Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Two affiliate links appear on this page, one for each of the book's two versions, and each is placed twice: once in the table of places to buy and once at the end. Both go to Amazon US listings whose featured offer was Hobonichi's own when I read them; one of the two also showed a second seller on 4 October 2026, as noted below. Amazon's prices and stock are not reproduced on this page. How this site works.

Hobonichi Techo 2027 Original, Japanese Edition: Sunday Start, Calendar Notes, and What Is in Japanese

Hobonichi makes its A6 page-a-day book for January 2027 in two languages. The English one has its own file. This page is for someone who cannot read Japanese and is looking at the Japanese one anyway, whether for a week that starts on Sunday or for the Japanese calendar notes.

The Japanese edition comes in two versions, Monday start and Sunday start. Hobonichi sells them from a single product page and tells them apart by the cover: grey text on the Monday book, red on the Sunday book. In the comparison chart of Hobonichi's English type guide for 2027, which sets six types side by side (Original, Cousin, Planner, HON, Weeks and Day-Free), the Japanese-edition Original is the only type shown with a Sunday start. The same guide lists that option twice, for the January book on this page and for an April-start book that this page does not cover.

The short answer. In Hobonichi's photographs of this book, dates are Arabic numerals and the month names and the monthly calendar's weekday headings come in English as well as Japanese. Nearly everything else in print is Japanese: the weekday on a daily page, the old-calendar date, the seasonal notes, the quote at the foot of each day and the short seasonal text that opens each month. If a Sunday week or those printed notes are what you want, this is the edition that has them. If you need to read what is printed, go to the English edition.

Before the rest: I work for a Japanese planner maker, which competes with the makers named on this page; none of them is a customer or a supplier of mine, I have no business with any of them, and I do not use my employer or its products as a source or an example. I have not handled this book. What is below comes from Hobonichi's English and Japanese product pages, its English type guide and bonus-page index, the photographs on its 2027 product page, and two Amazon US listings read under two US ZIP codes, on 3 and 4 October 2026. It is put together from published specifications, not from testing. Where I offer a view of my own, it is labelled.

The two editions, row by row

Everything in this table is Hobonichi's own wording or figures; the last column says which of its English pages each row comes from. Neither column is a verdict on the other.

Four notes on that table.

The calendar notes go one step further on the Japanese page. Hobonichi's Japanese-language product page for this book names two things that the four English pages I read (the English store's page for the same book, the type guide's comparison chart, the type guide's Original page and the bonus-page index) do not spell out. Beside the solar terms it lists 雑節, a further set of traditional seasonal days. Beside the holidays it lists 記念日, commemorative days, and Mother's Day and Father's Day are among its examples. Hobonichi's photographs show one of each: the daily page for 21 October prints 秋土用入, a seasonal day of that kind, and the Monday book's October monthly page has ハロウィーン, Halloween, on the 31st.

US holidays. Those commemorative days are printed in Japanese. US federal holidays that do not fall on a Japanese holiday, Thanksgiving and Independence Day among them, are not in the specification of either edition.

Three of the Japanese-only bonus pages are marked as Japanese text. Hobonichi's English index of bonus pages puts "(Japanese)" after Age Table, Solar Terms and Emergency Preparedness. The Age Table works in Japanese era years and zodiac animals, and the index describes the emergency page in terms of evacuation sites as they are organised in Japan. The index gives no language for the Conversion Chart or for Getting the most of Hobonichi; whether that last one is the same page as the English edition's similarly named one, in another language, Hobonichi does not say. Separately, this edition's product page lists "Useful Sign Language Phrases to Know", which the index also marks "(Japanese)"; the English edition's bonus list, set out in its file, does not have it.

The page totals match although the memo counts differ. The specifications do not say where the two pages go.

What is in Japanese on a daily page

Hobonichi's product page for this book carries five photographs of the inside. I read them on 3 October 2026 and describe only what each one shows.

