What is the Hobonichi Techo? I don't speak Japanese, so that could be literally anything on Earth. Color me intrigued.
It's a day planner!
Color me less intrigued.
But maybe one page will say “Ate pork chops today,” and another will say “Had a baby.”
In keeping with my habit of making threads on esoteric, fiddly, pen and paper things, here's an entire thread about one specific day planner.
Okay, so I've called it a day planner twice now, and the Hobonichi Techo certainly fits that description. It is indeed a notebook with dates and times printed to help you organize your life. But it's somehow more than that. The creator discusses this in a special message for the 2015 edition:
2015 marks the 14th year since we first created the Hobonichi Techo. As I reflect on the Hobonichi Techo, I’m starting to think it’s growing out of its own definition as a planner. It’s more than just a schedule book to keep appointments, and it’s not quite a diary, nor is it just a notebook. So I just kind of wonder what it really is...
...So starting today, let’s give the Hobonichi Techo a new definition. It’s a Life Book. You’re the author, and you’re writing this book for the very first time.
(Read the full, completely charming, message here)
The creator in question is none other than Shigesato Itoi, the dude who made the Mother series of videogames (Mother 2 is, of course, known as Earthbound in the West. Everyone knows this, right?). He is something of a fixture of Japanese popular culture, well known for his upbeat writings on all sorts of topics, posted to his blog and quoted on the pages of his company's flagship product. I opted for a Japanese model (more on that later), and I'm bummed out that I don't get to see these things. I've sprinkled them throughout this post for your reading pleasure.
That reminds me, I actually bought the same watch as Obama.
Mr. Itoi says all sorts of wonderful things and I highly recommend you read some interviews with him.
So I do Obama at funerals and things. Or when some big knob comes from the government.
Incredible.
So...why is a Hobonichi better than your run of the mill planner? Or using Outlook or your phone or whatever to keep tack of crap? I guess I'm not sure how many people use the Hobonichi as a straight planner. It's a physical product, but when people talk about Hobonichis, they are also referring to a specific style of recording things. The Hobonichi is perhaps most often used as a visual diary - people fill the pages with drawings, watercolor paintings, stamps, stickers, mementos from travels, diary entries...The Hobonichi is especially well suited to this use. This specific use is so associated with the Hobonchi Techo that other notebooks adapted for this use are referred to as "fauxbonichis."
The word "Hobonichi" means "almost everyday," which is wonderful. We need that word in English. Mr. Itoi is big on moving away from what may be seen as a very traditionally Japanese use of a planner, as a rigid document outlining things that must be done each day. An "almost everyday planner" suggests a slightly more leisurely approach to things.
Day planners generally include calendar pages,
while the nitty gritty of planning your day is done in this one page a week format:
But what makes the Hobonichi Techo unique is that it gives you a full page for every day of the year:
The problem with offering a full page for every day of the year, and the reason that most planners do not do this, is that there are literally hundreds of days in most years (the notable exception being 1982, which was called off after only 6 weeks). And, as anyone who has ever dropped a dictionary on their crotch can attest, if you stack up enough paper, you end up with something quite thick and heavy. You can get around this by using very very thin paper, like they use in bibles. However, almost any ink in the world will bleed through bible paper and, if you try to use one as a day planner, people get really upset.
The main design feature of the Hobonichi Techo is its high quality Tomoe River paper. The sheets are ridiculously thin, but specially coated to keep inks exactly where you put them. Writing on Tomoe River paper with a fountain pen is an absolute joy. It is impossibly smooth, like writing on an angel's buttock.
Fountain pen inks take an extra second or two to dry, and they do show through, but to a remarkably small degree.
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I doubt I've convinced you of the greatness of the Hobonichi Techo, but maybe seeing the official cases will help:
You can get different materials and designs, but here's the one everyone seems to want:
(Shipping in December!)
