Hobonichi Techo 2026 Release Guide : What’s New and Review of New Tomoe River Paper
Hobonichi Techo 2026
A new year is approaching, and for us stationery lovers, that means the Hobonichi Techo 2026 pre-view release is here! Let’s take a quick look at their new, unique designs for 2026, featuring exciting collaborations as well as new designs from artists we know and love, such as Yumi Kitagishi, Minä Perhonen, and more!
Official Launch Date: Hobonichi 2026 products will be available on our website on August 31st 7pm PST!
If you’re new to the stationery world, don’t worry, we’ll give you everything you need to know about all their planner options so you can choose the one that fits your needs. Whether you journal, sketch, or plan your day-to-day, Hobonichi Techo 2026 gives you the space to capture it all.
The Hobonichi Techo was first introduced in Japan in 2001 as an experiment to create the perfect planner, balancing practicality and organization in one tool to accompany you every day. Over the years, it became a cultural phenomenon thanks to its thoughtful design, redefining daily planning as a routine you embrace and look forward to.
The main features that make Hobonichi planners standout are:
High-Quality Paper:
Hobonichi planners feature Tomoe River Paper, lightweight yet durable (52gsm), making it half the thickness of regular notebook paper. This thinness keeps the planner compact and portable, even with a page per day.
The paper is also fountain pen friendly, handling ink without feathering or bleed-through, and beautifully showing shading and sheen. For 2026, Hobonichi made a few updates to maintain the paper’s high quality. later in this blog, we’ll try some of our favorite inks on the new paper.
Planner Layouts:
Hobonichi offers a variety of layouts to suit different needs. Their iconic One Page Per Day is used in both the Original and Cousin editions, but they also offer weekly pages, monthly calendars, yearly overviews, and the Day-Free format.
Planner Covers & Accessories:
One of the most exciting features is the wide range of covers and accessories. Each year, Hobonichi releases new designs, often featuring beloved characters or collaborations with artists. You’ll find everything from covers to stickers, pencil boards, decorative tape, and more, offering endless ways to personalize your planner.
Planner Guide
Want to dive into the Hobonichi world or try a new type of planner for this year? Let me give you a quick guide for the options we got!
Original A6
This is their standard iconic design, developed in 2002! It is both lightweight and portable, perfect for travel and to go with you when you move around daily. It features a one page per day layout as well as month-at-a-glance spreads and a yearly overview for long-term goals.
It is compatible with their A6 Techo covers. (Link)
Cousins A5
The Cousins was created with the same format as the original but considering people who need some extra space. It is slightly heavier but still easy to carry and this size is specially good for people who enjoy sketching and long pages of journaling on their Techo. The layout also features one page per day, a vertical weekly spread, monthly calendars and a yearly overview.
It is compatible with their A5 Techo covers. (Link)
Weeks
The slim was made with portability in mind, a slim vertical weekly planner that will fit in any bag or even your pocket! It’s got a weekly overview where the left page has a vertical schedule and the right is a gridded page for all your notes. A perfect planner for minimalist and practical users.
It is compatible with their Weeks Covers. (Link)
HON
This planner is ideal for first time Hobonichi users. It is designed to resemble a normal book and the cover design is already on the planner, easy to open and durable, perfect to open quickly and write on the go. It’s got a one page per day layout and once again the monthly calendars and weekly overviews.
It is available in A5 and A6 sizes, not compatible with covers.
5 Year Techo
This planner allows you to keep 5 years of memories in one notebook. Its unique layout has one page per day but on the left it is split into 5-year columns, letting you keep track of the same day throughout the years and see how everything changes. This planner is ideal for nostalgic people who love memory-keeping or users who like to see their long-term goals unfold.
If you wanna dive deeper into the types of Techos available make sure to check out our previous blog about Hobonichi Techo! An Ultimate Guide for Hobonichi Techo 2025 Planners
New cover & accessory designs
Tamagochi x Hobonichi Techo 2026
This collaboration was a pleasant surprise for me this year. The adorable Tamagochi pets come back to our day to day to make new memories with us, talk about nostalgia!
This new collaboration is probably their biggest one for this year featuring all types of accessories that bring a sense of playfulness to your planning and decorating. I’m especially excited about their new Tamagochi design Techotchi ("Techo" + "Tamagotchi") made in honour of this special collaboration. Isn’t he adorable?!
In this collaboration we have a wide range of products to look forward to, these include of course an A5 and A6 cover, an adorable Weeks planner, a cover on cover for protection and further personalizing and endless accessories such as a pencil board and deco-rush, these little guys will bring joy to every page!
Yumi Kitagishi
This year we got another exciting collaboration with Yumi Kitagishi. This one here is a personal favourite because her attention to detail makes all the covers and accessories stand through the beauty of her illustrations and the stories they tell!
Her A6 cover this year is titled “Table of Decorations” where the individual illustrations are arranged beautifully to represent a tea party with flowers and fun. Her A5 cover on the other hand is organized like a tiny pattern of fun routines which is why it’s called “White Cat’s Daily Life” where u can see fun experiences and wonderful moments represented by these little cats.
The accessories this year are equally as delightful, we got a delicate bookmark to pair up with your planner tying everything together beautifully as well as some more pencil boards sharing the stories the artist wants to tell.
The accessory I got my eye on for this year however is the adorable drawer pouch design, it’s the perfect addition for the Yumi Kitagishi collection and it’s ideal to store your sketching and journaling tools wherever you go and it will pair up perfectly with the cover design!
More Collections & collaborations!
Hobonichi is releasing too many amazing collaborations this year and we could go on forever so make sure you take a look at all the options available when the full release is out, I promise you will fall in love with more than one option.
These are some more of the amazing designs we are expecting for this year. We got Tolight's Garden of Botany with an elegant hand-painted style as well as 100% ORANGE, designed from the picture book Okikoshi. It is fun, playful and cute.
These unique designs and more ensure there’s a Techo to reflect everyone’s style.
New Tomoe River Paper
Alongside the exciting new releases, we were equally as excited to get our hands on the new Tomoe River paper and try out the quality for the 2026 release! We decided to swatch some of our favourite inks in-store to see how they would each preform.
Thank you to our new hire for the amazing swatches! Follow her on Instagram @esunonotto
Here are some of the things we noticed for the new adjustments:
- Paper smoothness remains the same, the nib glides beautifully across the page.
- Minimal bleed through, most inks showed no issues, though we did notice a bit of bleeding with the Octopus swatch.
- Shimmer inks performed beautifully, even in finer nibs and smaller writing.
- Sheening with Pilot ink was subtle, but still noticeable under the right light.
Overall, it was a positive writing experience with no major issues! It’s important to note that Tomoe River Paper is made from natural fibers, so there may be slight variations between batches. You're always welcome to come into the store and test your favorite inks on the new Tomoe River Paper to ensure compatibility.
With all the new covers, collaborations, and the updated Tomoe River Paper, Hobonichi 2026 has us looking forward to all the journaling and sketching. We’d love to hear what you think about this year's releases and which one you are the most excited for! Let’s start planning our year together.
