Rocky Loyola & Joshua Gawaran - TANDEM

Made this video while I train Rocky and Josh for the upcoming 2013 Central YoYo Contest on 8th of June.

They currently improving their tricks as well as their freestyle rountines for the contest. Hope they perform well in the Centrals.

Super YoYo Comics: Continuation

First of all, sorry for the long wait for another article about the Super YoYo. I've been busy these past months being active in the community by attending clubmeets (not only during Saturdays or Sundays, also once or twice on weekdays here in Cavite), launching the Facebook page of PISI Yoyo Accessories (don't forget to hit LIKE hehe), researching the profiles of the candidates for this year's midterm elections, recently hanging out with my buddies in high school more often, etc.

Enough of these excuses and lets continue to the story of Super YoYo. But before that I'm gonna briefly tell first the story that shown in the anime.

Shunichi Domoto was a fifth grader kid who is very talented in sports and got interested in yoyo after he was defeated in a long sleeper challenge by a very skilled yoyo player, Seito Hojoin. 

In able to beat Hojoin, Shunichi practice under the supervision of Master Nakamura then he join the Japan Carnival Convention or JCC. Along the competition, Shunichi faced some very good oppenents like Tsuyoshi Wappa a left-handed looper, Daiki Akagi who placed 3rd last JCC, Mai Kirisaki who has a ability called Warp Speed and Chuta Kogure an acrobatic yoyo player. 

After he defeated all his opponents, Shunichi finally faced his great rival, Hojoin in the finals of JCC. After their intense battle, Shunichi lose again. At the end of JCC, Master Nakamura announce the players that will join the Team High Performance - Japan or THP-J and will also participate in the World Convention. Wappa, Kirisaki, Chuta and of course Hojoin was selected to be in the THP-J together with the other players like Jienma Ano, Joichi Sakuraba, etc. whose from other regions of Japan. Only Shunichi was not selected and then he told his friends, Rian and Beso that he quit playing yoyo.

After half a month, Shunichi is back to his pre-yoyo activities like helping every sport clubs in his school. Master Nakamura visited Shunichi's school and saw Rian then he told her the reason why he didn't chose Shunichi for the THP-J is because Shunichi needed to rest his arm that strained during the JCC. Nakamura ask Rian to help him for challenging Shunichi. With the efforts of Rian, Shunichi shown up then Nakamura ask him to play yoyo again and they duel in a looping challenge. During their battle, Shunichi gain back the feeling of excitement and he enjoy playing yoyo again. He lose to Nakamura and he want to beat him someday.

And thats how it ends in the anime series but the story continues in the manga/comics.

After the duel with Master Nakamura, Shunichi was told that they will having a meeting with the THP-J. Shunichi attended the THP-J meeting and he told the team that he will join them.

Shunich shown up at the THP-J meeting.

For their activity at THP-J meeting, each member will be measure their looping skills by a very high tech and huge looping-tally machine. It will calculates their loops per second, rpm and stability.

This huge machine calibrate the looping skills of a yoyo player.

Shunichi give it a shot.

 All members of THP-J do the looping test. Wappa got the top for average score and Kirisaki got the top spot in terms of speed. Shunichi also tried the test and surprisingly he perform excellent and he surpasses everyone in score and speed. After that, everyone was shocked  by Shunichi's yoyo skill after they saw him doing a legendary yoyo trick called the "Figure-8 Loop".

As it says, it's the legendary trick called "Figure 8 Loop"

Shunichi doesn't mind if the trick he did is legendary or not. He told them that he accidentally learn the trick using the Prototype Hyper Dragon yoyo and he called the trick "Dragon Loop". Before the meeting ends, Shunichi ask where Hojoin is and Nakamura told him that Hojoin withdrawn from joing the World Convention. The reason is Hojoin's father wants his son to be a great pianist and not to be a yoyo player.

The members of THP-J (Team High Performance - Japan)

Shunichi went to Hojoin's house and tell him that he should join the World Convention. Hojoin refuse his rival's request but he change his mind later on and he leave his house to join the special training of THP-J.

Hojoin's bishounen look is very common in many animes

The THP-J went in an island for their special training and the CY-Tech (the creator of Hyper Dragon) lead by Professor Saiba, welcome them for their arrival and gave each member of THP-J a pair of mass produced type of Hyper Dragons.

The creator of Hyper Dragon, Professor Saiba of CY-Tech.

BOOM! THP-J's Golds

Mass Produced Hyper Dragons

After giving the Hyper Dragons to the THP-J Members, CY-Tech provide the team some training uniforms for their training camp and bags full of camping stuffs like tents, sleeping bags, foods, water and of course yoyo accessories. They instruct the team that they need to finish their training camp or the Survival Race, if not, they'll lose their licenses in THP-J and not be able to join the World Convention.

The Survival Race starts by pairing each THP-J members that decided by the letters that written at the back of their uniforms.

And the last pair are Shunichi and Hojoin

First, they need to pass the first obstacle of the Survival Race, the Dragon's Gate. They used their yoyos to open the gate by hitting the open button in a deep hole.

Hojoin hit the button to open the gate.

Jienma Ano open the Dragon's Gate in a smarter way.

Onto the next course, the THP-J  use their looping skills to move the Linear Motored Truck.

Shunichi do the Milk the Cow to operate the Linear Motor

Hojoin guide the track for their pair.

Some of the tracks are missing and Shunichi loops faster to increase their speed and make the linear motor to fly.

The race goes on as the THP-J members struggle and continue to reach the end of their training camp.

 

All of them finished the rest of Surviror Race and reached the final obstacle. They need to perform Basic to Hyper tricks many times without any mistakes in front of mass audiences created by hologram.

Performing in front of many people is sure not an easy task but the THP-J didn't mind it all and determine to finish the final course.