I don't *think* I've lead you astray in my past threads, so you might have to take my word for it a little bit. But, if you're like me and you dig writing things with pen and paper, keeping a journal, and/or planning out your days, the Hobonichi Techo is an amazing product. I've tried various planners over the years and this is by far the best.
Ordering a Hobonichi Techo
The dates in the 2015 Hobonichi Techos follow the actual year, January - December, so there's no need to wait for the new academic year (A Spring Techo begins shipping in March, if you do want an academic year format).
The Hobonichi website is now available in English, as is the planner itself.
>Important!<
There has been some confusion about what you actually need to order.
The planners themselves are at the bottom of the page, under "Planner Book."
The cases listed in the first group, under "Hobonichi Planner" and in the second group, under "Hobonichi Techo Original" are the same size: A6 (you can see this to the right of the section heading). The second group contains the less expensive cases that you're probably after. These all fit the Hobonichi Planner Book. This is the English language version of the original pocket-size planner. The "Hobonichi Techo ‘Original’ Book" is the Japanese version of the same A6 planner.
The "Hobonichi Techo ‘Cousin’ Book" is the larger A5 planner. This is only available in Japanese, but the dates on the page will say 3 5, for example, for March 5, so you don't need to memorize the names of the months in Japanese. You mainly miss out on the quotes and the miscellanea in the back of the book. You'll also need a cover from the "Hobonichi Techo ‘Cousin’" section of cases.
The books and covers are generally sold separately. They mention this all over the place.
The planners are sold exclusively through their website (are there places in Japan that carry them?) - there aren't any (official) resellers. Shipping from Japan is not horrendous, but it's not the cheapest thing in the world. Expect to pay around $15 to get your order to the US. I found that, oddly enough, buying the cover and notebook at the same time brought my shipping cost down. If you're going to order accessories and things as well, you get the best price by buying everything at once.
You have a couple of options when ordering your Hobonichi Techo. The English version of the original Techo is A6 size (5.8"x 4.1"), which is quite small. This is wonderfully pocket-sized, but you may want more room to work with. Also, the original Techo does not include the week pages. You can purchase a slim notebook with week pages separately and tuck it into the official cover.
The original A6 notebook is 2700 yen, about $22. Covers start at 1620 yen, around $14. They ratchet up in price pretty rapidly, with the leather ones being rather expensive. Of special note, the Earthbound cover is about $20. The covers are completely reusable, sturdy, and separate from the inner notebook pages, so you can buy one and use it for several years, you cheap piece of shit.
The Hobonichi Techo "Cousin" is the larger, A5 (8.3"x 5.8" - the size of the larger Moleskine notebook)), version. For 3780 yen (about $32), you get twice the room per page, as well as the week pages. The downside is that the Cousin a) has a strange name and b) is in Japanese. It's completely usable by ignorant gaijin, but you won't be able to read the cool quotes or the additional pages of fun information in the back.
(2014 Techo images from MR4001)
A guide to sushi!
A guide to sake and how to hold chopsticks. All vital information.
Tea drinking around the world.
(2015 edition images from SteveWinwood)
How to use a traditional Japanese inn and bath.
Spices and herbs.
Here's my Hobonichi Techo Cousin. It came with a free Uni multipen (which is actually not bad!) and a little neoprene tissue holder.
I tucked a 28-page A5 notebook in the back cover of my Techo Cousin for extra writing space:
Here's an A6 version.
If you have Hobonichi Techo questions, ask away. Several GAF members have the 2015 edition already. If you have, or have had a Techo, please share how you used/plan on using it!
Bonus Hobonichi dating tip from Shigesato Itoi himself!
It’s fun at a bar when you’re talking to a girl you’ve just met to say “I’ll draw a plan of your room.” And she’ll say, “How do you know what it’s like?” And then you can play at being a fortune teller. You start with “Okay, here’s the door.” And she’ll be all eyes on what you’re doing. That’s lots of fun. And it’s easy with graph paper.
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