Miniso

  I went to go visit Miniso a couple of days ago because I had heard they were similar/ trying to be similar to Daiso. Miniso has it's own problems (mostly that it's a Chinese store pretending to be a Japanese store but no one cares) but it also is a bit higher quality than usual. Or so I've heard.

  They've got pens. But let me tell you.. I wasn't super impressed with the layout of the pen organization nor the selection. A lot of pens would be either cute cap colors (Zebra Mildliner knock offs) that wrote in black ink or gel pens that were red or blue that wrote in only black ink. The copic knock offs they carry didn't compare at all, but I picked up these two fellas:
 The Miniso Gel Pen in 0.5 black is a Lamy Safari body knock off with an ergonomic grip.
 I really like the ergonomic grip if I'm being honest. While it looks funky and contrasty it feels very comfortable. The ink replacement should be similar to a zebra sarasa, but that one doesn't exactly fit so when the time comes I'll have to dig. But I definitely recommend this as a buy.
                  Designed by Japan (yes, the whole country of Japan), made in China.
 
  For the Aquarelle brush, It's Miniso's answer to the Tombow ABT dual brush pen. I suspected the brush tip was harder but because I did not have any Tombows on me I couldn't check in store. So I picked the most interesting color and took it home. Here's the tip:
 And here's the tip after one mild use:
Not satisfactory. I'd rather pay a bit more for the Tombows, to be frank. The color is fun though as it's a brown grey, but as suspected the tip is slightly harder. It doesn't blend with my other water based markers either so boo.
Overall I spend $2.63 (or something), they were 99 cents a pop. Go for the Lamy knock off if you can find it!

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