Monkeyfinger – Prime8

December 8, 2016 By Steve Brown

Monkeyfinger’s newest design, the Prime8, will be available Friday, December 9th! Check out their press release and specs below!

We are excited to introduce you to our first yoyo release of 2016 that we have dubbed the Prime8. This yo-yo is the signature throw created in cooperation with MonkeyfingeR team captain Tyler Jorgensen.

Utilizing a comfortable H/O-type hybrid design, it is both stable and fast. This design allows the Prime8 to perform a wide range of tricks while maintaining its momentum. Additionally, the cup design features not one but two inner thumb grind rings!

The Prime8 will be initially available in five different colours:

As always, we at MonkeyfingeR Design pride ourselves on our cutting edge and innovative colour schemes, and we are confident that the Prime8 will not disappoint!

Each box contains:

– Prime8
– 1 x MFD sticker
– 2 x info cards
– 1 x Tasmanian Hybrid Bearing
– Monkey SNOT response system
– 1 x Custom colour Ape Hangers
– Custom triangle display box

Monkeyfinger Prime8 Specs:

Diameter: 55 mm
Width: 43.5 mm
Weight: 65 grams
Response: Monkey Snot Flowable Silicone
Bearing: Tasmanian Hybrid (Size C)

Hiroyuki Suzuki Launches Freshthings Brand

October 21, 2016 By Steve Brown

4x World YoYo Champion Hiroyuki Suzuki has announced that he’s launching a new brand called “Freshthings”, and the first delivery of releases looks pretty amazing.

First up is a plastic yoyo that echoes his typical design sensibilities, but is stock responsive and is a collaboration with Fragment Design, which means Hiroyuki is working with legendary streetwear designer Hiroshi Fujiwara! That’s pretty huge, and is the biggest fashion/yoyo design collaboration since Duncan produced yoyos for Lady Gaga’s pop-up store at Barney’s.

(Honorable mention to Self Edge for putting a yoyo on the leather patch of their collaboration with The Flat Head.)

Included in the first delivery it looks like we’ll also have a licensed collaboration with Coca-Cola, with two different designs: one featuring a Japanese logo and the other featuring a classic logo that appears to be from the 1980s. Both look pretty cool, and while neither is as exciting as the Fragment collaboration, it’s still pretty great to see Coke logos on a good playing yoyo…something we haven’t had since Russell Promotions stopped working with them in the late 90s.

No word yet on pricing or availability, but Freshthings will officially launch on November 2nd, 2016. We’ll update with more info when we have it!

Ahmad Kharisma & Daniel Flaherty in Singapore

July 31, 2016 By Steve Brown

The Recess boys are always on vacation! Check out the latest clip from Daniel Flaherty and Ahmad Kharisma, filmed in beautiful, sunny Singapore. Crazy good, as you would expect.

Yoyo used is the Recess Vacation.

Takeshi Kamisato Joins 44RPM

February 29, 2016 By Steve Brown

44RPM, the start-up toy company from Drew Tetz and Hank Freeman, just announced their first sponsored player: scene legend Takeshi Kamisato! With Takeshi’s history as a yoyo trick innovator and filmmaker, and his recent (and pretty awe-inspiring) jump into the world of absurdly hard kendama tricks, he’s a perfect fit for 44RPM.

In addition to their line of flatpack yoyos, kendamas, and spin top, 44RPM recently released a budget metal yoyo called the Rhythm, and have started showing photos of it’s companion yoyo, the Blues. The Rhythm, designed by National YoYo Master Rafael Matsunaga with art by Rodrigo Yokota is in stores now. There is no release date set for the Blues.

Congratulations, Takeshi and 44RPM!

2015 Italian National YoYo Contest – Results & Video

November 24, 2015 By Johnny Le

Full results are in from the 2015 Italian National YoYo Contest. Check out the scoring breakdowns and videos below! Be sure to check out YoYoManiacs YouTube channel for the rest of the videos.

