Hobonichi started releasing their new editions for 2021 beginning September 1st and I didn’t pass up on it as last year I kinda missed some of the nice items, which unfortunately ran out as I did my purchase
For those unfamiliar with Hobonichi, aka Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun, is a Japanese company that began the craze on what now everybody calls around the world as “techo”. It isn’t really a new word as it is the actual Japanese term for “diary” but lately it has caught up globally, much like how everybody calls animé for Japanese cartoons and ramen for Japanese noodles. Now, every year since 1998 when they began on pushing the techo habit of journalling or just writing down anything, they’ve perfected the original techo as to how it is now and introduced other planners, i.e., the Hobonichi weeks, which I prefer over the original one. Let’s get it!
First up is my go-to planner, which has become my favorite since I got one last year, the Hobonichi weeks planner! If you’re a 90s kid growing up with Sesame Street, you’d know that they recently celebrated their 50th year anniversary and I’m so glad they collaborated with Hobinichi to create a yet nostalgic planner of my favorite layout. Yay!
You’ll see all the Sesame Street goodness from the planner cover to the endsheets until the back cover. Just…how…cool…is…that?! The weeks came with a free vinyl pocket with adhesive that you could stick inside the back flap of your planner. This time, it came with an info card about Sesame Street, written both in English and Japanese. As usual, all purchases of Hobonichi planners come with a free pen, also one of my favorites and most recommended pen for left-handers, the Uni Jetstream!!! (more screaming here)
Speaking of free pens, this year, they introduced the Fude pen, which unfortunately only comes free with a purchase of an original techo. ( I got one for a friend, so yay, I get the free Fude pen for that)
“Fude” is Japanese for a “writing brush”, comparable to a calligraphy brush pen. But this one is felt brush pen that Japanese typically use for writing addresses on envelopes or messages on the hanshi paper or the Japanese calligraphy paper. This one comes in a set of 10 pieces of hanshi paper, small ones, you could use to write some message or quotes or words to live by, to add onto your daily journaling whatever-it-is-that-you-journal thingy. Then again, this is a Hobonichi-custom pen in collaboration with Pentel, which again, I highly, very very highly, recommend if you’d like to get on with brush calligraphy or lettering. Their Fude pen touch line is a wonder, really, get one now please. Another one of my favorites of all time, yay!
I’m not really into pencil boards to be honest, as I find that only kids normally use that. But this year, as it has become a special year for Hobonichi (20th year annivesary? wow!), they made their design releases very attractive for me that I was totally convinced to get my self pencil boards!!!
Hurray for pencil boards! Because really, who would pass up on the Japan only available Chibi Marukochan and Sesame Street cool designs? Yes, I got sucked in that I decided I need pencil boards for my Weeks planner and my B6 size notebook. I stopped using the original techo by the way, simply because I find it appalling that I’m pressured (kinda) to fill the pages every day or end up wasting paper and money. However, the techo cover was a good purchase for me since I was able to use it to cover my Stalogy all-purpose work notebook, so yay, I didn’t waste money on that somehow ridiculously expensive cover.
The good thing about pencil boards, which I now have discovered, is that it works perfectly as a marker for the current page you need to open when you want to open to that page immediately. The string bookmarks aren’t necessarily handy as I always fumble through them whenever I need to open the recent page I need. I find, though, that they were useful for other pages I navigate to less frequently such as the monthly calendar and memo pages in the Weeks (thumbs up!)
That’s it for the Hobonichi haul for the September release from me. More to come on their October release of the anime edition of the weeks and other things in my next post! Let me know in the comments below what you plan on getting for this year, Hobonichi aside.
~ヾ(＾∇＾) Happy brewing!
-Louie
I’ve decided to ditch my Hobonichi daily journal and got a Weeks for a planner instead. I thought it would be a waste not to use the pretty cover I bought for the Hobonichi (when I’ve decided I would use the same every year haha!) so I replaced it with this instead. 
It is, of course, smaller than the B5 size that I first purchased of the Stalogy to use as bullet journal. Then I found that I don’t use all the spaces and it is a waste of paper resource. I thought of the A6 for that purpose at first then I decided not to since I don’t have the luxury of time I used to have and I have the Hobonichi Weeks for that. I’m using it instead as my work notebook, writing about just anything and it simply fits that purpose! 
There we have it for the Stalogy 365 in A6 size, which fits snuggly on the Hobonichi cover. Now I’m hoping to use up all the pages as I didn’t do with my previous one 😦
I purchased a weekly and a monthly diary for my personal journal/planner. Note that, these diary notebooks are made of the Midori paper which I totally dig!
Both diaries came with a guide and stickers for customization, cool! For the monthly planner, you get to have a regular scheduler, like those simple ones with a monthly spread and boxed dates on them. 
Hello 2020! Normally, the notebooks would only have a blank frame but with the diary, there is this red “2020” stamped on the bottom right of the frame.
Then there is this calendar spread, one page for 2020 and the other for 2021. This is helpful for those planning to travel or future special events.
The next page looks like a tracker spread over two pages with each column representing the months. 
Turning on to the next page is the monthly calendar itself which starts on December 2019 spreading over two pages.
The next page after the last monthly calendar is a world map complete with the time zone and country names, lovely.
Surprisingly, there is also a page for listing down your travel plans (if any) and you could probably highlight it on the map. This doesn’t come often with regular planners but heck yeah, that’s why it’s called the Traveler’s notebook. 
While it also comes with helpful information, i.e., shoe sizes and unit conversions (the ruler is a plus!), the notebook has a few blank pages for whatever use.
Lastly of course the typical departure card that comes with all other traveler notebook refills.
Next we have the weekly diary which came in two refills. One for January to June and the other from July to December. Check out the label on the front page!
These didn’t came with a tracker like the monthly diary but a list type of monthly column spread which has a wider space. You could probably write birthdays and anniversaries or special events on it. 
It also came with a two year calendar and turning to the next page, you’ll find weekly spread beginning from Dec 16. They seem to only include the second half of Dec 2019 for space saving?
It also had a world map but didn’t include basic information and travel plan list page like with the monthly diary. As the weekly diary is split into two notebooks, it won’t take as much space in the leather cover, not like the Hobonichi planner I’m currently trying to finish.
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