Are Muji Pens Good For Drawing And Writing?

With Muji pens becoming more and more popular all over the world, we have noticed more and more people reaching out and asking if Muji pens good and worth having in their stationary kit. We can definitely see why so many people are curious about Muji pens and reaching out with questions about the brand so we have decided to publish this ultimate guide to Muji pens to try and answer as many of the common questions that we see asked on a regular basis.

We hope that our article is going to be able to help any of our readers who are thinking of adding some pens from the Muji range to their collection and answer as many questions about their range as we possibly can. Although many people think that Muji are a Chinese brand and are rightly skeptical about the potential quality of the pens, they are actually a Japanese pen brand and are up there with some of the Japanese stationery giants such as Pilot and Platinum.

Just like the other popular Japanese pen brands on the market right now, Muji has taken a large amount of time and effort to grow their brand and ensure that they are able to keep their costs as low as possible while ensuring that their customers get the best possible quality. As we see so many questions being asked about Muji pens, we have added our table of contents below to try and help our readers get to any specific questions that they may have about the pens without having to waste time skimming the whole article.

Where Can I Buy A Muji Pen?

As the time of writing, the best place to pickup Muji pens is online via sites such as Amazon as they have a large selection of the Muji range available and often offer next day delivery for many of the pens that they offer. Although more and more local stationary stores in North America and Europe are starting to stock Muji pens, they often only have a limited selection and may be sold out due to the popularity of Muji pens.

Are Muji Pens Good For Writing?

As with most things in life, this will depend on the specific pen from the Muji range that you are using for your writing. That said though, unlike some of the competing brands on the market right now who have a specific range for writing and a specific range for drawing, the Muji range tend to do well for both. Even their cheaper gel pens tend to do well when it comes to general writing on a wide range of paper types.

This is one of the main reasons that the Muji pen range has such a good reputation and is becoming more and more popular in the west. No matter the GSM rating of the paper you are using with them, they tend to perform flawlessly and offer you an excellent writing experience with minimal issues.

Are Muji Pens Good For Drawing?

As we just touched on, the Muji pen range tend to be great for both writing and drawing but more and more artists are starting to use Muji pens due to their low price tags and excellent performance when drawing. Their standard gel pens, colored ink gel pens, and Aqueous range have all proven to be big hits amongst artists for drawing and are well worth trying out.

Do Muji Pens Smear?

This is another very common question that we see asked, especially when it comes to gel pens as many gel pen models are notorious for smearing during use. Thankfully though, this is almost always the cheaper, low-quality gel pens or counterfeit versions of more reputable brands such as Muji. Although there is a chance that your Muji pen may smear during use, it is almost always down to user error rather than the performance of the pen.

For example, using low GSM paper is a very common cause of any gel pen brand to smear as the paper tends to take its time to absorb the gel ink and set making it much easier to smear. Thankfully, decent, 120 GSM paper is much cheaper than most people think and often only a small amount more than 60 or 80 GSM paper. Ensuring that you are using paper with a GSM rating of at least 100 is a quick and easy way to reduce the chance of your gel pen smearing no matter what brand you opt to use.

Another common reason that gel pens, the Muji range included may smear is due to the user being left handed and a faster than average writer. This can cause issues due to the left hand moving over the ink before it may have a chance to dry but writing at a slower pace can help to prevent these issues.

Do Muji Pens Bleed, Feather Or Ghost?

In a similar way to the issues with smearing and smudging covered above, Muji pens can bleed and ghost but this is usually down the using low GSM paper when using your pens. If you use decent, 120 GSM paper or even some 100 GSM papers on the market then the chances of bleeding and ghosting when using your Muji pens is drastically reduced by a large amount.

Why Are Muji So Expensive?

In the grand scheme of things, Muji pens really are not expensive when you consider the quality that they offer you for your money. As you have seen throughout our article, the main issue that people run into with gel pens is usually using low-quality pens that are only slightly cheaper than the Muji range. Although they do cost a little more, they tend to be inline with some of the other high-quality gel pens on the market right now when it comes to their price tag.

Do Muji Pens Skip?

We see a large number of questions about pens skipping but more and more people have been specifically asking about gel pens skipping over the last few months. Due to this, we actually have a dedicated article going over how to fix a gel pen that skips to try and help as many of our readers as possible. Please note, skipping can be common for brand new gel pens as well as for gel pens that you have not used in a few weeks due to their design and gel-based inks.

Although this does tend to be more common with cheaper brands of gel pens, it can occur with better brands with great reputations such as Muji too. This is totally normal and to be expected but we would not say that Muji gel pens skip any more than pens from any other brand and the excellent reputation of Muji pens amongst the community is a true testament to this.

How Long Do Muji Pens Last?

This is one of those questions that we see asked on a regular basis about a wide range of pens but there are simply too many factors at play to give an accurate answer. You have to factor in how often you will be using the pen as the more use a pen gets the faster it will run out of ink. Additionally, you have to factor in what you will be doing with the pen as shading can use more ink than writing that can then in turn use more ink and sketching and outline.

A guideline time frame for a Muji pen to last will be three months but again, this is a guideline and the lifespan of the pen will definitely depend on what you are actually planning to do with it and how often. Thankfully, Muji pens are one of the cheapest brands of high-quality gel pens on the market these days so they are easy enough to replace when they do run out of ink.

Is Muji Discontinuing Pens?

This is a question that we have seen asked more and more frequently but Muji are not discontinuing their pens. Although we are unsure, it seems as though the news about Muji redesigning some of the pens in their line-up was misunderstood as Muji discontinuing their range. As they are a Japanese brand and the original press release was in Japanese, it seems that this is just something that was lost in translation.

Is Muji Pen Ink Toxic?

As we touched on back at the start of the article, many people seem to think that Muji are a Chinese pen brand and after the news a few years back about some Chinese pen brands using toxic ink, we have seen a few people asking about the quality of Mujis ink in their pens. As we confirmed earlier, Muji are actually a Japanese pen brand and the Japanese regulations around ink are very similar to the regulations in North America and Europe.

Due to this, Muji use a non-toxic ink in their pens that is perfectly safe to use. Although they keep the exact formula of their ink secret and this is industry standard with all premium pen brands doing the same, it has been tested extensively to ensure that it is not toxic and will not cause any problems.

How Can You Tell A Fake Muji Pen?

Unfortunately, this is becoming harder and harder to do as the fake Muji pens on the market are starting to look more and more like the official Muji range. Some of the older fakes were obvious as the logo on the pen looked nothing like the logo on the real Muji pens and some of the more recent fakes had very low-quality ink helping you work out that the pens you were using were fake. The video below shows some examples of pens purchased from Aliexpress and shows the type of things that you should be looking for in the pens.

Conclusion

That brings our article going over if Muji pens are good to an end. We hope that our article has helped answer any questions that you may have about the Muji pen range as we have tried to cover the most commonly asked questions about the brand and their pens. As we have touched on in the article, some of the issues that people report with the pens are not actually specific to Muji but can occur with any gel pen no matter the brand.