Five Years In One Book

The Hobonichi 5 Year Techo is A LIFE BOOK that chronicles 5 years of your life.

It’s very easy to use the 5-Year Techo. All you need is a single sentence: what you ate, where you went, who you met, the weather, a flower you found blooming, or a casual chat you had with someone. Even if you do very little on a daily basis, collecting these entries for one, three, five years creates a one-of-a-kind book that is yours alone - one that’s a joy to read back through.

The book has pages dated across a 5-year span. The textured cover is a calming shade of brown with the years foil-pressed in gold, and the book contains a dark brown bookmark for a complete look that works well without adding an additional cover.

Each page contains the same, easy-to-use 3.7 mm graph paper as the A6 Hobonichi Techo Original, making it perfect for writing or drawing. The paper is a subtle cream color that’s easy on the eyes, and the printing is charcoal gray to allow handwriting to stand out from the page.

On each spread, the left page has the date and day of the week for all 5 years, with days of the week written in Japanese.

Because each page contains a total of 5 days, a single day’s entry is compact enough to either fill with writing or write a single sentence and feel satisfied with the entry. It’s a perfect setup for those who are worried about being able to continue using a book for 5 years. (Holidays are not listed in the book.)

The right page is a blank page for anything you’d like — continuing entries you couldn’t fit on the left, jotting notes you’d like to leave for the future, pasting items, and more. The Japanese daily quotes on the bottom of the page are excerpts from Hobo Nikkan Itoi Shinbun articles from the past years. We renewed the daily quotes from the 2023 edition, five years after its first release.

The book has the same thread-stitch binding as a dictionary, allowing it to lay flat open for comfortable writing. It stays flat even if you don’t hold it down.

The book uses thin and light yet durable Tomoe River S paper. The paper has supported the Hobonichi Techo for over 20 years with its special characteristics, but it has undergone an overhaul starting with the 2024 edition techos. The paper is more resistant to bleed through, lighter despite being the same thickness, and has a smoother surface by adjusting the fibers of the paper.

The start of the book contains a yearly calendar across the 5-year span. The back of the book contains useful pages such as “A Year Per Page” memo pages, “Gifts” for tracking gifts given and received, “Addresses” to list important contact information, “My Lists” for making a list of any theme of your choice, “My Favorite Things” to write down your favorite things by answering questions, and “Personal Notes” to record information about yourself. (These pages are in Japanese.)

BOOK DETAILS

• Size A6 measures 6.0" x 4.4" | 153 mm x 113 mm
• Size A5 measures 8.4" x 6.1" | 214 mm x 156 mm
• 752 pages
• Thin, light Tomoe River S paper resistant to bleeding and designed for planners
• Stitch binding for strength and flexibility
• Graph paper size 3.7 mm
• Yearly calendar 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028
• Daily pages Jan. 1, 2024 - Dec. 31, 2028
• One quote per two-page spread (Japanese)
• Yearly Memo Page / Remember This / Gifts / Addresses (for 6 people) / My Lists / My Favorite Things / Personal Notes
• 2 ribbon bookmarks
• PVC cover with the dates foil stamped in gold

When you reach a day in subsequent years, you can see the previous entry on the same page. This is a message from your past self. It’s like having a conversation with yourself that transcends time and space.

Scripted into these pages is a life story only you can tell. Spend a little bit each day enjoying time to write.

Explore the entire 2024 Hobonichi Techo Lineup Here Hobonichi Techo Lineup 2024