Mandy Lynn's A5 Planner Showdown: Which One Reigns Supreme?
Hey everyone!
I have a series of videos on YouTube that I’ve called The A5 Planner Showdown. In these videos, I compare the A5 planners for which our stickers are specifically made. This is Part One!
Let’s start by talking about Hobonichi! I am most familiar with the Hobonichi Cousin because I used it for six years!Â
The first option you've probably seen the most is the full-year option: the Hobonchi Techo. This one (below) is the English version. The yearly spreads are at the beginning, followed by the monthly section with all 12 months. Next, there’s the weekly section for all 52 weeks of the year. Lastly, there is a dated daily page for every day of the year, so there can be 365 or 366 pages depending on the year.
Many people have a love/hate relationship with a planner with so many pages, but that is how the Hobonichi Cousin is structured.
2024 was the first year that they came out with the full-year Hon version, which has a hard cover. It's very beautiful, and there are several different design options. The florals are, of course, my favorite! This version is set up the exact same way inside and is available in both English and Japanese.
If you are like me, you love to use stickers in your planner, and carrying around a full year is already heavy enough. The added bulk from stickers makes it all the more so!
If this is a factor for you, you might prefer the Hobonichi Avec. This is a two-book system with January to June in one planner and July to December in another. The layout inside is exactly the same with yearly pages, then monthly, weekly pages, and then the daily pages in the back. The Avec is only available in Japanese at this time.
If all of that is still too much for you, perhaps the Day-Free is your go-to from the Hobonichi lineup. This planner is great for bullet journaling. It has the same yearly and monthly spreads as the other planners.
At the beginning there are yearly spreads, then a year's worth of monthly spreads, and in the back there are blank pages. These are undated daily pages. However, there are only 171 pages, so not quite enough for an entire year. These pages are numbered, which is nice for bullet journaling, enabling you to create an index to keep track of these pages. The thickness is about the same as that of the Hobonichi Avec planners, so it's very thin compared to the full-year Hobonichi Cousin.
Next up, we have the Wonderland 222 Planners. There are a couple of options for Wonderland 222 A5 Planners. The standard layout is the Wonderland 222 Stacked. Until 2024, this was the only weekly layout they offered, but I am not a fan of this because I like having a sidebar and I like my Saturdays and Sundays to have their own column. Recently they released the Wonderland 222 A5 Unstacked. This one does have a sidebar, and Saturday and Sunday each have their own day, which I think is great!
The most significant difference between the Hobonichi and the Wonderland 222 planners is how they are laid out. Instead of a sequence of monthly, weekly, and daily spreads, the Wonderland 222 has monthly spreads inserted amongst the weekly spreads, followed by blank daily pages at the back of the planner.
If you like the Wonderland 222 A5 Unstacked, you also have the option to get an All-In-One. This is essentially a direct competitor to the Hobonichi Cousin full-book option. The All-In-One Planner is significantly thicker. While the normal volume has ninety undated pages at the back, the All-In-One has three hundred and seventy-six. They also have an additional notebook that only contains timed pages in the back if you want to have a two-book system with the planner and a notebook instead of the All-In-One Planner.
Lastly, is the Common Planner by Sterling Ink.Â
Sterling Ink has a full year planner, which is similar to the Wonderland 222 All-In-One or the Hobonichi Cousin which have daily pages in the back for the whole entire year; all 12 months of monthly pages, all 12 months of weekly pages, and a two-book system similar to the Hobonichi Cousin.
They also have the Compact option. The Compact has 12 months of monthly pages, 12 months of weekly pages, and 121 blank pages at the end. These are my favorite pages. They don’t have any writing, except for the page numbers, no Japanese quotes like the Hobonichi Cousin, and they’re not dated like the Hobonichi Cousin. They don’t have a pre-printed timeline like the Wonderland 222, they're just blank!
Which of these three is your favorite?
Until next time!
~Mandy
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