The Kokuyo Sketch Book is a Japanese classic with a cult following. In Japan, this style of notebook is known as Sokuryo Yacho:

Sokuryo Yacho = surveying field book, Literally Means A “Surveying Field Notebook.” 
It’S Often Simply Called “Yacho” By Our Loyal Users.

You could compare it to the government issue Memorandum notebooks used by the US military, or engineering field books– the Kokuyo Sketch Book and similar Level Book and Transit Book versions were originally issued by the Japanese government to employees working on civil engineering projects. They were first made in 1959, and the company celebrated the 60th anniversary this year with limited editions:

Like Field Notes, the various limited edition and branded partnership designs of Kokuyo Sketch Books have become very collectible. People customize them with decorations, add elastic closures, and put them in protective covers. Here are a few of the many variations I’ve spotted on Instagram:

If you want to see more, search the tag #野帳 for “field notes,” and #測量野帳 for “survey note book”

Back to the notebook itself in its basic form, the Kokuyo Sketch Book is 3.75 x 6.5″, and about a quarter inch thick. This makes it a great size for a jacket pocket, if not for the back pocket of jeans. The slimness of it is very appealing. The green cover has a slight fabric-like texture, and the gold stamped “Sketch Book” title gives it a very retro look. It is a hard cover– not as thick a cardboard as a Moleskine cover, but it still doesn’t have much flex to it, and seems quite sturdy. You can bend it back on itself without the spine breaking. The corners are sharply squared off, with a fair amount of cover overhang. Those who are longtime followers of this site know I’m always griping about wide cover overhang on notebooks, (purely for my own aesthetic preferences and unrelated to function) but I’ve realized that my objection to it really depends on the proportions of the notebook– the thinner the notebook, the less it bothers me, and on this notebook the overhang doesn’t bother me at all.

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The Kokuyo Sketch Book not only opens flat, but it will lie flat by itself. Inside the notebook, the endpapers are plain white other than a barcode inside the back cover. Then you have 80 pages of squared paper. The light blue grid lines are spaced at 3mm, which is noticeably smaller than you’ll find in most notebooks, which are 5mm. The only other notebook I can think of with an even tinier grid is the Kleid 2face Notebook, also from Japan.

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The paper weight is not specified but it feels smooth and relatively light. Some wetter pens bleed through quite a bit, and show-through is about average. I would call this notebook semi-fountain pen friendly. There was almost no feathering, but there were small spots of bleeding with most fountain pens, more noticeably with wetter pens. If you use finer nibs and drier inks, you will probably be fine.

I bought this notebook for $5.00 at Yoseka Stationery in Queens, NYC. I haven’t seen them for sale in too many other places, but I believe Goods for the Study carries them. I thought I had seen them at Kinokuniya a while ago, but they haven’t had them the last few times I’ve visited. Online, you can get a 10-pack on Amazon for only $19.99. The Level Book is available as a single copy, only $4.82 with free shipping. JetPens doesn’t carry them, strangely. At Baum-Kuchen and Nomado Store, you can get a snazzy Superior Labour-branded version.

I really love the Kokuro Sketch Book– the classic styling and the practical durability make it a winner. And the slim 80 page format makes you want to line 100 of them up on a shelf. But I am trying to figure out how I’d use it. My only problem with it is the size– I like it, but I am so wedded to my favorite 3.5 x 5.5″ size, it’s hard to use anything else in my daily carry. If Kokuyo made a smaller 3.5 x 5.5 ” version of the sokuryo yacho, I would find it irresistible!