Iroshizuku inks are very high quality and outstanding. This is a lighter blue/black than many, and allows the blue to show. If you want something very dark, this may not be the one. But if I wanted something that dark, I would probably just get black.

The ink is amazing! The color is just right for me. It can be used in professional settings, daily writing abs best of all, it will not mess up the fountain pen. The ink flows superb!!

I have been using primarily blue-black inks for most of my nearly 60 years of using fountain pens. Does Scrip bottled blue ink ring a bell, anyone? Quink, Noodler's, Diamine blue-black inks followed.
This is my first bottle of Pilot ink, and I am adoring it.

Hands down, my favorite ink. This ink flows very smoothly and does not skip until the barrel is on its last drop. I use an Edison pen with a fine, Italic tip for everyday writing and have consistently had superior results with this ink. A classic blue-black that does not fade.

You can never go wrong with iroshizuku.

I CANNOT WAIT TO USE THIS COLOR AND SHOCK ALL MY COLLEAGUES WITH MY SELECTION AND SHADE.

If I must enter text here I will, but intend only to rate the snorkel 5 stars. I should have been able to do that with one tap.

This ink is magical. It goes on the page as a rich medium blue but dries to a vintage looking dusty blue reminiscent of Rohrer and Klingner Salix. Nice shading too. It is one of my favorite blues.

A pleasure to order from! website easy to navigate and got exactly what I wanted.

At least with my pens (e.g., a Pilot Custom 823 with nib in Smoke) the writeout is much more like a smokey blue than a deep blue/black.

As always, you can't go wrong with Iroshizuku ink. This is a great blue black.

I love Pilot Iroshizuku inks. And this is no exception. The color is a really nice blue-black (more blue) and it is wet! It takes a little longer to dry, but I am using it with a Broad nib. So I am putting a lot of ink down of the Rhodia paper. The color is lovely. Great for work, or whatever. No bleeding, no feathering. It's very well behaved. I can't believe I didn't get this sooner!

This is an interesting blue ink. In the bottle it looks insanely intensely blue. It goes onto paper bright blue initially, then as it dries it turns a stately slate blue. There is some shading on most papers, especially with broader nibs. Like many Iroshizuku inks, the flow is generous and lubricated. If your pen doesn't write freely with this ink, it's not working properly! It is wet even in drier nibs. This is a little bit different blue-black ink that would certainly be suitable for professional use.

These are the types of ink I love, they can be a bit of a chameleon. The color is a what I would call a dusty blue. You get fantastic effects with just standard writing. The shading on letters shows up in pretty much any light, with any writing style. It isn't quite dark enough of a blue to get by using it as a blue ink as on a professional or legal document though; it has a bit too much purple in it. It does stand out on the page visually. It's one of those inks that depending on where you are and even the mood you are in can seem to shift colors between blue and purple.

This is my go-to ink for testing pens. It writes so smoothly and flows easily (but not too runny) from the pens. I use this ink in my Pelikan 800 demonstrator. Other inks sometimes leak. The color is a well balanced blue-black, which is what I prefer to legal documents.

Pilot Iroshizuku was one of the first inks that I have ever owned, and will likely be a recurring member of my collection should I ever use up the mammoth 50mL bottle that I purchased. I currently have the Shin-Kai loaded into my TWSBI Eco (F) and it is an excellent writing experience. The color of it is certainly a blue-black, and what blue in it is more of a deep, royal blue.As far as the actual behavior of it goes, this is my go-to 'dependability' ink. I can rest assured that whatever I write with Shin-Kai will be okay in most cases (besides exposure to water, which causes a great deal of feathering to occur even in small amounts of exposure). I even trusted this ink with my AP exams in high school, writing lengthy essays on multiple pages of notoriously poor-quality recycled paper with no issues whatsoever. I believe that Shin-Kai, or another member of the Iroshizuku clan should they behave similarly to this one, would do well to be present in the collection of anyone with a fountain pen, whether a collector or not. It is good fun to have brightly colored, sheening/sparkling inks, but in the end, it is worthwhile to have a steady, reliable ink there too.

Gorgeous medium black-blue (deep sea) color that looks perfect in my light blue Decimo. I had bought Pilot Iroshizuku Ama-iro (sky blue) ink for this pen; however, this color is a better fit.

This ink has given me what normal blue ink used back in high school could never give--dignity and confidence. The blue-black hue has a je n'est ce pas quality that has to be experienced. I compared it in another pen with another blue, Diamine Midnight Blue, and I couldn't wait to empty out the Diamine. I now have an EF and a stub nib TWISBI 580 loaded with this for different writing purposes. Well worth the extra cost.

Amazing results. The shading is incredible! The color is so easy on the eyes. The ink flows beautifully from my 20+-year-old Mont Blanc and dries plenty fast enough, so that I've never seen a smudge even as a lefty.

Excellent value for the money

Iroshizuku is great ink and always well behaved. This is more of a grey blue black.

i wanted vivid blue balck ....but this ink is somewhat grayish blue black

My very first fountain pen (a gift from a friend) came with a small bottle of this ink, and I have used it up. Although spilling iced tea on paper covered with notes in fountain pen (let's be serious, most pens) is a terrible idea, when I did that a couple of weeks ago, I could still read the underlying letters made with this ink. What more can i say -- I love it's durability and the color.

One of my favorite blue-black inks

Iroshisuku is incredible ink, rich deep colors, fantastic presentation, inking up from one of their bottles is like a ritual, the color of the inks on the underside of the caps is something else. The writing experience is fantastic, shin KAi is a fantastic hue, I need to get a green to go with it Still one of the best presented and best writing inks out there

My first Pilot ink, I can't echo enough the other comments about quality, consistency, and beauty. This ink works perfectly with every nib I've tried, and while it's a bit pricy you get a ton of it, and it's darn good.Shin-Kai is a beautiful stormy grey-blue color, great for work applications or for writing that's a bit "moody." Out of a dozen inks it's almost always in rotation in a daily carry.

Great ink. Packaged very well. I plan to buy another color of this brand.

Very smooth and a truly great color

I've been looking for a while for a good blue-black ink, since I was used to the old Waterman blue-black, but wanted a lubricated ink for use with my Pilot Metal Falcon SEF. This does the trick--the ink is a rich, dark blue, and the pen glides over the paper surface with little snag or feedback. This ink deserves a higher profile in the Iroshizuku lineup.

This is my favorite Iroshizuku ink, and one I use nearly every day. It has no shading, sheening, or sparkling, it simply performs well with excellent read-back. It is everything I want in a business appropriate blue-black ink, and is one that I always find myself coming back to. This ink does not get the attention it deserves, I recommend giving it a try!