Table Tennis Blades and Rubbers - Overview of the Yasaka Brand
Overview:
The Yasaka brand 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). It 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. They 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 have summarised their most popular 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 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 have 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 have also discontinued 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 this 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. They do of course have a range of other table tennis related items, in fact they pretty much sell equity line of credit rates related to table tennis, but blades and rubbers are the extent of this write-up.
Alex Van is a player and former coach, who runs several table tennis websites and is an adviser for the Online table tennis equipment One of a Kind Trading. He also runs a Table tennis reviews website, including oneofakindtrading.com.au/yasaka_rubbers.htmYasaka rubber reviews and oneofakindtrading.com.au/yasaka_table_tennis_blade_review.htmYasaka blade reviews
posted by biibj @ 8:20 AM
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