The 2015 Japan National Yo-yo Contest comes to an end with mind-blowing freestyles, and some surprises among the winners!
Videos courtesy of yoyovideoarchive!
1A Division – 1st Place – Takeshi Matsuura
In 1A, Takeshi Matsuura retains the National title with yet another superb mastery of slack tricks! Yusuke Otsuka, who’s been better every year, finished second, followed by three of the best players from the new generation: king of 44FESTA Yamato Murata, and C3yoyodesign’s duo Ryuichi Nakamura, and Shion Araya.
2A Division – 1st Place – Takuma Yamamoto
2A also saw last year’s champion retain his title, with Takuma Yamamoto finishing with a four-point lead even after shedding two points to yo-yo stoppage. Shu Takada scored an incredible 38.5 out of 40 in evaluation scores and finished second, followed by living legend Shinji Saito.
3A Division – 1st Place – Tomoya Kurita
The biggest upset of the contest was in 3A, where current World Champion Hajime Miura was unable to present his usual consistency and finished in fourth place! The winner, Tomoya Kurita, had a couple of great bangers and pretty good trick volume, giving him the edge over runner-up Mizuki Takimoto and 2010 World Champion Minato Furuta.
4A Division – 1st Place – Rei Iwakura
Rei Iwakura trampled over all the other 4A contestants with yet another superb freestyle! His evaluation score? 38.7 out of 40! Naoto Onishi was the runner up, over ten points behind Rei, followed by former World Champion Tsubasa Onishi.
5A Division – 1st Place – Hideo Ishida
5A was up for grabs this year, with neither Takeshi Matsuura or Takuma Inoue competing. Hideo Ishida, who had finished third a few times before, was the clear winner, even with some loss of control during his freestyle. Sora Ishikawa displayed his usual repertoire of bangers, but was hurt by lower trick volume and a -3 deduction for not returning the yo-yo to the hand at the end of the freestyle.
With the World Yo-yo Contest approaching fast, players worldwide are now aware of what to expect from the home field contestants, and Japanese players had the chance to experience the venue that will host the contest in August!
Check the full results below!
1A
- Takeshi Matsuura
- Yusuke Otsuka
- Yamato Murata
- Ryuichi Nakamura
- Shion Araya
- Akitoshi Tokubuchi
- Tatsuya Fujisaka
- Kazuki Okada
- Ryota Ogi
- Masahiro Terada
- Iori Yamaki
- Toru Miyazaki
- Hirotaka Akiba
- Toya Kobayashi
- Atsunori Tanimoto
2A
- Takuma Yamamoto
- Shu Takada
- Shinji Saito
- Tomoyuki Kaneko
- Hiraku Fujii
- Arata Imai
- Shunsuke Kawakami
- Ryo Yamashita
- Shuhei Kanai
- Toshiaki Onuma
- Kiwamu Ebata
3A
- Tomoya Kurita
- Mizuki Takimoto
- Minato Furuta
- Hajime Miura
- Yuki Fujisawa
- Yasuki Tachibana
- Taiichiro Higashi
- Ryosuke Ito
- Yuto Yamaguchi
4A
- Rei Iwakura
- Naoto Onishi
- Tsubasa Onishi
- Hajime Miura
- Takumi Yasumoto
- Kazuaki Sugimura
- Futoshi Maruyama
- Yuki Uchida
- Tsubasa Takada
- Shinya Muraki
- Teppei Hino
5A
- Hideo Ishida
- Sora Ishikawa
- Naoya Takeuchi
- Takayuki Kuriyama
- Naoki Uemae
- Ryotaro Morimoto
- Yoshihiro Abe
- Yuto Yamaguchi
- Masahiro Tsuburaya