What's your favorite JKA setup? It doesn't matter if it was just recommend seal or discontinued and why! Mines got to be the Yellow Ozora for the best contrast for spotting the tama hole and usually bit more grippier paint.
For a while I REALLY loved my maple ozora ken with a maple keyaki tama. The contrast between the woods made for a gorgeous look and it played amazing.
Toss up between yellow ozora, natty TK, and red mug. Yellow because my friends who got me started on dama always talked about the godly powers of the yellow. Natty TK because it was my first TK, it's super durable, and the slings are always crazy. Red mug because I like teal seals and red tamas
My favorite JKA set up that I have actually played/own is a red TK-16. I really like how the birch ken broke in over time and the paint eventually got broken in where there was a good amount of grip and slip.
Ozora and TK kens always seem so slay slingers and kenflips so I usually toss one of them on a tama with good tracking and have a perfect jammer
I love shin fujis. I've played so many because I always beat them up. but only the beech ones(the reason I have so many is cause the mall I go to sells them) and tk's are sick too
Only have 2 right now. But I love my Ozora, just a basic single color (green) current. My TK-16 is amazing too, not sure which to pick at this early stage! Would love to try some others like shin fuji too!
I actually just gave away my Shin Fuji but it was a great kendama. My brother wanted to learn how to play and I thought that would be a great starting ken because it wasn't broken in too much and I had it strung up for a right handed person. All around I highly recommend Shin Fuji... kendamasyndicate.com has them for $10 right now