The opening page for October and the page for 1 October. Nothing in this photograph says which version it is. The opening page is headed with the numeral 10, OCTOBER and the old Japanese month name 神無月. Under the heading ことしの歳時記 are three lines of Japanese; this is the seasonal compendium in the table above, and I am not reproducing or summarising it. The daily page is headed 10, then 1, then 金. That character is the weekday, Friday; the seven weekday characters are set out in the 5-Year Techo's file. Also on the page: the day of the year as a numeral (274), the old-calendar date in Japanese numerals after the character 旧, a moon symbol, a column of hours running from 6 through to 3, a row of checkboxes, and at the foot a quote in Japanese with a line crediting its source.

The spread for 20 and 21 October. Each page has its old-calendar date and its Japanese quote, and the 21st also carries 秋土用入. At the bottom right of the spread is a small month calendar whose weekdays are single Japanese characters, beginning with 月, Monday; from that I take this spread to be from the Monday book, which is an inference. The edge of the page is marked 10.

The two monthly pages and the yearly index. One photograph is the Monday book's October 2027 and one is the Sunday book's; a fifth shows a yearly index, with no version given. I am not describing the monthly page or the index again here. The Day-Free's file goes through an October monthly page and a yearly index from the Day-Free's own photographs, line by line, and what I see in the Monday photograph of this book matches that account: headings in English and Japanese, notes inside the dates in Japanese.

Only the October monthly page is identified as coming from the Sunday book. I have not seen photographs of the yearly calendar, the memo pages or the bonus pages of either version. For those, the specification is all I have.

One opinion, labelled as such: what a Sunday-start buyer gives up for the layout is legibility, not function. On the pages photographed, the date is findable at a glance and the grid is open to write on; the weekday takes seven characters to learn; the rest of the print is there to be read in Japanese or written around.

Monday book or Sunday book

This one is your own habit, not something a page can decide. What a page can do is stop you ordering the wrong one.

• The cover. Grey text is Monday start; red text is Sunday start. Hobonichi says so in three places: its English type guide, its English product page and its Japanese product page.
• The Amazon title. One listing's title ends "January Start, Monday Start, Planner" and the other's "January Start, Sunday Start, Planner". Both have "Japanese" in the title; the English edition's listing, read on 4 October, has "English" in the same place.
• The small calendars follow suit. The specification says the mini month calendar on each daily spread is Monday or Sunday start to match the book.
• The Sunday monthly page. The photograph of the Sunday book shows October 2027 with 日 SUN as the left-hand column, in red, and Saturday at the right.

When to go to the English edition instead

• You want to read what is printed. The quotes, the seasonal page and the calendar notes are in Japanese here. The English Original's file covers the book where the quotes are in English, and it points on to Hobonichi's other English books.
• You want two more memo pages, or the English-only bonus pages. The table above has the counts and the names.
• You do not want holidays on your calendar at all. Hobonichi says the English edition's calendars list none.

If the Sunday start is your whole reason for being here: among the six types in the type guide's chart, only the Japanese-edition Original has it, and among January-start books that means the red-text book on this page. The April-start Japanese Original is also listed with a Sunday version; it runs April 2027 to March 2028 and is not assessed here.

Where it is sold

So on the Sunday listing in particular, read the "Sold by" line before you buy. The seller ID behind Hobonichi's name on both listings was A2HG22EPTK8H5A; what that ID is checked against is described in the English Original's file. Price and stock are on each listing.

The book is made to go inside a cover, and Hobonichi's specification names Original (A6) covers as the fit; one of them is covered in the Colors cover's file.

Not assessed on this page, among others: the April-start Japanese Original, the Avec two-book sets, the ONE PIECE edition, the Japanese-edition Cousin, and any other maker's page-a-day planner. They are listed so you know they were left out, not because they were weighed and found wanting.

Buying it

The same three, in the same order.

→ Hobonichi's own English store, Japanese-edition Original, where one page offers both versions.

→ Monday start (grey cover text) on Amazon US

→ Sunday start (red cover text) on Amazon US

The two Amazon links are paid links. The seller on the day you look may differ from the one I found, so confirm the "Sold by" line, and take the price and stock from the listing.