Pilot Iroshizuku Tsuki-yo — 4ml Fountain Pen Ink Sample

Hue: A dark blue with a faint teal lean. Pilot's name translates as "moonlit night" and retailers usually describe it as a dark blue or blue-black. On my swatches the written line sits a shade brighter and more clearly blue than "blue-black" suggests — it only reads properly blue-black where the ink pools heavily.

Shading: Moderate. Clear light-to-dark variation through the writing sample and across the swab bar.

Sheen: Heavy oxblood red in pooled areas on Tomoe River. Worth noting that most published reviews describe the sheen as subtle or a touch around the edges — my swabs and drops show a great deal more than that, with broad maroon bands over the blue. Expect the fuller effect in wet nibs and heavy applications; a fine nib on ordinary paper will show far less.

Shimmer: None.

Flow: Wet.

The interesting bit: Tsuki-yo is 月夜 — moonlit night — and Pilot's own English name for it is simply Moonlight. It belongs to Iroshizuku, the line Pilot released at the end of 2007 after roughly five years of development, with five prototypes reportedly made for each colour before one was chosen. The name is built from iro (colouring) and shizuku (droplet), and every shade in the range is named for a Japanese landscape, plant or natural moment rather than for the pigment itself. Tsuki-yo is one of the three inks in Pilot's best-known trio set, alongside Take-sumi and Kon-peki.

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.