2015 Italian National YoYo Contest Results

1A Division

1st Place – Armando La Rocca

Open Division

1st Place – Matyas Racek

X Division

1st Place – Matyas Racek

Reia Torita joins C3yoyodesign Rising Force

November 16, 2015 By Johnny Le

C3yoyodesign has announced their newest Rising Force Japan team member, Reia Torita. Reia picked up yoyoing in 2012 and has progressed quickly. She recently placed top 3 in the Women’s Division at the 2015 WYYC.

The Rising Force team was started by C3yoyodesign for talented players under 18 that would also get mentorship from senior players. Congratulations to Reia for getting picked up by C3yoyodesign!

SLUSNY x Vashek Kroutil

October 30, 2015 By Johnny Le

The guys over at Slusny are gearing up for the 2015 Czech National YoYo Contest this Saturday Oct, 31st. They decided to drop a preview of former Czech National champion, Vashek Kroutil, dropping some new tricks as well as some other news. Not personally being able to understand Czech, I reached out to Vashek for some translation about the news in the video.

I am informing that we are releasing SLUSNY Nest 2, in special edition with BU2R and Karel Jerie (artist, who made design for the yoyo), you can win it in special online/Facebook contest or at the FAST Challenge at the competition on Saturday. –Vashek

There will be a total of three (3) red Nest 2 made. One will go to BU2R and the other two will go to the winners of the online contest and the FAST Challenge at the contest. The yoyo was designed by Petr Kavka and Kuba Kroutil.

The level of skill in Czech yoyo scene is crazy talented. I can not wait to see the freestyles drop on online. If you can’t wait to see the performance on YouTube, then you’re in luck. There will be a livestream of the event.

YoYo Drop – One Drop Citizen

July 24, 2015 By Steve Brown

The summer of titanium continues! First we had the massive crowdfunding success of the YoYoFactory Titanium Dream, then we got the Luftverk Evora, and now we finally have full specs and release details for the One Drop Citizen! Check out One Drop’s press release and full specs below. Sound off in the comments…what do you think about this wave of titanium releases? What have you picked up so far? Are you going to get one of these?

In 2010 we released our first titanium yo-yo, the Sovereign. Five years later we have tackled this amazing metal and produced a yo-yo that we feel is our best work to date: The Citizen

A lot has changed in these 5 years. Yo-yos tend to be bigger than they used to be and high walls have gone by the wayside. As an industry and as a community we have all figured out what shapes, weights and weight distributions work better. As a yo-yo manufacturer we have improved our knowledge, skills and equipment an immense amount. All of these improvements played a role in the creation of the Citizen.

Titanium allowed us to take this shape and create a weight distribution simply not possible in aluminum; moving material to the rim while reducing overall weight. This gives it a light airy feel with incredibly long spin times.

Each Citizen was made with many hours of labor, love, and attention right here in-house in Eugene, Oregon, USA. Every single minute of machining was monitored, measured and scrutinized. Every half was hand polished. They have been checked, and re-checked. We could not have put more effort into assuring these were the most amazing yo-yos we could possibly make. There are one hundred and seventeen numbered Citizens in this run (there will not be another run).

One Drop Citizen Specs:

Weight: 64.5 grams
Diameter: 56.7 mm
Width: 43.6 mm
Gap Width: 4.4 mm
Stock Response: 19mm Slim Flow Groove
Bearing Size: Large (C) stainless steel (One Drop 10 Ball Bearing)
Axle System: Tapped
Alloy: Titanium Ti-6Al-4V (Grade 5)
Release Date: August 7th, 2015
Price: $295

One Drop YoYos in Terraria 1.3 Update

July 1, 2015 By Steve Brown

Popular video game Terraria just released a new patch, and part of this rollout includes a whole slew of One Drop yoyos! Now the really die-hard yoyo collectors are going to have a full set that’s going to be a little harder to get ahold of!

