Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Eight affiliate links appear on this page: four Amazon US listings, one for each ruling, each linked twice. None of the four was sold by the maker when I read them on 28 September 2026, and the brand's US store, linked twice and first, earns this site nothing. Amazon's prices and stock are not reproduced on this page. How this site works.
MD Notebook A5 (Formerly Midori MD): The Brand's US Store, and Item Codes on Amazon US
If you have been looking for the Midori MD Notebook, the brand has changed. The notebook series that sat under Midori, a brand of the Japanese stationery company Designphil, is now sold under a brand of its own, MD PRODUCT. Its US store puts it this way in its FAQ: "Originally part of the MIDORI™ brand as a notebook series, MD PAPER PRODUCTS is now an independent brand renamed to MD PRODUCT…" Asked whether the paper is the same, it answers: "The paper quality remains unchanged and the same MD PAPER is used."
For a buyer in the United States that leaves two questions, and this page answers both from the brand's own pages and from Amazon US listings, read on 28 September 2026. Where can you buy it with the brand's support behind the purchase, and how do you tell which Amazon listings carry the item codes the maker lists for the A5 today? The short version: the brand's US store says returns and after-sales support are available only for purchases made through that store, and none of the Amazon listings I read was sold by the maker; the maker's A5 codes are 15384006 to 15387006, one per ruling.
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. Nothing on this page comes from my own use of the notebook, and nothing here is about how the paper feels. Where I offer a view of my own, it is labeled.
If you are choosing a planner rather than a notebook, the planner guide comes first.
The brand's US store
The maker's Japanese site links to a US store, MD PRODUCT USA, as its "USA Online Store". The Japanese store says it does not ship abroad or to overseas forwarding agents. What the US store's pages said on 28 September 2026:
- Price. The A5 notebook was listed at $14.40.
- Shipping. Orders go by USPS or FedEx, after "5-7 business days for order processing". The A5 page offers free shipping at "$75 or more"; the shipping policy says "over $75 (excluding sales tax)". Below that, the cost is "calculated at checkout", and I did not go through a checkout, so I cannot tell you what one notebook costs delivered.
- Returns and support. The store's return policy: "Unopened items may be returned within 30 days of purchase if shipped within the U.S." Opened or used items are not eligible. And: "Returns and after-sales support are available only for purchases made through our official online store." That sentence sets out the store's own returns and support; it says nothing about Amazon's.
- Receipts. "We do not include an itemized receipt with shipments."
Here is my reading, as an opinion rather than a finding: if having the brand to go back to matters to you, the returns-and-support point is the reason to buy from its store.
Matching an Amazon listing to the maker's codes
The maker's Japanese page gives the A5 the same specification in each ruling: MD PAPER for the cover and the pages, thread-stitched, in a glassine wrapper, with a bookmark string and index stickers; 210 × 148 × 10 mm; 176 pages; about 258 g; page paper of 80 g/m²; made in Japan. (The US store gives the size as 8.3 × 5.8 × 0.4 in.) Each ruling has its own item code.
As read on 28 September 2026, these are the Amazon US listings whose titles carry each code. For each of the four, I read the all-offers panel under ZIP 10001 and the "Sold by" line under ZIP 90012; neither named Designphil or MD PRODUCT.
| Ruling, in the maker's terms | Maker's item code | Amazon US listing whose title carries that code |
|---|---|---|
| Blank | 15384006 | ASIN B0G5NCXWRR → MD Notebook A5, blank |
| Lined, 7 mm, with a slightly bolder center line | 15385006 | ASIN B0G5P17G8F → MD Notebook A5, lined |
| Grid, 5 mm, with subtle spacing between lines, based on Japanese manuscript paper | 15386006 | ASIN B0G5NN1PVM → MD Notebook A5, grid |
| Dot grid, 5 mm spacing | 15387006 | ASIN B0G5NXKGBB → MD Notebook A5, dot grid |
All four are paid links. The ruling is yours to choose; the table does not favor one. A listing title is written by whoever lists the item, so a code in a title tells you what the listing claims to be, not who made the listing. Three of the four titles also carry a letter, "B", after the ruling; I found nothing from the maker on what the letters mean.
Other codes on Amazon. The same searches turned up MD Notebook listings whose titles carry other codes: 15293006, 15294006 and 15295006, each followed by "A", and 15003006. The maker's current A5 page does not list those codes, and I found nothing from the maker on how they differ from the ones above, or whether they do. I link only to listings carrying the maker's current codes, because those are the ones I can match to the maker's page.
What the seller check can and cannot show here
The Hobonichi Original's file describes a check that ends by matching the seller ID on a listing to the Amazon storefront the maker itself names. Only the first part of it works for this notebook: reading the "Sold by" line and the seller ID behind it. There is nothing to match them against. MD PRODUCT's US store, searched for "amazon" on 28 September 2026, named no Amazon storefront, and none of the listings above was sold by the maker. So on Amazon you can see who is selling to you, but not confirm it against the brand.
Left out of this page: the other MD Notebook formats (the brand also sells a 1 Day 1 Page, a Cotton and a Thick notebook in A5), the other sizes, the five A5 covers the maker names, and other makers' notebooks. Buying from a Japanese store through a forwarding service is not covered either; the general routes are in the guide to buying from Japan, and the maker's Japanese store says it will not ship to forwarding agents.
Where to buy
From the brand, with the returns and support its store describes: → [MD Notebook [A5] at MD PRODUCT USA](https://md-product-usa.com/products/md-notebook-a5) (not an affiliate link).
On Amazon US, the listings carrying the maker's current A5 codes, none of them sold by the maker when I read them on 28 September 2026:
- Blank, 15384006: → MD Notebook A5, blank
- Lined, 15385006: → MD Notebook A5, lined
- Grid, 15386006: → MD Notebook A5, grid
- Dot grid, 15387006: → MD Notebook A5, dot grid