure out when a book was published and the end pages only say Showa or Heisei something. The chart also notes which animal on the Chinese zodiac is associated with that year. Saves you some googling.
The Weeks comes with a small pocket you can stick on to the back cover, plus a railway map of several major cities. The Tokyo rail map is impressive, but what’s more amazing is that they keep building and expanding! There are stations and lines I don’t recognize already.
This year, I ordered some Frixion stamps to use with the planners. My first impression is that they’re cute but maybe not optimal in combination with Tomoe River paper… Review pending.
pencils and other things 
Looks great.
My main question now: what are Frixion stamps? I know their pens but haven’t heard of their stamps.
LikeLike
They’re small stamps that use the erasable Frixion ink. Quite addictive!
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s great. I’m sure I’ll buy some if I see some (unless the things you stamp are too childish). I didn’t know Frixion ink can be handled similarly to normal ink (e.g. For stamps…).
LikeLike
They’re relatively new to the Frixion line (I think they came out late last year). The Hobonichi shop sold a few kinds at 130 yen each so they were a fun impulse buy ;)
LikeLike
I have Frixion pens, but I never knew there were stamps. They look adorable in that picture!
LikeLike
They are indeed adorable, and you don’t need to carry a stamp pad around either! But the thing is that the ink in these stamps is slightly sticky and it takes forever to dry on Tomoe River paper – you always, always have to blot it. It works fine on ordinary paper though. I’ll show you the rest in a separate post soon :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ah, that mint color box! I have been dragging my feet on ordering, simply because I want a daily + weekly set up like yours, but not sure whether I have the perseverance to keep it up! I am attempting to make my own cover this year, so we will see how far that goes.
LikeLike
Shangching, I definitely recommend making your own cover. I have friends who do quilting and leatherwork and I envy them so much! And didn’t you use the daily planner this year? I was worried about the same thing but I’ve managed to use the Hobo as a journal quite successfully so far, and I need a weekly anyway for agenda- and schedule-keeping. I debated getting a Cousin in addition to or instead of the regular planner but gave up at the last minute. It was a bit too much ;)
LikeLike
I have used an Original last year, and a Cousin this year. Interestingly, Cousin might be too big for me, even though I often ran out of space when I was using Original. I am contemplating about Weeks because with the amount of stuff I put in the planner, it can be heavy to drag around. With that said, my level of productivity definitely does not warrant two planners, unless I really want to separate out the journal aspect from the agenda one. It is always a heated internal debate whenever I immerse in the Hobonichi store!
LikeLike
I know, the original planner is a bit too small sometimes – but to upgrade to a Cousin is a huge step. Up until I got the Hobonichi, I always used a weekly planner, and kept “journaling” down to a minimum; so the daily Hobo was quite a challenge for me at first. If you don’t plan on getting covers, the Weeks won’t set you back much. Why not try both for a year? ;)
LikeLike
Aha! You have struck a chord! Hopefully with school done, I will be able to keep up with the journaling (or practicing my penmanship). Do you have any new approaches for your Hobonichi next year?
LikeLike
No, I don’t expect any changes. Weeks will be for appointments, to-do lists and any other practical information (login names and account numbers, contact info, shops etc.). It’s also for pasting ticket stubs and writing down stationery purchases. The Hobo planner will continue to be for diary-like entries and information too detailed to store in the weekly format. I’ve never found separating the two uses difficult; I’ve been using a thick Semikolon Creativo (self-dated) as my regular weekly planner for the past two and a half years and I am itching to move on to a new planner!
Regarding penmanship practice using the Hobonichi – I tried it too, and it works very well except for certain inks and very broad nibs. The Emerald of Chivor in particular went through the paper (although it didn’t feather), and I had to tape up the reverse page =.=
LikeLike
The only incident of bleeding through that I have observed was with Platinum Century SF nib and Rohrer & Klingner Solferino, on the places where I flexed. On the reverse page, I found purplish magenta dots that did not affect the page’s aesthetics. Emerald of Chivor might be a penetrative ink! How do you like it?
LikeLike
It’s certainly dramatic ;) I’ve used it in my Parallel pens but the glitter effect is maximized only when they’re freshly inked. Worth trying though!
LikeLike
I really like the Stormy Gray. Emerald of Chivor is on my list to try!
LikeLike
Recommend! :)
LikeLike
Does the Weeks have a hardcover? It looks great! – The Frixion stamps are beautiful. If there was a yellow smiley I would immediately buy it :-)
LikeLike
They’re cute, aren’t they? Unfortunately I didn’t like the particular Frixion smiley but I ended up getting about half of the total lineup ;) And yes, the Weeks is designed so that it won’t need a separate cover, but there are covers available nonetheless. I am wondering whether I should have gotten the Porter… but in the end I think the covers are too stiff and bulky for the planners, and I also dislike having to endure the frenzy over popular items. Lottery sales! Really! Not for me anymore =.=
LikeLike
I’m loving my Hobonichi planner. I really like the size…and the paper, the grid lines, and just everything. I’m jealous you have the weeks calendar. I wanted to order one so bad but decided I needed to hold myself back. Maybe next year. :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for your comments, and don’t be jealous about the Weeks! It’s right there for you to order :) It’s just that I’ve always used a weekly-format agenda and I can’t imagine living without one. For me the daily Hobo is the extra :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
haha… Thanks for the reassurance! I tend to be a die-hard weekly planner person, too. I’ve only learned to improvise a bit for the Hobonichi. I think I may get Weeks, though, because I love so much seeing my week on a page. :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
For me, I can never keep track of appointments unless I write them down on a weekly agenda. Also the right-hand page is useful for all sorts of information that you don’t necessarily want in a personal journal! The only problem I have now is that I feel really guilty about having empty pages in the Hobo. I also need to remind myself that blank space is actually helpful when re-reading your journal…
LikeLike
:) I tend to keep track of appointments in a monthly view, but use weekly calendars for my daily lists in order to break up big projects and goals. Ideally, that’s what I want the weekly for, while using the Hobonichi for more personal/creative endeavors.
I love reading how you use your planners. I get so excited learning about people’s systems–it helps me improve my own. I tend to have blank pages, too, but I sometimes go back for random thoughts I’m working out in my head. For all the blank pages, though, I still feel it’s worth it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m glad you like reading about other people’s journalling styles – I’m afraid I’m rather set in my ways and no amount of browsing through inspiring blogs will get me to use the monthly layout, for example :( Drawing and decorating wasn’t really my thing either. So I’ve come up with a couple of tricks to make an otherwise text-heavy planner readable:
– use colored ink for important headers but keep the text color down to a basic blue or brown
– use pastel-toned colored pencils to highlight phrases (i.e. outrageous stuff my son said)
Plus, I’m thinking of using tabs for pages I refer back to constantly – but we’ll see about that, I don’t want the planner to get too bulky or sprout unnecessary appendages ;)
LikeLiked by 1 person
That sounds like a wonderful system! I can’t draw or doodle, so I like the idea of using colored ink to organize things. :)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think the examples on the Hobonichi official page help, too, but in the end you have to come up with your own system – the folks over there are just way too artistic ;)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, definitely! I admire their work, but I quickly realized it was over ambitious for me. The best system is one that you will use.
LikeLiked by 1 person