@Colin Hislop cool! Mine is different, I think the stripes end a little higher up, and it has a comp approved seal on it instead of recommended. I think it's a pretty old one, I'm not really sure when they started making them but I got mine through ipure.com maybe 5 years ago?
As for now, my fav must be a KenCo dark blue stripe tama with a Trojka Ash Ken, such a great setup, my first ash ken, but now I'm waiting for the delivery of the beautiful Nihon Ash Slaydawg. Hopefully it will slay! I fell in love with ash wood, 78g ken is indestructible! (grain goes vertical, probably that's why there's no chips). By now I can highly recomend Trojkas as jammers ^^ My second fav is HG maple ken on ash tama, great synergy of two paired setups.
I surfed around a little bit and found this: Similar to what you have? I will keep peeking around to see if I can find one or two more patterns that are significantly different.
@Colin Hislop found an old pic of mine! From March 29, 2011: You can see a red roku in the pic as well. The older ones had a different pattern for each colour, it seems like the newer ones are the same pattern on all? I'm not even sure how many generations of them there are though. In the generation pictured below I think there was a blue one as well, but I don't know if there were any beyond that. Also pictured: two metallic blue OG ooz (they didn't have the 'OG paint' though, they're pretty slick), two 90's Sakuras, and an early yumu
I think all of the Rokus I have owned are the newer pattern. I am interested in learning more about the generations of Shin Fujis. A lot of older players have a pretty good understanding of Oozora and Mugen history, but I have never really seen much about these guys! Those are some great pieces you have there! Props to you for keeping them fresh (at the time being). I don't think I own a single fresh kendama now that I think about it.
That pic was when we had just received a shipment from ipure, some of those ended up prizes for KE contests. The three I kept from the photo were all played a fair bit, though not fully thrashed like some others I had. In those days shin fuji probably had the most models out. They had a red, black, blue, and natty. Some pieces are beech, some keyaki, and I think birch for tamas. Their paint kinda sucked... very slick, wears away, doesn't look great. They were the cheapest JKA dama though, so I guess that may have something to do with it. They also had the three rokurosen colours (red, blue, purple), a black with silver stripe, black with gold stripe, a pure gold, and a whole bunch that were striped the colours of various country's flags (maybe 8 of those?). Someone like Ruisch may have a bunch of these in his collection, or maybe Sweets? I have a few shin fujis but not too extensive. My third dama was a black tama keyaki fuji
@htimSxelA They do have some issues with quality control, that's for sure. I like the paint, but I can understand how slick paint that chips away is less than desirable haha! I like the weathered look and the grip from the finish that is left once the clear coat chips away. I had a Jamaican Flag Fuji almost 3 years ago, and I didn't leave a spec of gloss on that thing. I have seen my fair share of yaki's, but never knew that birch was possibly one of the woods used for tamas. http://www.goodsfromjapan.com/national-flag-kendama-p-1197.html I found a photo with 9 varieties of the flags! But part of my thinks there are still a few more. Also, I haven't seen Keyaki Roku's in stock anywhere other than here! That was neat to see!
@Colin Hislop The KE crew used to order from Goodsfromjapan.com all the time! They were always a good spot to get the newest JKA stuff. Checking in now, it looks like the new non-JKA fujis have a lot of new colours. They were one of the best back in the day, along with kendamaworld.com (which has since merged into another larger skilltoy site?). KendamaUSA was also one of the legit spots back in the day, but we actually never ordered from them, since it was international shipping prices either way, and the Japanese sites had slightly better prices.
Try a Tk-16 ken on a striped zen tama. They slay so much with eye tracking and the TKs are so durable.
here comes the Christmas season. I'm really debating on what kendama I want for Christmas, A gt, a sweets pro mod? what are some of your favorite setups? Personally mine are Dwi kendamas and most recently the kaizen craft slim maple.
DWI kendamas are amazing!! They last forever!! I don't recommend there silks though they are not that good. But definitely get one of the sticky af paint kendamas I'm rocking the silver fox rn and its a beast. along with the kaizen slim.
for me i would say DWI is the way to go but we all know that sweets shred. If i need a quick good kendama then i would go for something like the DWI Swamp or Silver fox, but when i have the time you have to pick something like a Birch Homegrown with a Canary Fade cushion tama. Now something like that is legend.
KAIZEN CRAFT!!!! Maple slim is the way to go. I'm waiting for my maple 2.0 to come in the mail soon. so stoked.
I completely agree with you!! I love dwi kendamas and the silver fox is a beast. once its broken in oh my gosh its amazing. Sadly I have never had a homegrown, I was going to finally get one but then the kaizen crafts came out and I just had to cop. Are the spectra homegrowns any good?