Pentel EnerGel Kuro Gel Ink Pen Review

(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Bluesky. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

It's back-to-school season! Admittedly, the majority of the stationery supplies I have to acquire for my children at this time of year are not as exciting as the stationery I'd like to be playing with, but ALL stationery is fun in its own way. I wish I could send my kids to school with a box of Blackwing pencils, but it will have to be the store-brand #2 classics, as requested by The List.

But pens? We can have a little fun there. Gel pens are a staple of note taking in school, but The List doesn't say what kind they have to be. We have our old reliables, but it's always fun to try something new.

Pentel has a new build of their EnerGel model called the Kuro, and I think it's the perfect gel pen for this year's school adventures.

The Kuro has a slim body in a black rubberized material that is all non-slip and slightly cushioned, and the grip area has extra texture to it. It's smooth, but textured enough that your fingers don't slip on the barrel. It has a lightly flexible plastic clip and a click button top. The clip and click are in the color of the pen's ink, for easy identification.

The tip is 0.7 mm, and it writes very smoothly. It downright glides. I had no skipping or blobbing with these, and I've been using them all day every day at work for a week.

The ink is nicely saturated with bold, bright colors available in the set. This set has black, purple, pink, red, blue, light blue, green, and orange--enough colors for some excellent color coding. There are also 12- and 24-color sets available, as well as individual pens. They've been great in my planners, especially because they have a quick-dry, no-smear ink. They are also refillable. The nose cone unscrews to access the Pentel LR7 refill.

The 8-color set costs $13.50, with individual pens costing around $2, and refills cost $1.35. Overall, they're one of the more affordable gel pens out there right now, which makes them even better for school, where pens vanish into the portal that lurks at the bottom of every backpack.

I've really enjoyed writing with these pens. And while I've turned the standard colors over to my children for school, the pink, purple, and light blue have stayed on my desk at work. Because mom has homework, too, and everyone needs good gel pens.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

---

Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Zebra Sarasa Nano Vintage Color Set Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

The Zebra Sarasa gel ink pens are well-known to anyone in this community, and it's for good reason. They feature vibrant colors, smooth flowing gel ink, and a nifty spring clip for attaching the pen to things. When I received a pack of Sarasa Nano pens, I was curious to find out what made them different than the standard Sarasa Clip version. While the Nano line is a bit more premium, they still use the same refills.

The Zebra Sarasa Nano line's main difference is the clever internal spring that provides a nice suspension for the refill to ride on while you write. In practice, this makes the pen feel like a smoother instrument when writing thanks to the small amount of give the spring affords when exerting pressure on the tip. Aside from this, the Nano also has a premium metal nose cone and a completely black body (unlike the transparent body of the Sarasa Clip).

Another key difference from the Sarasa Clip line is the tip size selection. For the Sarasa Nano Vintage Color set I have, you only have one choice: 0.38mm. There are some other Nano pens that have matching body colors and use a 0.3mm tip, but for all the pens with a black body, they all use a 0.38mm tip size. Compare this to the standard Sarasa Clip line, which offers options from 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.7, and a handful of 1.0mm tips.

Luckily, you can swap in any standard Sarasa refill in the Nano body if you want to use the fancy spring suspension system on larger tip size refills.

So, how does the Nano perform compared to other pens that don't include a shock absorber? It's a subtle difference, but it's definitely noticeable — especially if you are comparing with other 0.38mm pens at the same time. With any small tip size pen, it can feel like the refill is a bit scratchy given the tiny size. For me, I tend to be a bit heavy-handed, so this scratchy feeling is something I can agree with on typical small tip pens I use. With the Nano, it doesn't feel as scratchy or like I'm writing with a stiff nail.

If you press the tip of the refill against the page and apply pressure, you can see the refill retract slightly as the spring absorbs the resistance. When writing, it's extremely subtle to the point that you don't realize it's happening. I assume that this is by design — if you could actually feel the tip springing while you write, that would be incredibly distracting and would require you to alter your writing style a bit. The pressure is just right for normal writing.

Aside from the satin-finish metal nose cone and internal spring system, this is a standard Sarasa. The clip is largely the same — the only difference is the shape of the clip is a bit more petit compared to the standard Clip line.

The five colors that are included in the Vintage Colors Set (for $12.50) are Cassis Black (dark red), Green Black, Blue Black, Blue Gray, and Sepia Black. There is also a "Basic" color set that includes what I think to be the better color combination (pink, red, orange, blue, and black). The Vintage colors are all dark, but the blue black, green black, and sepia black are incredibly hard to tell apart. For me, the colors in this set do not excite me. But, for other people, this could be a great color combination that they love! That's the beauty of stationery.

