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Hidemasa Senba Wins East Japan B!

February 4, 2012 By Rafael Matsunaga

Hidemasa Senba, Duncan Crew Japan’s most creative mind won this year’s East Japan B-block Yo-yo Contest in a competition with incredibly close scores! Senba won with a final score of 71.6, followed by Keita Kido, with 71.5, and YoyoFactory’s Reiki Sekiya, with 71.3! Sekiya had the highest score, but 3 negative penalty points put him in 3rd place.

Unlike EJ-A and CJ, there were plenty of contestants in all divisions. A lot of new faces were seen but in addition to 1A, 4A also saw several contest veterans, including World Champions Naoto Okada and Tsubasa Oonishi, with Okada coming out on top.

These are the top finishers for each division:

1A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rXDRE2W7SM

Hidemasa Senba
Keita Kido
Reiki Sekiya
Naoto Okada
Tarou Komari
Daiju Nakamura
Yuuto Yamaguchi
Masaya Takagi
Ryusuke Kawamura

2A

Tomiyuki Kaneko
Shunsuke Kawakami
Kazuki Yoshida
Koichiro Ueta

3A

Yuuki Kurimisawa
Yuuto Yamaguchi
Ryousuke Ito

4A

Naoto Okada
Yuuichi Tominaga
Tsubasa Oonishi
Kenji Eto

5A

Takafumi Endo
Arata Suzuki
Tatsunori Yoshiba

2012 Japan Yo-yo League Kicks Off: Takeshi Matsuura Wins 1A at East Japan A

December 8, 2011 By Rafael Matsunaga

The 2012 Japan Yo-yo League officially started last weekend with the East Japan A Block Contest in Tokyo!

EJ has traditionally been a very strong regional contest, with the main Japanese competitors taking part. This year the contest was divided into two blocks, A and B. Block B will be held in Ichikawa City, in February.

In the A Block, Yoyojam’s prodigy and 5A World Champion Takeshi Matsuura surprised onlookers by winning the 1A division, ahead of YoyoRecreation’s Takahiro Iizuka, in 3rd, and Kento Noda, in 2nd. Is Takeshi Matsuura, who has won Japan Nationals in both 3A and 5A before, now aiming for the 1A title as well? Also worth noting is that 1A was the only division Takeshi competed in at EJ-A.

The winners in the other divisions were veteran Shuhei Kanai in 2A, Ken Takabayashi in 3A, Youhei Kagawa in 4A and Sora Ishikawa in 5A. Ishikawa was also the winner of the 44CLASH KIKSTYO Battle Tournament last month, and should be a contender for the Japanese title. 5A runner-up was Duncan Crew’s Shingo “Terry” Terada, who is still competing after more than 10 years in the scene!

The league continues next year with more regional contests throughout the country and finally the national contest:

December 4th, 2011 – East Japan A Block Contest (EJ-A), Tokyo
January 28th, 2012 – Central Japan Contest (CJ), Iwakura City
February 4th, 2012 – East Japan B Block Contest (EJ-B), Ichiwaka City
February 25th, 2012 – North Japan Contest (NJ), Sapporo
March 11th, 2012 – South Japan Contest (SJ), Kasuya District
April 21st, 2012 – West Japan Contest (WJ), Osaka
June 30th, 2012 – Japan National Yo-yo Contest, Ichikawa City

For all those interested in checking the action, proceed to Mr. Yamaguchi’s new YouTube channel. Music is replaced in most freestyles due to copyright issues, but it’s nonetheless great to have such a great resource back online!