Pilot Iroshizuku Chiku-rin - 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: A yellow-leaning green. Pilot describe Chiku-rin as a pale or light spring green.  My swatches sit noticeably deeper than that: the writing line is a mid-toned olive-yellow green, and the swabs build to a considerably darker, more saturated green. Where the ink pools heavily it dries to a near-black forest green with a clear blue-green cast, which is a genuine shift in hue rather than simply a darker version of the same colour. This matches what other reviewers have found — some note a much bluer green in darker applications, and others observed that large swabs on Tomoe River look much darker than the ink does in writing. Worth knowing before you buy if you're after a pale spring green: in a wet pen or a broad nib you'll get something considerably more substantial. 

Shading: Strong. My swabs run from a light yellow-green through mid-olive to those very dark, almost blackish edges — a wide range within a single stroke. Published reviews generally call the shading medium; on my swatches it's more pronounced than that, though a fine nib will naturally show less than a swab does.

Sheen: None. 

Shimmer: None. 

Flow: Medium.

The interesting bit: Iroshizuku is a compound of two Japanese words — iro (colour) and shizuku (droplet) — and the line has been running since 2007, with every colour named for a piece of Japanese landscape or plant life. Chiku-rin (竹林) means bamboo grove. What's easy to miss is that the name isn't describing bamboo leaves, which would give you a much deeper green; it's describing sunlight filtering down through the stalks. That's why the ink reads yellow rather than forest green, and why "bamboo forest" surprises people who were expecting something darker. It's also why the dark blue-green that appears in heavy pooling feels like a bonus rather than a flaw — the shadow underneath the light.

This is a hand-decanted 4ml sample vial from my own bottle.
Photos are my own swatches on Tomoe River Paper.
I'm a collector and I'm always happy to talk ink, so please message me if you have any questions.