The final difference I'll point out between the standard Sarasa Clip and the Nano is price. At JetPens, the standard Sarasa Clip is $1.75. The Nano, however, is $2.95. This is likely due to a variety of factors, such as the extra bits for the spring suspension, the metal nose cone, and the fact that (I believe) the Nano is a newer product. Still, when you remember that both pens use the same refills, it's a bit difficult for me to swallow the large price gap. I'm a huge fan of the Sarasa Clip body — I think they're really comfortable and work great. For me, the Nano body and shock absorber don't do much for me. For almost twice the price, it doesn't make sense. The shock absorbing body is novel, but I can also adjust my writing style to suite the standard Sarasa with little effort.

The Zebra Sarasa Nano is an interesting product, but I'm not sure it differentiates itself enough from the standard line to justify its existence. I'd love to hear other opinions about the Nano and how it works better for you than the standard Sarasa! For me, I'm happy to stick with my dozens of Sarasa Clips for the time being.

(JetPens provided this product at no charge to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

---

Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!

Kokuyo Me 0.5mm Gel Pen Review

(Jeff Abbott is a regular contributor at The Pen Addict. You can find more from Jeff online at Draft Evolution and Twitter.)

It's not often at all that you see a new gel pen manufacturer enter the market. At this point, the big companies that operate in the stationery space already have various ballpoint refill pens available en mass, and they regularly churn new and updated variations on these. Bringing a new, cheap semi-disposable pen to market must be an extraordinarily large cost. So, when I see a pen from a manufacturer that I haven't previously associated with writing instruments, I jump at it.

Kokuyo is near and dear to my heart for the paper products they sell. Their paper is a good "middle of the road" quality, but it's paired with lower prices. It's nearly impossible to compare Japanese stationery culture with the American version, but Kokuyo feels like the ubiquitous brand that you can find at any office supply store. It's nothing special, but it's good at what is does. At any rate, it's about a thousand percent better than the paper products you find at any generic office supply store in the US.

Remember when Moleskine started selling pens? And they turned out to actually be pretty good? Well, that's kind of what's happening here with Kokuyo. The Kokuyo Me gel pen is fairly new, seems like a sleeper, but it actually hangs with the best gel pen options out there.

The Kokuyo Me pens are fairly new for the US market (forgive me if these pens are something that are really old news in Japan!), and I haven't seen much info or reviews on them so far. After trying one out for a while, I can tell you that Kokuyo's gel pen game is strong.

The 0.5mm black gel refill included with this pen is fantastic. It writes instantly and has no issues with starting, skipping, or bleeding. The ink is black and consistent in hue. The line edges are sharp and crisp. The only gripe I have about the refill is that I don't agree with the 0.5mm label they've given it. It's more akin to most 0.7mm refills, but that's a minor gripe.

The shape of the refill is very familiar. It's just a tiny bit different than the common Pilot G-2 refill, but it's essentially a complete match for other common pen/refill types. I've tried swapping with Uni Signos and Zebra Sarasas with great success. In theory, you could use the Kokuyo refill in other pens, or in machined pens made to use specific refills (like the Signo, for example). The only problem is, there aren't a lot of options in terms of Kokuyo's refills at the moment (at least for the US market). Black 0.5mm is the only option, unfortunately. I really hope that Kokuyo expands on their options for refill colors and sizes, but I guess it's still early days.

Getting back to the actual pen body, it's pretty standard fare with a couple of unique touches. The grip section is hard plastic instead of a rubberized, textured grip, and one side of the grip is faceted. This flat side of the grip is a nice place for a finger to rest while writing, but unobtrusive for those that prefer a different grip.

There's also a small round window between the clip and the grip section that shows you the numeric designation of the refill inside. It's easy to see the "05" through the window whether the refill is extended or retracted. This is possible because they've actually printed the 05 on the refill dozens of times to account for basically any possible placement of the refill inside the pen. Seems to me like something that was over-thought or over-designed as it doesn't really provide much value. Most pens in this price range have the refill size printed somewhere on the pen, but I guess being able to see the refill label is more accurate.

The "bell pepper" color I picked is a nice basic green. The pen body color has no bearing on the ink color — they're all black ink refills. There are several other pen body colors to pick from.

Vanness sell the Kokuyo Me gel pens for $4.50, which is in the ballpark for other comparable gel pens from the more well-known brands. Even if it's a little more than some options, I'd still say it's worth checking out. The refill that Kokuyo are using in this pen is promising, and I can't wait to see more options in terms of point size and color. Keep it up, Kokuyo!

(Vanness Pens provided this product at a discount to The Pen Addict for review purposes.)

---

Enjoy reading The Pen Addict? Then consider becoming a member to receive additional weekly content, giveaways, and discounts in The Pen Addict shop. Plus, you support me and the site directly, for which I am very grateful.

Membership starts at just $5/month, with a discounted annual option available. To find out more about membership click here and join us!