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Whenever I've thought about putting rubber on both sides of a Japanese-penhold blade, I keep running into the same wall:
- the balance point ends up too far toward the tip
- the board is too thick to suit two-sided play
- most two-sided Japanese-penhold blades just don't bounce
- and frankly, there aren't many options to begin with
This blade, though, has an oval shape that puts the balance point closer to the handle, and at 6mm thick, you can swing through fully even with rubber on both sides.
The bare blade is 73g, and even with rubber on both sides it only comes to 159g, so it's light enough to give you great maneuverability and better quality on soft shots.
Compared to Chinese-penhold, your wrist has more freedom, so the head turns more and backhand drives really fly.
Since it's Japanese-penhold rather than reverse-penhold, your thumb keeps backhand pushes stable, which also widens your options on receive.
The feel is on the hard side with a quick release, so spin might be a bit modest, but stops land solidly. And as an outer carbon blade, the bounce leaves nothing to complain about.
And on top of all that, Japanese-penhold blades just look cool!
Ever since I started using my backhand, Chinese-penhold was the only option for me - but with this blade, I'm back to Japanese-penhold for the first time in 20 years.

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