It’s pretty cool to see a bunch of actual yoyo models represented in a new video game. There are even yoyo gloves, yoyo bags and counterweights added as modifiers to change the performance of the yoyos, which is definitely a step above the YoNoid.

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Worst. Advertising. Tie-In. Ever.

According to the official Terraria Wiki, the yoyos are only available in the PC version of the game. No word on if they’ll be rolled out for other platforms as well in future patches, but we’ll see.

Microsoft Releases 3D Printable YoYo Collection

April 10, 2015 By Steve Brown

Today Microsoft released four free, downloadable designs for people to make their own playable yoyos! We have no idea how playable they actually are, but for a three-piece plastic they probably work about as well as a Duncan Imperial or Duncan Butterfly.

Plus, started from a digital file means they should be fairly easy to alter so you can use these as a jumping-off point and potentially come up with something way better! 3D printing is still in its infancy, and other than Fluid Print Dynamics and the Plasticuda musings of Rafael Matsunaga, we haven’t seen much yoyo-related come from this technology yet. Hats off to Microsoft for the free files that should, hopefully, kickstart someone’s creativity.

Head over to the Microsoft Thingverse store to download all four designs for free.

44RPM Toys Launches Flatpack YoYo & Kendama

December 8, 2014 By Steve Brown

44RPM Toys, the brainchild of 2014 Trick Innovator of the Year Drew Tetz and World Champion Hank Freeman, is finally launching!

Their first two releases, a flatpack yoyo called “The Moon” and an amazing flatpack kendama, will be available Tuesday, December 9th at 8:30 PM EST, at 44RPMToys.com. The kendama retails for $25, and the yoyo retails for only $7. Flatpack toys are a pretty amazing concept…the pieces are laser cut out of a single piece of wood, and shipped flat. Then you pop them out and assemble them, like a 3D puzzle that ends up being a functional skill toy. Crazy!

Be sure to follow 44RPM on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for updates.

Throwback Thursday – Filipino Infantry YoYo Players – 1943

November 6, 2014 By Steve Brown

Chuck Short found this great old bit of newsreel footage on YouTube, featuring a Filipino Regiment in the US Army. The entire reel is just a little under 5 minutes and worth watching the whole thing…but if you just want to see a couple of young Filipino soldiers slinging yoyos you can skip ahead to 2:33 in the video.

As usual, we get the whole “yoyo was invented by Filipinos” myth which is false, but still…it’s a pretty awesome bit of historical footage! Here is some more detail about this bit of film:

U.S. Army Filipino Infantry regiments training at Fort Ord, Camp Roberts, and Camp Hunter-Liggett, California during World War II. The video shows the training and routine of the soldiers, mostly comprised of Filipino American volunteers and veterans during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines and are preparing for the retaking of their homeland during Gen. MacArthur’s return.

First Look: YoYofficer Orbis

September 21, 2014 By Steve Brown

Chinese yoyo manufacturers YoYofficer have announced a new competition model, the Orbis. They owners of YoYofficer were on-hand at the 2014 World YoYo Contest, talking to players and getting feedback from their team and went home with the goal of refining their line to better suit modern players and creating new models with improved performance. Their first attempt is the Orbis, which should be hitting stores soon. Check out their press release and full specs below.

Introducing the Yoyofficer ORBIS.

Design of the Orbis is based on feedback from our team and mainly on many long talks with players from all around the world, that we met at the World Yoyo Contest. When we combined this great feedback with our designs, we created one of the best yo-yos we have ever made.

The specifications meets today‘s standards for competition throws, with almost full-size diameter and more width. We really focused on weight distribution, to achieve lower weight for better feel and faster play, while keeping good stability and spin time

As always, Orbis comes in range of acid wash finishes with bead-blasted surface. And it will be shipped with our new premium bearing.

YoYofficer Orbis Specs:

Diameter: 55.5 mm
Width: 45 mm
Weight: 64 grams
Gap Width: 4.3 mm
Bearing: Large Size C
Retail Price: $50 USD