Ink Overview: Taccia Ukiyo-e Sharaku Tōshūsai inks (Kurocha, Akasakura, Koiame, and Natane)

Taccia are making a series of inks based on Japanese Ukiyo-e artists and selections of their works. The current two series are based on four works from Sharaku Tōshūsai (this series) which are portraiture works and the other series (which you can view here) is on four works from Hukusai Katsushika which are landscape works. The inks take inspiration from specific colours in each of the works. Taccia has plans to expand the series of Ukiyo-e inspired inks.

Thanks to Desk Bandit for generously providing samples of 6 of these inks.

The artwork by Sharaku Tōshūsai some of the more familiar Japanese portraiture artworks for me. “Kurocha Ōtani Oniji III in the Role of the Servant Edobei” is instantly familiar!

Ukiyo-e prints are woodblock prints where a publisher commissions, and promotes a work from an artist which is then carved into wood by woodworkers, and pressed onto paper by printers. This printing process, and the possibilities for variation at the printing end of the process explains why there are different images of the artworks available with some different colours as well.

Taccia describe the inks as follows:

The Ukiyo-e is a Japanese printing established in the Edo-period(17th century) to feature the life style, trend and play by the people of the time.

Those colors used for Ukiyo-e are too delicate to be expressed in a single word.

Our product Ukiyo-e ink reproduce these colors and will expand your enjoyment of drawing with fountain pens.

The first 4 colors each are released as Hokusai and Sharaku collection.

All inks are made of safe raw materials and all colors were supervised by the color consultant in Japan.

These ink collections were also produced by the stationery expert and manufactured by our factory.

Next Ukiyo-e collection coming soon.

The Sharaku series are all warm colours, especially compared to the Hokusai-based series. Interestingly lacking from both series is a green ink. Maybe next time?

When I first looked at these inks I assumed I had a few inks that would match pretty closely but I actually didn’t have many. They are mostly noticeably different and importantly, depending on the paper, they can change colour quote a bit. In general Tomoe River is lighter and slightly less saturated but Rhodia is darker and more saturated with a different hue sometimes.

Taccia Ukiyo-e Kurocha is based on Sharaku Tōshūsai’s “Ōtani Oniji III in the Role of the Servant Edobei”. The brown of Kurocha comes from the brown stripes on the actor’s robe.

Kurocha, the first ink in the Sharaku Tōshūsai series, is a somewhat rich darker brown that leans orange-red. The shading is rather minimal but the the ink is very wet and smooth to write with. There is no feathering or bleeding. The dry time is slightly slow and the water resistance washes all the brown away; not bad but colourless. The chromatography is a stretch of grey moving suddenly to a brown and ending with a heavily saturated orange-red.

Diamine Chocolate Brown is a little more saturated. Bungubox Valentine’s Choco Brown is too red. Montblanc Toffee Brown is fairly similar but slightly yellower and lighter.

Kurocha has two sheens that can present. Mostly it is a silver-brass colour but there is some cooler silver sheen that comes through on the swatch. The ink sheens pretty strongly.

Both the Diamine and the Montblanc have a silver sheen though the Montblanc is a little duller. These are the closest. The Bungubox is a green-gold-silver hybrid.

On Rhodia, Kurocha is redder, darker and more saturated.Shading is still very weak and dry time is a little slow for Rhodia. There is no bleeding or feathering. Water resistance presents the same.

Diamine Chocolate Brown is flat and dark. Bungubox Valentine’s Choco Brown is closer this time but a little light and yellow. Montblanc Toffee Brown is again very similar but too light.

The sheen is very minimal in the writing on Rhodia but there is some.

No sheen presented on comparisons on Rhodia paper.

Taccia Akasakura is an orange tinted red-pink ink that is inspired by the robe colour of “The Actor Ichikawa Omezo I as the Footman (Yakko) Ippei”.

The ink is almost a red and almost a pink. It leans orange sometimes and magenta others. It’s an interesting complex ink colour. This complexity is less obvious in the written lines, however. The ink has some nice shading that Is contrasting enough with a somewhat sudden gradient. The ink is one of the driest from the set of Ukiyo-e inks but still isn’t a dry ink. It’s close to moderate. There is no feathering or bleeding. The dry time is on the quicker side for Tomoe River and the water resistance isn’t too bad for this colour but it does get smudgy. Chromatography is a purple line amongst a light pink that gets redder before a thin orange line and ending with a large saturated pure yellow strip.

Robert Oster Rubine is too saturated and red but is orange leaning. Rohrer & Klingner Morinda is too magenta leaning. Pen + Message Syu Urushi is too dark, magenta and saturated but as we will see it presents similarly to how Akasakura does on Tomoe River and Rhodia with a more magenta leaning look on Tomoe River.

There is very minimal dull gold sheen on the writing and even the swatch. You have to look for this under the right lighting and at the right angle.

Robert Oster has a dull silver sheen that still presents well. Morinda has no sheen. Syu Urushi has a green-gold sheen that is stronger than Akasakura’s sheen.

