Lotus Kendama’s Sacred Review

When you scroll your Instagram explore feed and see a tama as beautiful as theirs, you stop and tap. That is how I first came across Lotus Kendamas.

A new kendama company starting in 2019 with an intricate tama design (which I will talk more about later) and sponsoring NAKO – I was intrigued and reached out. Fortunately, I was able to receive one before they all got snagged up and sold out (for now). Here’s everything you need to know about Lotus Kendama’s Sacred shape and design.

I’ve done a lot of reviews on kendamas but what keeps me going is that when I get to try a new shape, I get to understand the idea behind the company’s design.

The Lotus Kendama shape (or for easy reference “Lotus shape”) is interesting. It’s big, and has really big cups without enlarging the kendama itself. As I began to compare it to standard shapes, I realised that I was dealing with something different.

Compared to an Ozora, the cup sizes trump it. For some perspective – the small cup on the Lotus shape is bigger than the big cup on the Ozora, while the big cup of the Ozora can fit in the big cup of the Lotus.

With that in mind, it is hands down bigger than all 3 Vivewood shapes (V2, V3, V4). Clearly some thought about longevity and progression of kendama shapes went into this design.

Big cups aside, we see that the shape does actually have some unique dimensions to it. For example, the sarado is quite thinly cut, allowing a lot of room for an adult like me to fit my fingers in for slingers. Also, the sword is thin at the top, before widening at the base to accommodate its large big cup.

This is a ken that should be paired with a 61mm tama or above, or the tama will feel dwarfed. It is sold with a 60mm tama, which is still playable, but I have feedbacked personally to the owner Isaac about using a bigger tama in the future.

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 ken is simple – 2 logos, a lotus and the LOTUS in text. But why I am here today is to talk about the tama. In fact, why I am here today is because of the design of the tama!





The tama is unique, featuring a white based patterened with leaves and petals – truly living up to it’s name of Sacred. It looks incredibly complex to paint and I wonder if each tama would have a different arrangement of leaves. Perhaps what I enjoy most about this patterned design is that it does not feel overwhelming against the white base of the tama.

What about functionality?

Let me introduce to you the gradient-ed scope. I have personally not seen this before done so cleanly, but the color is just very complementary to the overall aesthetic of the kendama. Leaving some white space near the bevel, I find it in a good position and have found that my tracking has benefitted from it.

You’d think that a kendama that is painted like this would suffer from peeling but after going through the standard test, I see no peeling, only regular spike dents caused by me missing the spike.

In this case I did not take the risk of gluing my spike for fear that it may damage the tama, but the spike seems to not have blunted out yet. This could be due to the density of the beech wood.

The tackiness of the paint maintained itself over the period of play, much like other sticky paints. Similarly if you have sweaty palms, you may need to wipe this down from time to time. 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.

The shape of the ken makes it theoretically easier to do most tricks, however the small tama made tricks where I had to have a good grip on the tama (e.g. Double Lunar Flip) slightly harder than it should have been. Slap on a 61mm tama and you’re gucci. That being said, this is a great shape for playability, and a great tama design to accompany.

At $30 USD for a something like this, I would say it is a good deal for a unique kendama. While they are sold out now, I am looking forward to when they restock.

Shop here: https://lotuskendamas.com/