Hue family · 42 colors · 20 palettes

Blue Color Combinations

Sora, asagi, hanada, ruri, kon — the full Japanese blue spectrum.

Japanese blue is dominated by indigo (ai), the dye that became so culturally central foreign visitors in the late-Edo period named it 'Japan blue'. The dictionary maps every register of indigo from sora (sky) at the lightest to kon (deep navy) at the darkest, with hanada, asagi, ruri, and aizome filling the gradient.