The Story of Pheasant 2023

Here are the details of Pheasant 2023:
Weight: 63.4 grams
Material: 7068+SS rings
Diameter: 56.22 mm
Width: 45.88 mm
Gap width: 4.5 mm
Axle: M4*10 mm
Bearing: Center Track
Pads: 19.2*14.2*1.2mm
Price: 155USD

The box contains:
1 x yoyo
1 pairs x pads
1 x string
1 x Pheasant 2023 sticker
1 x yoyofriends sticker

Last year, we wanted to venture into the global market more, especially in Japan. Japan has a very rich yoyo culture and history, and we want to explore that and create a yoyo that has the essence of Japanese yoyo from the ground up. Last year we also sponsored our first Japanese player, Tomoki Toyama. Tomoki has been helping and promoting us in Japan heavily and helped us tremendously with this project. 

We started by making a survey, trying to understand what Japanese players like in their yoyo. The result is they want a yoyo that has tons of power, control, a wide catch zone and slightly wider gap width for confidence in competition. A yoyo with the greatest ease of use. We implemented the ideas into a yoyo, using our classic 7068 + SS yoyofriends construction and thus the Pheasant was born. Prototype one has multiple cuts and a multi staged structure, however while it gives more flow in tricks and individuality, it doesn't have the cutting edge characteristics that highlights the needs for a yoyo that can land any tricks with the greatest of ease.

After discussions with multiple players in Japan, we eliminated all the necessary elements in the design. Pheasant now has a more minimal design with one of the craziest weight distributions ever in the yoyofriends mainstream lineup. The yoyo now satisfies almost every characteristic highlighted in the survey and can land tricks, especially in contests with the greatest of ease. Our Player Tomoki tested out the Pheasant in multiple contests in Japan and yielded great results and feedback. 

This was our player Tomoki's feedback: "Although it is a lightweight bimetal almost like some of our existing lineup, Pheasant gives me the most confidence in high stress contest situations due to its rotational force, ease of movement and stability. I can't believe it's only around 63g! The power drop off is minimal even after my horizontal combo, the yoyo still comes back with force. The acceleration is fast due to its lightness yet controllable, it does not force you to move faster than you want to and will catch the string easily due to its width."

We named the yoyo Pheasant because it is the national bird of Japan, a perfect fit for us as we have multiple other bird names in our lineup already and highlight the Japan connection within this yoyo.

One problem with the Pheasant is that the design was too extreme, it made the A grade rate very very low. Forcing us to only release a small run number at a higher price. We decided to put the worldwide release and this project on hold and try to figure out a way for a higher yield rate while keeping the same extreme performance and characteristic. 

Here comes the Pheasant 2023. We added more material in the center cup to make the yoyo more rigid and manufacturable. This even added more acceleration due to the nature of more center weight. To counteract the stability and controllability loss, we also added more weight throughout the yoyo making the yoyo 63.4g, doubling down on power and stability to achieve the same performance and controllability as the original pheasant.