Nick Gallagher Champ Mod Kendama Review

The champ is here. Sweets Kendamas is known to be a house for KWC world champions, holding the 2016, 2017 and 2018 KWC trophy. Each year to commemorate the champ, Sweets usually releases a signature model kendama under that player’s name. These kendamas are debuted closer to the following year’s KWC and this year it is no different. Today we look at the Nick Gallagher Champ Mod, released in mid 2019.

The NG Champ Mod features primarily the Boost Shape. We saw and reviewed this with the Boo Johnson Mod here and so I will just talk about the key features and what’s different with Nick’s Mod.

If you haven’t already tried the Boost, you should. It is what the benchmark of modern shapes will be. Not just because Sweets has one of the most readily available kendamas, but because it is an updated shape.

What do I mean by that?

The cups are bigger and so is the sarado. Contrary to just making the cups bigger however, the shape is also designed to feel good while holding it. The spike is just the right amount of length and it does not feel clunky nor too slim for its perceived size. Other brands are embracing this size as well, such as Sol Kendamas’ 1UP shape and the PLUS size from Kendama USA.

Despite both having the Boost shape, the difference between the Boo Johnson Mod and the Nick Gallagher Mod is the exclusion of a warp or balance hole in the NG Mod. Theoretically this reduces the lunar balance, and while I do see the Boo Johnson Mod having a better lunar balance, I would still say it’s pretty strong thanks to the way the Boost shape is designed. The Champ mod ken is also made out of maple.

You can also see how it compares to other shapes below. For consistency, we will compare to the Prime, Shift and BL Shape.

Note all text are in comparison, i.e. if the column/row says Prime, Cup, Bigger – that means in comparison to the Prime Cups, the reviewed kendama IS BIGGER.

The design is where is gets interesting. I’ll go with the ken first because that’s the easy one. Starting with the base cup, we have the NG pro mod logo (as it should be) and his KWC winning score. A record 1447.

In the base cup there is a QR code that links to the model page and tucked nicely under the small cup is a rounded edge star. I love the little details that go into the kendama.

Now onto the tama. And what a tama it is. It follows the style of the Nick Zack pro mods with the ink wash bleed design however this time instead of the light blue and white, we see a dark blue (no pun intended) coupled with red for a very deep purple effect blend. Aesthetically, this contrasts very nicely with the white stripe scope tracking lines. The red, white and blue color way was used to represent the colors of the USA, representing Nick’s home country when he won KWC.

There are 8 stars plus 1 golden one at the top of the string hole to represent the 9 USA players who made the 2018 KWC finals. The amount of symbolism that went into this kendama was well thought out.

For such a complex design, you would expect that paint chipping be common because of the stencils used. I played the kendama for 2 weeks to test the durability and was surprised how well the paint around the tama and the bevel held up.

While I expect it to chip in the future over long term play, it seems that I am going to have to beat it up pretty bad before that happens.

As mentioned in the Boo Johnson review, the Boost shape is a beast. Well rounded for all kinds of tricks. Where I find the Champ Mod has a 1-up however, is in the lack of excessive burns around the ken. This allows you to have a good grip of the ken for slingers and ken flips.

Combined with a tama that just has an insane amount of tracking, I found it a joy to play and one of those kendamas where you just unlock more tricks as you play.

In the playability section, I test the smoothness and ease of landing tricks in the 4 criteria, Lunar, Stalls, Slings and Kenflips.

A difficulty rating out of 10 (1 being easier than usual, 5 being no difference and 10 being much harder than usual) will be given to each category at discretion.

Note that I reviewed the version of the Champ mod that had the sticky coat. It plays differently and breaks in differently from the cushion clear version. The sticky version is super sticky out of the box and loses some tackiness as oil accumulates, however once a wipedown is done all of that is fixed.