Designed by a precision engineering company in rural Japan, Drillog is a stainless steel dip pen with glass nib-like ink channels that hold plenty of ink. While currently only sold in Japan, Drillog will soon be available overseas via a Kickstarter campaign.

Fukushima-based retailer and stationery cafe Pentonote’s newly released Koseki Yuji Music Pen is a stylish, store-exclusive Pilot pen based on the Custom Heritage 912.

2020 was the year of online events, glass pens, pocket pens, e-commerce, and pastel-colored chromo-shading inks.

Fenestro is Fine Writing International’s latest model: An acrylic, eyedropper-friendly cartridge-converter pen with an ink window and spring-loaded cap.

Sailor’s Theta pens, released in 1996, were inspired by a spiritual concept called hado. The nibs were said to be treated by a hado specialist and purportedly had mysterious health benefits.

Eureka Dodecagon aka-tamenuri is a handmade ebonite pen with urushi lacquer, custom ebonite feed, and Argentium silver nib, all created by a one-man pen maker in South Korea.

Platinum’s Little Shooting Star (小流星钢笔) is a low-cost pen that looks like a Pilot Kakuno. It was released in July 2019 and is currently available in China only.

PenBBS 500 is a new release from popular Chinese pen maker PenBBS, with an all-new filling system that combines elements from TWSBI’s Go and Conid’s bulk fillers.

Major trends in Japan this year: Brands, events, and more. One new ink maker made a big splash. This post is part of a collaborative year-end summary by our Tokyo pen group.

Sailor has its Pro Gears, Pilot has Custom 91 and 912, and now PenBBS has model 352: Flat-top cartridge-converter pens with stylish clips. Modern-looking complements to classic, cigar-shaped models in their respective product lineups. Model 352 is one of PenBBS’s two new releases in June (the other one being vac filler 268), and comes in a number of different acrylics and with several nib options. The one I got is called Galaxy, and has PenBBS’s new extra-fine or REF nib.

Japan has a long tradition of urushi lacquerware, going all the way back to the Jomon period. Over the years, multiple regional forms such as Wajima-nuri and Kyo Shikki, and decorative techniques like maki-e and chinkin, have evolved. Urushi is a time-consuming craft. Sap is extracted from the lacquer tree, filtered, often mixed with pigment such as vermilion, and painstakingly coated in many layers, on everything from rice bowls and trays to cars.

Eboya is a Tokyo-based pen maker that has been around since 2009. Their specialty is pens made of ebonite, polished on traditional rokuro lathes. Eboya’s parent company is Nikko Ebonite, the only producer of ebonite in Japan. Eboya has seven pen fountain pen models, including the Onoto-inspired Kyouka, the bamboo-like Ricchiku, and the torpedo-shaped Houga. Each model is available in several types of marbled ebonite, in small, medium, and large sizes, with an appropriately-sized 14K Bock nib in F, FM, M, or B.

Storied stationery retailer and bookstore Maruzen is celebrating their 150th anniversary this year. To commemorate this occasion, Maruzen produced three limited edition pens: A Sailor KOP in micarta (Voyage), a yellow Pilot based on Custom 912 (Lemon), and the subject of this post: Athena the Pen. The name, Athena, may be familiar to fountain pen enthusiasts. Maruzen has a popular series of inks carrying this label, including the sought-after Eternal Blue, and even more exotic ones sold only once a year, at their annual pen fair.

Long37, the mastermind behind Chinese pen maker PenBBS and owner of its namesake discussion forum, has been on a roll lately. Last autumn, PenBBS released the double-ended 469 and 456 vacuum filler in rapid succession, followed by the somewhat controversial 355 “bulkfiller” just before year-end. This year has already seen two new models: The 471 pocket pen, and the subject of this post: Model 380. In late December, PenBBS member Beini posted a teaser image on Instagram.

My first PenBBS pen was a white 309 piston filler. I liked the nib a lot, a #6 size fine steel nib slightly bent upward, almost like a waverly nib. However, the rest of the pen wasn’t quite to my liking: Too light and with a somewhat cheap overall feeling, especially the piston mechanism. So I ended up selling it after a while. After watching chrisrap52 repeatedly singing praise of PenBBS, I was keen on giving the brand another try, but I wanted a pen with a bit of heft, as I find it more comfortable to write that way.

Last year, Leo of Inquisitive Quill fame posted on Reddit about a new pen called Bronze Age, from Taiwanese pen maker Fine Writing International. I was taken aback by the beauty of this pen but quickly gave up trying to purchase one for myself, as the only method of payment at the time required a bank account in Taiwan. A few weeks ago, this pen started showing up on my Instagram feed for unknown reasons, which rekindled my interest.