Highlights

The winning freestyles in each division were amazing this year and all deserve to be admired.

1A Champion Evan Nagao

Evan put on an amazing show to Free Bird, simply brilliant. He perfectly matches the mood and pace throughout the whole song. This freestyle is so flashy and exciting, all audiences can easily appreciate it. Evan’s routine was just so well constructed, the trick difficulty, variety and music use are all incredible. He does many tricks that are obviously difficult, so even non-yoyoers can appreciate his skill. Examples of this are when he hits insane body tricks like his above the head, behind the back and between the leg combos.

3A and 4A Champion Hajime Miura

This is my favourite story from Worlds 2018. 14 year old Hajime Mirua pulled off a double win in 3A and 4A. This is the first time that a single player has won in two divisions at Worlds.

He’s an absolutely amazing 3A player, far ahead of the competition in my opinion. This is his 5th consecutive world title in 3A. His routines are always beautiful to watch. He somehow manages to consistently hit his extremely difficult and innovative tricks. Everyone can appreciate the extreme coordination and mastery it takes to have complete control over two yoyos at the same time.

This is his first time competing in the 4A division at Worlds, and he managed to take the win. Hajime’s 4A is also astonishing to watch —my description can’t do it justice. He made very few mistakes, bringing out some unique tricks that are also very pleasant to watch for all audiences. Offstring is probably the most impressive division to watch if you’re not a yoyo player.

2A Champion Shu Takada

2A is probably the most physically demanding contest division. This is Shu’s 4th world title for 2A. Shu incorporates many dance and acrobatic moves into his freestyle, making it fun to watch even if you don’t understand the difficulty of all of his tricks (I don’t really get looping either). His ability to perfectly match the beat of the song to the motions of his yoyos is amazing as well. If you like dance, you’ll probably like this.

5A Champion Sora Ishikawa

This is Sora’s first world title, having previously gotten 3rd place twice. 5A has been under lock for a long time, but the strongest competitors didn’t compete this year. 2017 champion Takuma Innoue did not compete to defend his title and eight time world champion Takeshi Matsuura decided only to compete in 1A this year. 5A is a very fast paced style, and I don’t know what’s going on most of the time. It’s still really impressive to watch though.

Other Highlights

Yuki Nishisako 3rd place 1A

I love Yuki’s style, he’s one of my favourite players for sure. His play is super fast but still elegant to watch. His horizontal tricks are very unique and it’s super satisfying to see his control.

Takeshi Matsuura 2nd place 1A

Takeshi is commonly considered one of the greatest players of all time among the yoyo community. His freestyle had the highest technical score, because his tricks are just that advanced. Takeshi is a very creative player, and it shows when he pulls off slack tricks that nobody else can imagine doing. This is a slower paced freestyle but it’s amazing to see the strings jumping around, perfecting landing where they need to go.

Hirotaka Akiba 5th place 1A

Hirotaka has a very unique playstyle, where he commonly passes the yoyo between v-shapes in his fingers (watch and you’ll understand). This technique is called chopsticks and since his playstyle revolves around it, he has earned the nickname Chopsticks Gorilla. This freestyle is great because it shows a truly unique playstyle.