Every 7th of July Pentonote has been releasing their special Tanabata calligraphy ink set with the Milky Way theme to celebrate the legend of Orihime (Vega) and Hikoboshi (Altair) crossing the Milky Way to meet on this day once a year. 

This year on top of their highly popular trio ink set with option of getting a special star shaped glass ink muddler, glass artist Nonchi also created a special glass pen to match which, alas I had missed out on. 

Tanabata Ink Set

These calligraphy inks are exclusive to Pentonote, made in Korea by Tono & Lims. They have a beautiful milky appearance and wonderful body for holding onto flex nibs like the Brause Blue Pumpkin which is one of my favourites to use. Usually fountain pen inks are quite thin and flow off the nib really wetly which isn't as pleasant as proper calligraphy inks for dip pens which have flex.

Orihime Pink

Orihime Pink is a baby pink with little shading with pink shimmer. Out of the three inks this one is the only one that seems to have varying sized glitter.

My 0.3mm fine nib glass pen struggled with the chunky glitter, though it wrote much better with a Kakimori steel nib and would probably also work fine with a 0.5mm nib upwards.

Milky Way

Milky Way is a pastel lilac with periwinkle blue shading and pale gold shimmer. The shading appeared on most papers except for Null Refill and barely appeared on Cosmo Air Light. 

Hikoboshi Blue

Hikoboshi Blue is a clear cyan blue with low shading and blue shimmer. 

Yonomori Sakura 

Overall, out of the of the Tanabata inks I enjoyed Milky Way the most and the star muddler is incredibly cute. I’m sure Yonomori Sakura will be a common addition to my ink rotation as it has excellent shading along with being a very easy to read saturation.