[haggisv] Best of Brand series - Yasaka

Boss1703 wrote: i love the yasaka visco!

OK, I've finally got around to summarising the Yasaka brand rubbers and blades, please feel free to comment:

Here is my summary of the most notable / special rubbers and blades from the Yasaka brand. This is not meant to promote or criticize the Yasaka brand or products in any way, it�s simply a summary of opinions of the more famous and highly regarded products of the brand.

Overview:
The brand Yasaka has its origin in the late 1940s when founded by Mr Hirose Yaoita and Mr. Sakamoto who gave the name of the company (YAoita + SAKAmoto). Yasaka has since grown to become a major player among the table tennis manufacturers, offering the complete range of equipment, and having shown some great innovation in their products. Yasaka used to work together with Stiga, who made their blades for them, whereas Yasaka made their rubbers, but they separated in the early nineties and went their own way.

The majority of the Yasaka blades are made in Sweden. A large portion of their rubbers are made in the Japan, with the remainder of their rubbers are made in Germany and China.

After talking to many people, and getting lots of great feedback from people on the table tennis forums, I�ve summarised the most popular Yasaka rubbers and blades below. Although the popularity can be biassed by marketing and availability, there are some that many agree on to be great products, so there must be something to it�

Rubbers:
Mark V � probably the most famous of all rubbers, that has stood the test of time and is still commonly used in modern days, even after several decades since it was released. This rubber is suitable for all levels, where thinner sponges are usually used for more control at the lower levels and they rubbers are speed glued at higher level for extra performance.

Other Mark V variants (AD, 30 degrees, XS, M2), building on the great reputation of the original Mark V, have been developed over the years. The 30 degrees has been particularly popular among speed gluers, where the glue provided some very desirable properties. The XS and M2, although not bad rubbers, have not enjoyed the same popularity.
With the forever increasing demand for faster rubbers, Yasaka developed the V-Stage and also the X-Tend series, in more recent times. Although these are regarded as good rubbers, they have not been quite as popular, partially due to the wide range of similar speed rubbers now on the market.

The Pryde is Yasaka�s latest venture into the German Tensor technology, and is recognized among the top Tensor rubbers currently on the market.
The Do, Original T-Version and Visco are also worthy of mention, and have had a decent following but for a more select group of players.

For the more defensive players, the Yasaka Anti Power is held in high regard and has been very popular for many years. Their long pimpled rubbers, like the Phantom series enjoyed some good popularity for many years, but the early ones did not survive the ITTF long pimple bans. The more recent additions are quality products, but don�t seem to be that popular, although it�s still early days, and many long pimple players are still looking for alternatives.

Blades:
Although Yasaka is probably not one of the most popular brands for its blades, they�ve had some great success with quite a few blades. The Gatien series of blades were a huge success, the Gatien Extra 3D being one of all-time best selling blades! More recently the Ma Lin series, the Ma Lin Carbon and Ma Lin Extra offensive (especially in pengrip) in particular, have become very successful, no doubt helped a little by the great success of Ma Lin the player.

Other worthy of mention are the Max Wood, Balsa plus, Leopard, Yasaka Allround 40, who have enjoyed great success but among a smaller group of players.

Final words:
Most agree that the Yasaka manufacturer produce high quality products, and has been very successful spanning many decades. I believe part of the reason the brand is not even more successful is due to limited distribution� many blades (and also some rubbers) are simply not available in some areas. They�ve also discontinue some of their previous moderately successful products. The same can probably be said about some of the other Japanese brands.

It is likely that a player of any level and style can find something appropriate from the Yasaka brand, but this is the case for many of the other major brands too. Hopefully this summary will be useful for Yasaka fans or those that only have this brand available to choose from. Yasaka do have a range of other table tennis related items, in fact they pretty much sell everything related to table tennis, but blades and rubbers are the extent of this write-up.

Thanks for all the replies!

Anyone else have any further comments on Yasaka blades or rubbers, or any facts about the manufacturer, before I summarise this and move onto the next brand? Cheers!

T h e N A M wrote: my first penhold blade was Yasaka Gatien Extra 3D cpen,   and because i loved it so much, I bought one for shakehand too..   i also purchased YEO, felt so good...   then my first yasaka rubber was v-stage....   then went to mark v, mark v xs, mark v m2, fusion, new-era...     if i didn't switch to shakehand, i would probably kept playing YEO..   and i'm always tempted to try v-stage again...     YEO with V-stage... lovely combination :D

IMHO, the best Yasaka rubber would be the Mark V GPS and the best blade would be the YEO. Maxwood is also a good blade but it's a little bit heavy.

THat makes sense that new era is made in China, as eacheng.net just got all those rubbers in~

haggisv wrote: Thanks guys! Does anyone know where their factories are? All their stuff I've seen looks of pretty high quality, perhaps it's all made in Japan?

I'd say the mark V rubbers by far and recently the YEO

So which ones of the V-Stage and and the X-Tend series are the most popular? Are the popularity of their rubber likely to change after the glue ban? Obviously the Pryde is likely to become popular, with it's in-built speed glue effect, but what about the other?

Mark V and the other similar Yasaka's have allways been the best rubber to use when learning table tennis, still is really in 1.8-2.0mm you wouldn't find a better rubber for learning correct European shot making :). Then you can step up to a more powerful rubber later on if you need to

I personally would love to know more about Xtend and Pryde, there has been a bit of buzz about these, anyone with some experience, love to know why this should be best of brand. (Possibly this deserves another thread though)

I currently play with Extra 3D with Pryde on FH. 

I have not tried many tensor rubbers, but IMO Pryde is as good as Donic's tensors but with a little bit cheaper price tag.

i used Yasaka "Black Power" at some point of time..

Thanks guys! Does anyone know where their factories are? All their stuff I've seen looks of pretty high quality, perhaps it's all made in Japan?

I have not used Mark V in a long time, but I did for many years. It's a great rubber. I also play wiht Extra 3d. I tried some other blades, even made the switch a couple of times but I always come back to it. Even if I'm using a faster blade, I find I can hit faster shots when I go back to my old Extra 3d. Gatien Offensive and Offensive 40 are great blades too.