My first PhD advisor was German, and he introduced me to LAMY pens. Everyone in our lab was given a hardcover notebook and a LAMY pen, and there were plenty of ink cartridges that we could use. I don’t use fountain pens these days, preferring pencil instead, but I remember how nice those pens were.

While I’m on the topic of German stationery, I regularly use my Staedtler eraser and pencil sharpener.

I keep a stable of inked pens. The set is half Japanese, half German all the time. I find Lamy superior for leak resistance and ruggedness, and they're repairable if you manage to damage them also, their tipping is one of the best and fastest polishing/adapting ones if not the best. Japanese ones tend to stay at my desk at home, since they're more delicate writing instruments (except Pilot Metropolitan.That's a tank), but I enjoy them all the same, regardless of their price points and materials.

BTW, if you have not tried Montblanc's Royal Blue give it a chance. That one is "different". Also Scrikss's blue black ink is nice.

The notebook using this paper is called Meteksan Prestige [0]. I don't know if they're exported or not.

[0]: https://www.sarikalem.com/en/meteksan-prestij-bloknot-17x24-...

Notebook looks good, much less expensive than Rhodia or Yu-Sari for 300 sheets of A5, assuming paper quality is as advertised. Priced in dollars although I’m not sure if they actually ship to to the us.

Yeah I never came across those Japanese products given the available German brands, of which there's also Staedtler, Faber-Castell, Stabilo, and Rotring, in addition to those already mentioned.

If anything, I had thought Japan were known to produce fine markers/felt-tip pens.