Ryosuke Kawamura posted a great video from the most recent 44Festival event, showcasing exactly what you’d expect from a contest like this: great tricks and loads of fun!
RK Presents: Yuuki Nishisako
Ryosuke Kawamura brings us some more fresh talent! Yuuki Nishisako had a pretty good freestyle at the most recent 44Festival contest too (posted below for your viewing pleasure), and he definitely seems like a player to watch out for!
Yoyo used is the Axis Pulsefire.
YoyoRecreation presents 44FESTIVAL
44FESTIVAL, the freestyle contest brought to you by the good folks at 44FESTA, with support from yo-yo clubs from all over Japan, was held on March 20th and 21st, presented by YoyoRecreation.
The contest is not part of the official Japanese contest calendar, and the objective is bringing all those yo-yo clubs and putting together an event organized by players for the players.
Regional contests (44FESTIVAL East and 44FESTIVAL West) were held in October and December last year, respectively, with winners guaranteeing a seed to this event.
Day 1
Prelims were held on the first day, along with performances from DJs Roan (Hiro Irifune) and Koichiro Ueta.
Judging was in good hands, with very experienced judges taking care of both technical and performance scores.
Tech. judges: Ryosuke Kawamura, Takao Morioka, Naoya Takeuchi, Hiro Irifune
Performance judges: Master Kenichi Nakamura, Ryusei Saito, Jun Mikami, Jun Aramaki
In addition to the preliminary round, a trick showcase and the now obligatory after party were held after the freestyles.
Day 2
Finals day was packed, and all eyes were on the competitors, who did not disappoint! The contest is not divided into the usual 1A-5A divisions, and all players compete together instead, which makes for a very interesting and slightly unpredictable event!
A few years ago, such a contest would be heavily biased towards 1A and 2A players, but with all divisions reaching such a high level and maturity, it’s no surprise that the top places were not from either of those! Check the full results below:
- Hajime Miura
- Hideo Ishida
- Yamato Murata
- Toru Miyazaki
- Takumi Hakamata
- Yuuki Nishisako
- Yamato Fujiwara
- Akira Kato
- Daiki Tanaka
- Tsubasa Onishi
You can check all of the freestyles on this playlist.
The winner and his sweet prize bag!
44FESTIVAL comes to and end, but Masanobu Iwata and the fantastic folks at 44FESTA and the yo-yo clubs from around Japan are already hard at work putting together their next meetings and events. If you’re in Japan, be sure to attend any of those great events and thank the organizers for all the effort and love they put into their local events!
Hajime Miura @ 44Festival
World YoYo Champion Hajime Miura has been enjoying some popularity on the interwebs lately, since his winning 2016 routine got stolen and re-uploaded by every single content-jacking account on Facebook and then spread far and wide. Raise your hand if you’ve had at least a half-dozen people post it on your timeline and ask you “Have you seen this!?”
Yep. Same here.
So, as long as we’re all thinking about Hajime and how sweet and awesome that kid is, we might as well enjoy his latest routine, fresh from 44Festival in Japan.
Yoyos used are the Something Phaser.
Ryosuke Kawamura Presents: 44Festival East
Here. Here is a three minute and fourteen second explanation of why we should all move to Japan.
Too. Damn. Good!
Check out the latest from 44Festival, another killer contest in Japan that brings out some amazing talent.
44Festival: 44FESTA meets yo-yo clubs!
What a formidable scene! 44FESTA went the extra mile on March 8th for the annual 44Festival, teaming up with some of Japan’s best yo-yo clubs for an amazing freestyle contest!
Each of the following yo-yo clubs sent their brightest young talents (and the not-so-young Pon) to the contest:
- 403YOYOCLUB from Miyagi sent Makoto Yoshida
- Tsudanuma Renshukai from Chiba sent Kazuki Morii
- Akabane Renshukai from Tokyo sent Takumi Shirasaki
- Yamato Yo-yo Circle from Tokyo sent Takumi Yasumoto
- Meisei Renshukai from Aichi sent Hiroyasu “Pon” Ishihara
- Iwata Renshukai from Shizuoka sent Shinji Toyoda
- 800YOYOCLASS from Kanagawa sent Kento Muraoka and Toru Miyazaki
- 44FESTA from Kanagawa sent Naoki Uemae
A brief demo by 1A legend Hiroyuki Suzuki was followed by a 28-player preliminary round to choose the finalists joining the club seeds.
These are the final results, click the names to watch the freestyles!
- Shunsuke Kawakami
- Takumi Yasumoto
- Hajime Miura (doing 4A!)
- Shu Takada
- Shota Saga
Click here to watch all of the freestyles and demos!
The next edition of 44FESTA will be held on April 19th! With the World Yo-yo Contest in Tokyo quickly approaching, we can be sure the entire country is more than excited, and every event in Japan this year will certainly attract players looking for every opportunity to practice their freestyles!
44Festival Video
44Festival just got videos up from their latest event and daaaaaaaaamn are we jealous we couldn’t be there! There is just an absurd amount of talent in Japan, but just look at this Top Five. Seriously amazing. Be sure to head over to the 44Festa YouTube channel for the rest of the freestyles…there’s SO much good stuff there!