Remember all the indignant butthurtin' over Fushigi balls? Well now there's Yoshigi. Clicker apoplexy in 5..4..3..2..1....
This ad is so offensively shouty American that I'm calling Poe on it - I honestly can't tell whether it's a clever parody or not. Enjoy it in all it's autoplay-on-repeat goodness - https://www.getyoshigi.com/
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
I'll get one :D
The -shigi ending suggests a relation to fushigi.. But fushigi was not produced by Wham-o, right?
Where did you find out about this? Google knows nothing about yoshigi except for this one website!
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
From this reddit thread over at /r/kendama.
I don't get the point of renaming established props. What do they really hope to achieve? I understand that getting to the top of the search results for kendama is going to be pretty hard for a new company. But the new name is only going to be found by people who don't know what a kendama is, & the new name will only last as long as long as it takes for the newbie to meet a kendama player.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
"Hey, wanna buy something that has been around for yeeeeaaars and has never been interesting enough to reach you? Well, it is going to be a fad tomorrow!"
That is a hard sales pitch... Rebranding makes rehyping easier, and kendama is rare enough that you wont meet a player any soon...
Besides, you launch 20 campaigns like this, only one needs to become a hit like the hoop craze, and you're cashing in!
Stephen Meschke - - Parent #
There is a balance between SEO and renaming an established prop. The makers of the Yoshigi must think that they can get more sales from a renamed prop than from the second page on Google.
I'll research SEO for the keyword 'juggling' further; right now it appears that only Greatland.com and Wired.com are using SEO to promote their content in the Google search results.
And now they have apparently renamed Astrojax:
https://youtu.be/7o45OLRv9pE
Those are subtly different from astrojax being two large balls and two small balls on a string - rather than 3 equally-sized balls on a string that is astrojax.
Monkey Knuckles: https://store.yomega.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Monkey-Knuckles-GoldBlack-L.jpg
Astojax: https://www.activepeople.com/common/toys/astrojax/img/aj_plus_balls.jpg
Good point. I noticed the size difference and the knots, but I had forgotten the third ball. D'oh!
Stephen Meschke - - Parent #
The second paragraph in the Controversy section in the Contact Juggling Wikipedia article explains:
The "Fushigi Magic Gravity Ball" ignited the controversy....
the ball appeared to float by itself....
mastered "in just minutes."....
not by skill but by means of a special prop....
exploiting contact juggling.
The Fushigi ball is no longer in production.
Daniel Simu - - Parent #
So (some part of) the video appears to be made 2 months ago by Kuma films.. You know, those guys who make really epic juggling vids! https://www.kumafilms.com/
https://www.pikore.com/tag/Yoshigi
The other good players I can recognise from the KenCastle pictures: https://www.pikore.com/thekencastle , so we could ask them what's up...