Pen Worthy or Pass? 📄 Daiso Premium Notebook

As I dove deep into the exploration of fountain pen friendly notebooks (a.k.a. the r/fountainpens subreddit), I found more and more recommendations for affordable ones that perform wonderfully. One of those that I kept seeing again and again was the Daiso Premium Notebook, and luckily, there are quite a few Daiso branches here in Bangkok for me to check out. I wanted to see for myself how a 60 THB notebook can really perform when it comes to fountain pens. And so, here we are.

The Basics

The Daiso Premium notebook is a simple notebook with a cover design that feels influenced by the classic Japanese stationery design rather than a typical dollar-store aesthetic. To me, it has a resemblance to higher-end Japanese notebooks with plain, elegant covers — not flashy, but elegant.

Here's a quick rundown of its "specs":

• B6 size

• 40 sheets/80 pages

• ~80-90 gsm paper

• Cream colored paper

• 5mm grid (grey ruling)

• Cardstock cover

• Thread-stitched binding

There are also different rulings available, indicated on the cover and by the color of the cover, as far as I'm aware, there are B6 and A6 variations in sizes, and the 5mm dot notebook commonly comes in an orange cover, while the 7mm ruled version usually has yellow cover, though this may vary by location or restock. I believe they also come in the notepad format with similar colors.

This B6 grid version was priced at 60 THB (around 1.9 USD at the time of writing). This breaks down to 0.75 THB/page or 1.5 THB/sheet. If you're in Bangkok, you can usually find Daiso branches in various malls, though not all of them. If you're on the hunt for one of these, I would recommend looking up Daiso branches online first. And just a heads up, not all branches stock these, and the ones that do might not even stock a lot of them. At least in the branches I've been to, there would be around 2-5 of these on the shelves.

Fountain Pen Tests

The purpose of this review is mainly to see how fountain pen-friendly the notebook is. So while I'm not going to do a deep dive into each feature that the notebook offers, I'll be testing the paper with various fountain pens with different applications.

Test 1: Fine and Medium Nibs

My go-to nib sizes on fountain pens are fine and extra fine, but I also occasionally use medium nib pens, so those are what I'm using in this test. I've also thrown in a "wet combo" in there to see if a somewhat "wet" pen and ink combo would feather or not.

Pen & Ink Combos used

• Platinum Century 3776 <F> + Aurora - Black

• Lamy Safari <M> + Lamy - Black

• TWSBI ECO <EF> + Pilot Iroshizuku - Shin-ryoku

• Jinhao 82 <M> + Vinta - Summer Green (Karnival 1908)

Writing Experience

The paper in the Daiso Premium Notebook was incredibly smooth. It reminded me of the smoothness of Rhodia paper, which gives a buttery smooth feel as the nib glided across the page.

While there isn't an official indication of the paper's weight, I'd estimate it to be around 80-90 gsm. It feels a bit thicker than the other papers I've reviewed so far, but not by much. This gave it quite an advantage when it came to ghosting and bleed-through.

Performance

🪶 Feathering: No feathering

🩸 Bleed-through: No bleed-through

👻 Ghosting: Barely noticeable ghosting

Test 2: Stub Nib

I regularly use stub nib pens to write big headers, whether I'm journaling or taking notes for certain things. So I thought it would be a good idea to test them here, too.

Pen & Ink Combo Used

Kaweco Perkeo 1.9 mm stub nib + Robert Oster - Jade

Writing Experience

The paper handled the ink really well here, and I was honestly very impressed. There was very little ghosting on the reverse side, even with a relatively large stub nib. You can kind of see where the heavy amount of ink warped the paper just a tiny bit, but the ghosting really is hardly noticeable.

Performance

🪶 Feathering: No feathering

🩸 Bleed-through: No bleed-through

👻 Ghosting: Barely noticeable ghosting

Test 3: Ink Swatching

Now here's where the test really got interesting for me. In my experience, while a lot of cheaper notebooks are able to handle fountain pens with normal note-taking and scribbling, many of them aren't able to handle as much ink as required in swatching. Since this had performed quite wonderfully so far, I was very excited with how it would handle swatching.

Pen & Ink Combo Used

• Kakimori Brass Nib Pen

• Shading ink: Troublemaker - Abalone

• Sheening ink: KWZ - Sheen Machine

Writing Experience

There was quite a good amount of shading visible here, though the swatch did look a tiny bit splotchy, which I've observed in papers that are a bit more absorbent than the well-known fountain pen-friendly papers like MD paper and Tomoe River paper. The shading here isn't at the maximum this ink usually gives, but it's a decent amount that I can still appreciate it.

