Long review alert! I hope this review helps other people, so I am attaching a picture I made of the complete color swatch chart. My opinion in short is: these pencils are wonderful. And here are my reason why: they are beautifully crafted in Japan, elegant laquered barrels with gold writing on each of them to indicate the color name, color number, brand name and also "Japan" on each one of the pencils. So the attention for details is just top-notch, which is delightful. The box in itself is a work of art and design: created for you to display your pencils on the table why you are using them, it helps keeping all of them in place and pulling out just the ones you need, protecting the tips since every pencil has its own little "case". The mechanism is genial, and the box opens and closes easily and smoothly with magnets. Important note: at the beginning, due to the long shipping from Japan through to Europe, the box came quite damaged and I was worride for the pencils having been shaken and beaten as well. BUT the Amazon.co.jp Customer Service was just AMAZINGLY helpful and resolved the issue brillinatly and professionally. I need to give them huge credit because it has been the best customer service experience I have ever had with a company, and I can say I am completely satisified and trustful when buying here again! Thank you so much. As for the pencils themselves, which is the main point: I really like them. They are different from any other pencils I have had until now, in the sense that the consistency of the leads and the way they go down on paper is peculiar to them. It is true, like I had heard saying from other people, that they somehow are similar to Faber Castell Polychromos... Or at least, pheraphs FC Polychromos are the most a-like pencils you could pick to help describing the Mitsubishi Uni, I think. The similarities are as follows: firm core and color palette (kind of). And here they end. Aside from that, they are still very different. Both Polychromos and Mitsubishi Uni have really firm leads, which do keep a point very well, and still have a very powerful amount of pigment in them. So, if you like "harder"-leads tipe of pencils, this may be for you. Despite the firmness, there is no doubt to me that Mitsubishi Uni have a great amount of pigment, similar to Polychromos. They also share some similarities in regards to color palette: very beautiful, natural colors, some also matching the name. However, there also also many differences if you compare the two color palettes: Mitsubishi uni pencils feature an arrange of subtle, pastel tones colors (soft violets, lilacs, pale peach colors, a couple pale greens,...) that Polychromos somehow lacks, whereas Polychromos may have more reds, oranges, yellows, earth and portrait tones and different blues and greens. The greens and the purple/violets especially, in the Mitsubishi palette, are worth of note for the beauty and the aboundance of shades, in my opinion. But also browns are interesting, grays offer a great range of variety, and overall throughout the spectrum you can find any colors you may need from very light ones to bold, dark shades. Polychromos do have 120 colors in comparison to Mitsubishi Uni's 100 colors palette. But I find that these latter ones still do not lack any important color, if this was you first and only colored pencils set. They appears to be more opaque than Polychromos, which are notably a translucent kind of colored pencils (when layering). I think if you could afford them, they complement each other color palettes! It may be not a beginner friendly set though. Why? Well, they are indeed demanding to the paper. The paper you are using is very important and may have an impact on the coloring performance of Mitsubishi Uni. I purposely tested them on the most difficult paper I could find on hand: an incredibly smooth, almost slippery sheet of bristol thick cardstock. They still DID perform well, considering the hard test the went through. Most colors went down fairly smoothly, but not as silky and uniformly as Polychromos may have done, to be completly honest. Some colors had a hard time with this paper, showing some tendency to "slip" and struggling to give a unifrom layer of color, with some "speckles" of (maybe?) wax resisting to take on more pigment, here and there. (every artist quality colored pencils do have binders, wax and oils. This does not means at all they are not good artist quality products). I hope I was able to explain somehow. I think you may find them more suitable with a very slighlty toothier paper, not too rough tough. Well, actually, any kind of paper you could find may probably be more suitable than the bristol I thested them on, but this was intentional to show how they did perform on the most difficult ones. I cannot wait to try them on my most beloved papers: Fabriano Drawing, Fabriano Illustration, Canson Exquisse, Strathmore Toned Tan, ecc... I think they would do well even on chep printer paper. I may update the review when I get to try them on it. The have pros and cons, as every artist quality art supplies have, any exception. I am still glad I bought them! I love the quality and would totally buy again ???? I hope I could give you some insight into them, at least from my perspective, to help you make up your mind. They may be for you or may not, depending on what you like to use.