The final test ends and all the THP-J members successfully pass it. After that the staffs of CY-Tech get back the Hyper Dragons to gather all the D-chips that installed in the yoyo and...

Kuroiwa tells the THP-J that is not over yet.

...and those chips that collected contained the data of THP-J members' skills and put it in their androids look similar to each member of the team.

These androids are look the same and play the same like the THP-J.

And this is the surprise and the real final test for them. Each android have the exact same abilities in yoyoing of each member of THP-J. As their final test, the THP-J needs to defeat the android in yoyoing which their opponent is themselves.

Compare to their past challenges, this one is very hard for the THP-J. Their replicas which have the same skills as them are hard to beat. But in these tough situation, each of them doesn't want be defeated by themselves and want to prove that they better than the androids.

Shunichi has the greatest fighting spirit among the THP-J

Tells everyone not to lose to themselves

 As the test goes on, everyone are tired but still have energy to continue and determined to beat their replicas. Then all the androids started to malfunctions because of the THP-J exceeded the limit of the data and the D-Chip of Android Shunichi was destroyed.

Android Shunichi begin to malfunction.

Shunichi exceeded his own limitation and finally beat himself.

But before the other D-Chips was destroyed, Kuroiwa point a gun to one of the CY-Tech staff and wanted to abort the tests.

Wanna now why Kuroiwa did this? Well, I'll write about it next time. All the characters' journey and the Super YoYo story doesn't ends here. 

For now, here some the previews for the next scenes of Super YoYo.

More of these next time. After the Central Regional, I'll  write more about the continuation of this story as the THP-J hit the America for the World Convention and more stuffs about the Super YoYo Comics will be write for the next piece.

Pocket Challenge

Just a short video while practicing with an intermediate plastic yoyo, the YYF Pocket Change. Mastering the smooth way of playing Single A and do long combos with this kind of yoyo.

Super YoYo Comics: First Throw!

My fascination about yoyos started during my early years in grade school. I remember that time, I was only throwing a ball made of rubber with a rubber string attached on it and dangling it in any direction I throw it. I also remember the some shows which are related yoyos that I watched when I was kid. One of them is Combattler V, about the super-robot who has two yoyos as its powerful weapons and a comedy film of Dolphy together with his grandson Boy 2 Quizon that show a scene where Dolphy was a wood carver made a wooden yoyo and show some yoyo tricks to a kid (Boy 2).

Combattler V, trying to play his yoyos normally and not using it as weapons.
(This photo is from CollectionDX.com)

During those times, I've never thought that a simple toy would be have a big part in my life and after few years, an anime airs in television and that is my turning point into the world of yoyos.

First aired on 2003 in GMA-7, the Super YoYo anime caught the interests of every kid in the town who wants to play yoyos and learn some tricks that the anime characters do in the show. During the popularity of the show, many yoyo contest happened in many malls in Metro Manila and provinces nearby. In those contests, many senior players now of FlipSpin started their yoyoing career by joining for the first time. And also, because of its popularity, there is also a daily yoyo contest in Eat Bulaga. After all the contests during the Super YoYo campaign, the yoyo champion of Super YoYo Grand Finals was a 13-year-old kid name Joseph Junsay who is now a member of Team YoYoJam.

The Super YoYo anime have only 22 episodes and the series doesn't have an ending. So as a avid viewer, I'm still want to know what happened to the characters. I don't know what happen next on the story until I found these...

Super YoYo Comics/Manga Volumes 2-7. I don't have the Vol. 1 *sob* T^T

I bought these comic books in a bookstore and read it right away. Although I don't have the first volume of these but what important to me is what happened next and the ending of the story.

About these comics, it was originally titled as Chousoku Spinner and created by Hashiguchi Takashi (the artist behind Yakitate! Japan) for Shogakukan and printed for the Corocoro Comic. These comics I have is English Edition which printed by Chuang Yi Publishing in Singapore.

Alright, enough of these trivia stuffs and time to show you the scenes in these comics that shown in the anime.

Still remember the epic finger-string catch of Seito Hojoin? He's a great yoyo player in the anime series that everyone liked.

While Shunichi Domoto is in a Basic-to-Hyper Round, since he didn't know how to execute the tricks in Hyper Level, he glare his eyes to the opponent to copy his moves. This scene is very funny.

In the Round 2 of JCC, Shunichi had a tough battle in virtual reality yoyo race between him and Mai Kirisaki, who very skilled because of her Warp Speed ability.

The yoyo that created to perfection, the HYPER DRAGON!

After all the obstacles in the JCC, Shunichi made it to the finals and he need to beat the current JCC Champion  Hojoin. In the final round they fight in a long sleeper contest but in the end Shunichi lost.

Yeah, you see it right. Shunichi used Yomega Fireball for the long sleeper contest in JCC Final Round.  In the anime, he used Hyper Dragon Fire for the long sleeper contest but in the comic version he used different yoyo.

Kenichi Nakamura, chose the members of Team High Performance-Japan or THP-J. He didn't include Shunichi to the team because of a good reason.

They also included the back story of Master Nakamura in the comics.

A closer look of the yoyo that used by Master Nakamura when he was a kid.

Master Nakamura meets Alex Garcia.

Hojion in his first JCC and became a champion. This one shown in his backstory.

Well, these are the scenes in super yoyo comics Volumes 2-3 (Sorry I don't really have the Vol. 1 so I don't have any picture of pages of the first part of their stories. *sob* T^T)

I'll show more pages of it next time and I also write more about the characters, the difference between the anime and the comics/manga and of course, the story especially the continuation after the JCC and the selections of THP-J members. So I need to read the comics again to write the important details of the Super YoYo Comics.

Thank you very much for reading this, folks :)