As for the sheening ink, the sheen was slightly dulled, but still visible with this highly saturated and high-sheen ink. That said, it may be slightly too absorbent to show sheen on inks that aren't extremely high-sheen.

Performance

🌀 Ink Shading: Good shading with shading-prone inks or nibs

💎 Ink Sheening: Sheen is slightly dulled, but still visible with highly saturated or sheening inks

🪶 Feathering: No feathering

Here's the first "failed" test for this paper. There was a slight bleed-through with the highly saturated KWZ - Sheen Machine ink on ink-heavy spots. That being said, the bleed-through was so minimal and only appeared in tiny little dots, and the ghosting was quite moderate that the reverse side can still be used (unless the tiny dots bother you).

Note that the swatch of Troublemaker's Abalone on the right, which was a less saturated ink and relatively dryer one, did not bleed-through at all.

🩸 Bleed-through: Slight bleed-through with highly saturated inks on ink-heavy spots

👻 Ghosting: Moderate ghosting, might bother some people

So all in all, I think the biggest factor here would be the ink's saturation and flow. But then again, if you're swatching inks for the first time, this might not be ideal.

Test 4: Flex Nib

Flex nib pens can lay down a heavy, wet line of ink, especially during downstrokes. Even inks that seem only moderately wet in regular pens can gush with a flex nib. If the paper is too absorbent, the ink tends to spread uncontrollably and soak through.

Pen & Ink Combo Used

F.P.R. Himalaya V2 <Ultra Flex> + Sailor Shikiori - Tokiwa-matsu

Writing Experience

Now this test is where a lot of papers tend to fail, but to my pleasant surprise, this paper handled it quite well. There was absolutely no feathering at all. However, it did result in a little bit of bleed-through. Just a tiny bit, in small dots, similar to how the swatch of KWZ - Sheen Machine did in the ink swatching test. So while it technically fell short here, I find that it's still a better result compared to a lot of other papers I've tried before.

Performance

🪶 Feathering: No feathering

🩸 Bleed-through: Slight bleed-through on ink-heavy spots

👻 Ghosting: Moderate ghosting, might bother some people

Scorecard

Here are the scores I have for the Daiso Premium Notebook. As different people have different needs for their notebooks, I would recommend looking at the criteria that matter to you if you’re considering getting this notebook.

🪶 Feathering: 5/5

No feathering at all, even with wet nibs or pressure

🩸 Bleed-through: 4/5

Almost none; only heavy swabs or ink pooling may bleed

👻 Ghosting: 5/5

None to barely noticeable; moderate ghosting only with heavy ink application

🌀 Ink Shading: 4/5

Good shading with shading prone-inks or nibs

💎 Ink Sheening: 4/5

Sheen is visible with highly saturated or sheening inks

💰 Price & Value: 5/5

Excellent value; affordable with premium quality

If you want to learn more about my rating system, you can find my scorecard rating guide here.

Is it Pen-worthy?

Overall score:

27/30: ✅ Truly Pen-Worthy

(You can find my "pen-worthiness" scale here.)

The Daiso Premium Notebook is a top-notch option for fountain pen-friendly paper, especially at such an affordable price point. The paper is very smooth. I can honestly say that if you like Rhodia or Clairefontaine paper, you'll probably like this one.

However, this is not a notebook to use for heavy swabs of highly saturated inks or for flex nib pen users. So despite its high score in this review, I would not recommend this for anyone who's looking for a notebook to keep as an "ink journal" or anything of the sort.

If you're looking for an affordable notebook, I can honestly say I would recommend this notebook over the Kokuyo Campus or the Muji notebook with how well it performed. I'm personally going to be picking up one or two of these notebooks every time I come across a Daiso to use as a catch-all scribbling notebook at my desk.

Pros & Cons

Here's q uick list of pros & cons for you to consider before purchasing the Daiso Premium Notebook:

Pros:

• Really affordable price for the quality of paper

• Good overall performance for the average fountain pen user

• Paper thickness allows for barely noticeable ghosting during regular writing

• Sturdy binding and cover that feel well-made

Cons:

• Only available in B6 and A6 sizes

• Limited availability—while Daiso is quite widespread, smaller branches may not stock these notebooks

• Not suitable for heavy swatching with highly saturated inks

• Not ideal for flex nib pens

Disclaimer

Please note that these reviews are based on my own experience of using the paper/notebook. Unless stated otherwise, these notebooks were bought with my own money, and I’m in no way affiliated with or sponsored by the brand of the product I’m reviewing.

If you have any feedback or recommendations, please feel free to leave them in the comments!