On Rhodia, Akasakura is much more saturated and much more orange. It almost becomes a light orange ink here. There is no feathering or bleeding. The shading is a little less prominent on Rhodia but it gets redder on the darker parts of the shading. Dry time is relatively fast and water resistance is against smudgy and not very strong.

Robert Oster Rubine is much redder and more heavily saturated and too magenta leaning. Rohrer & Klingner Morinda is still too magentas leaning. Pen + Message Syu Urushi, as mentioned, presents similarly on Tomoe River and Rhodia in that it is more magenta/pink on Tomoe River and more yellow/orange leaning on Rhodia. It is still too dark here but not too dissimilar in colour.

There is no sheen on Rhodia.

There is no sheen on the comparison inks either.

Taccia Koiame’s brilliant but dusty orange comes from the orange robe of “Ichikawa Ebizo IV as Takemura Sadanoshin”.

Koiame is a light-moderate well saturated orange that has a slight hint of brown to it and an even slighter hint of pink to it. It has strong shading with a smooth gradient. The ink is decently wet and smooth but certainly not the wettest from the Ukiyo-e series. There is no bleeding or feathering. The dry time is slow and the water resistance is on the weaker side. Chromatography, right to left, has a grey line surrounded by a light pink that gets darker and redder before breaking into a yellow-orange.

Kyo-iro #06 Arashiyama Morning is more vibrant and more yellow leaning. Bungubox Hamanako Fresh Mandarin Orange is similar hue but slightly more yellow and much more saturated. Robert Oster Orange Rumble is yellower and browner and a little darker.

The sheen on Koiame is somewhat subtle. You can definitely see it but it isn’t strong. It is a silver sheen with hints of gold.

Arashiyama Morning has a similar subtle silver sheen. Hamanako Fresh Mandarin Orange is a very strong silver sheen. Orange Rumble is a dull silvery sheen.

On Rhodia, Koiame gets a little yellower and more saturated and a touch darker. There is no bleeding or feathering. The shading is improved slightly with the darker parts getting darker. Dry time is slightly slow for Rhodia and the water resistances is still weak.

Arashiyama Morning is very similar now but a flatter ink. Hamanako Fresh Mandarin Orange is lighter, flatter and still more saturated. Orange Rumble is again darker and browner.

The sheen does not present on Rhodia in any meaningful way.

The only sheen that presents is on the swatch of Orange Rumble with that dull matte grey. This is closer the a halo than sheen though.

Taccia Natane, a light desaturated yellow with hints of green, is taken, again from a robe, within “Segawa Kikujurō III as Oshizu, Wife of Tanabe”.

This ink is a pastel tan yellow that is fairly light but still readable that has a very slight green tint to it. It has moderate shading with a smooth gradient. The ink, along with Akasakura, is the drier of the inks from the Ukiyo-e series. There is no bleeding or feathering. The dry time is surprisingly slow for a moderate wetness ink. Water resistance is weak but surprisingly strong for this type of ink. The yellow is washed away leaving a grey. Chromatography has a very light green-grey progressing to a very tan brown/orange and ending with a lighter pure yellow.

Maruzen Athena Lemon is darker, more saturated, and greener. Kyo-no-oto #04 Yamabukiiro is similarly saturated, if a bit less so, and more yellow than tan with a slightly more green tint to it. Sailor Ink Studio 670 is much greener, darker and more heavily saturated.

There is no sheen at all visible on Tomoe River. This is the only set from the Ukiyo-e series that presents with no sheen on Tomoe River.

All the comparison inks present with a silver sheen of varying degrees with Ink Studio 670 being the strongest and Yamabukiiro being the weakest.

On Rhodia Natane is more saturated and darker with much less green. The tan tint is also less prominent While the ink feathered a little on the saturated part of the swatch it didn’t elsewhere and there’s no bleeding. The dry time is a little slower than expected and the water resistance is cleaner but still weak on Rhodia.

Lemon is similar but a little greener. Yamabukiiro is again similar but darker and less saturated. 670 is much greener and darker still.

Unsurprisingly there is no sheen on Rhodia.

The comparison inks present with no sheen on Rhodia.

The boxes for these inks are pretty large given the 40ml size of the ink and the correspondingly smaller bottle sizes. However, it shows off the artwork more so there isn’t too much to complain about! There’s a lovely aesthetic about all of these inks.

I quite like Natane, I find it rather different. Koiame is a lovely orange and brown is a solid brown. The inks all perform really well on paper and out of the nib. The first release of Taccia inks I found interesting but unadventurous, these sets I was very interested in when I first saw them. The Lip Color and the Jeans inks are also pretty interesting. I look forward to what Taccia do with expanding this Ukiyo-e series.

Check out the overview of the other Ukiyo-e series based on Hukusai Katsushika here!

Thank you again to Desk Bandit for sending samples of these inks for review!

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I received these stationery items free of charge for the purpose of giving an honest review. I was not otherwise compensated and everything here is my own honest opinion. There are no affiliate links. Nota bene: Desk Bandit are also a sponsor of this blog.