How to Start Bullet Journaling with Japanese Stationery

Bullet journaling and Japanese stationery were made for each other. The bujo community's love of beautiful notebooks, precise writing tools, and decorative tape has an obvious home in Japanese stationery — and the Japanese stationery world's love of thoughtful, functional design maps perfectly onto what bullet journaling tries to achieve.

If you're starting a bullet journal and you want to do it with the best possible materials, this is your guide.

Start with the Right Notebook

The notebook is the foundation. For bullet journaling, you need a few things: lay-flat binding (so both pages are equally usable), fountain pen friendly paper if you use liquid inks, a grid or dot grid layout for structure, and a size that suits your habits.

Best Bullet Journal Notebooks from Japan

Stalogy 365 Days Notebook — Our top recommendation for bullet journaling. The Stalogy is a perpetual undated notebook you start whenever you like — perfect for a bujo, which rarely follows a calendar year. The paper is fountain pen friendly, the grid is subtle and clean, the binding lies flat, and it's available in A5 and B6 sizes. It also costs significantly less than a Leuchtturm, which makes filling it and starting fresh feel less fraught.

Hobonichi Techo Cousin (A5) — If you want a structured daily bujo with exceptional paper, the Cousin gives you one full A5 page per day on Tomoe River paper. The monthly calendar spreads are clean. It's more structured than a pure bujo but many users love the blend of structure and free-form daily pages.

Midori MD Notebook (A5, Grid) — For a purist blank-grid bujo, the MD Notebook is hard to beat. Exceptional paper, flat-lie binding, minimal design that won't compete with what you're creating inside. The A5 grid format is ideal for classic bullet journal layouts.

Writing Tools

You don't need a fountain pen to bullet journal — many bujo users swear by fine-point gel pens for speed and precision. But if you do use a fountain pen, Japanese paper rewards you spectacularly.

Fine-nib fountain pens — A fine Japanese nib (where "fine" means considerably finer than European fine nibs) is ideal for bujo headers and detail work. Pilot and Platinum both make excellent fine-nib pens at accessible prices.

Zebra Mildliner — The most popular highlighter in the bujo community worldwide, for good reason. The dual tip gives a broad highlight stroke and a fine detail tip in one pen. The colour range is extraordinary — over 25 colours in pastel and fluorescent varieties. They're made in Japan and available exclusively at specialist stationery shops.

Kuretake brush pens — For brush lettering in headers and titles, Kuretake's Zig Clean Color Real Brush pens are the gold standard. They produce true brush strokes, the ink is water-based, and the colours are vivid without being garish.

Washi Tape

MT is the original washi tape maker, and for bujo use it's unmatched. The tape tears cleanly, repositions without damaging paper, and writes on cleanly with any pen — useful for labels, dividers, and decoration.

The MT Basic Colours set is the essential starting point — a range of neutral and accent tones that work in any layout. From there, MT's pattern and illustration tapes open a rabbit hole that most bujo users happily disappear down.

Midori also produces decorative tapes and stamps that are ideal for bujo embellishment — their rubber stamp sets in particular add beautiful detail to spreads without requiring artistic skill.

A Simple Starting Setup

If you're starting from scratch, you don't need everything at once. Begin with:

• A Stalogy 365 Days Notebook (B6 for portability, A5 for more space)
• One fine-point pen you already love writing with
• One set of MT Basic washi tape
• One Zebra Mildliner in a colour you like

That's it. The most elaborate bujo spreads you've seen on Instagram were built up over months and years, not started that way. Begin simply, add what genuinely improves your system, and ignore the rest.

Browse our full Japanese stationery collection and see our Japanese stationery brands guide for deeper reading on the brands behind the tools.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best notebook for bullet journaling?
For pure flexibility, the Stalogy 365 Days is our top recommendation — undated, excellent paper, flat-lie binding, available in grid format. For those who want more daily structure, the Hobonichi Techo Cousin is superb. For a clean grid with no planner structure, the Midori MD Notebook A5 Grid is excellent.

Is Tomoe River paper good for bullet journaling?
Yes, with one caveat: its slow dry time can cause smearing if your hand drags across fresh ink while writing quickly. For careful writers or fountain pen users who write deliberately, it's wonderful. For fast writers who use gel pens, a slightly faster-absorbing paper like Stalogy or MD Paper may suit better.

What washi tape should I buy for bullet journaling?
Start with the MT Basic Colours set — neutral tones, solid colours, versatile for any layout. Add pattern tapes once you know what styles you gravitate towards. Avoid buying lots of tapes before you've established a style — most bujo enthusiasts have unopened tapes from impulse purchases they never used.

Do I need expensive tools to bullet journal?
No. A Stalogy notebook and whatever pen you already write with is enough to start. Japanese stationery rewards investment over time — but the investment should follow actual use, not precede it.