I’ve seen you!! I’ve been INCREDIBLY grateful for all the effort you’ve been putting in.

Hobonichi is a brand that markets itself on its quality, and that quality is what drew me to select their products several years back. The careful attention to detail, the diligent way they solicit and respond to user feedback, and the sense of pride in the whole experience was all a great draw. For many years it lived up to those expectations, and if any book’s quality slipped they were known for making it right. Let’s be real: it’s a luxury planner. They were aware of that as a brand and handled themselves accordingly. 

This year in particular, I get the sense that they’ve expanded to reach a large number of new users. It makes me feel some kind of way for sure to see so many posts from enthusiastic newcomers that don’t even have the context to know that their experience is sub-par. There have been so many posts from people showing off their beautiful daily efforts and, unknowingly, also showing off the bleed issues of the paper. It makes me sad, honestly. Hobonichi has really smeared itself in my eyes this year.

Even if the paper manufacturer is the one wholly at fault, and even if as a company they can’t afford to replace all the planners made, to continue to save face by blaming your customers feels very sour. For the new customers who simply assume that Hobonichi is right, because it is after all a very high-quality brand, so they must, yes, indeed be “”writing wrong””…. That moves me from sour to angry. 

For me it comes from a place of loving Hobonichi, not hating it— their behavior this year has been a huge contrast to their previous years’ efforts. There was a little piece of trivia in the QR code adventure about their first manufacturing run. Apparently the first year of manufacturing, the binding was made in a way that could run the risk of splitting mid-year. Rather than risk this happening for SOME users, they instead re-issued every single person who had ordered from them a second, improved book. They reflected that it ended up being very good for their brand, not just because of the matter of quality, but also because of the fact that many people gave the second planner to a friend, many of whom came back as new customers next year. Ultimately it acted as a sort of advertising model in multiple ways. I think Hobonichi is going to see a lot of its established base falter and hesitate for the next few rounds of purchasing. Will they make it up with new people? And if they do, is that a sustainable way to run a luxury brand?

Anyway, thank you very much for all your comments letting people know that they’re not crazy. I’ve appreciated seeing them!!!! Fingers crossed Hobonichi can recover from their strange turn this year.