Midori MD Notebook Review (A5)

After falling in love with my MTN and the entire ecosystem part of it, I wanted to have a similar fountain pen friendly paper, sans the panache of an MTN. And it’s closest cousin seemed to be an MD notebook. I went for a A5 sized one, as it was quite readily available.

PRESENTATION (6/6)

The entire package rests within a polyethylene plastic wrap, and a tracing paper enclosure keeps you happy with the very process of unravelling. There is a bottom band of blue branding wrapped over the notebook, which covers essential product specifications/branding in English and certain things in Japanese.

MD ELEMENTS (6/6)

The notebook is thread-stitched and a weaved cloth is glued along the outer-spine, perhaps as an embellishment for a classical literary look. You would feel at ease, to write on a MD Notebook, as it remains completely open, thanks to the stitching. Clever! A ribbon/bookmark can be found in the middle, and I feel it is quite well-thought of, in case you choose to mark something essential.

The cover is made up of card stock usually meant for business cards, post cards or catalogue covers. On the front, it carries the branding of ‘MD PAPER, Made in Japan’, in a subtly embossed format.

As an ecosystem refill, a clear PVC cover is also available for each of the notebook sizes, in case you are planning to use a particular size regularly.

There are four stickers to label your notebook.

The inside cover has a box of particulars along with a bit of MD branding.

PHYSICS OF IT (6/6) – RELATIVELY SPEAKING

Quite a compact one with dimensions - L(21 cm) X W (14.8 cm) X H (1.1 cm), it does get a bit wider and shorter, than a standard parker A5 notebook or even an MTN. It has 88 leaves with square grids (of 0.5 cm) on both sides.

ECONOMIC VALUE (6/6)

It cost me a pretty decent USD 9 with some combined shipping from Japan. I ordered it online on Rakuten global.

OVERALL PERFORMANCE (5/6)

I love the understated looks of this notebook. A Pelikan fine nib glides along the paper with a wet line although it takes around half a minute to dry. I did observe a minute feathering and a decent show-through after writing on the first page. I have observed that one specific ink, i.e Montblanc Toffee Brown in Japanese nibs tends to skip sometimes on this paper. Though it does well enough with deeper feed channels of European nibs.

Unlike the MTN refill paper, these pages are quite thin and  the ghosting is visible on the other side. Although from a personal context. I feel that you can write on the other side too but YMMV.

I hope you enjoyed this short review and it helps with your next notebook purchase.