Series 5.1: Quick Review

by Crazy Ivan

It must seem pretty weird when I do it, but over the last two days I've been asking kids if I can play with their Myachis.  I teach them the game, I get them hooked, I have 9 Myachis in my pocket and they know it.  But I'm asking to play with theirs.

I'm sure you, the loyal reader, know exactly why.  The 5.1 just came out and I want to jam with as many of them as possible.  You can't make up your mind about the Code Breaker if you've only jammed with one of them once.  You have to jam with multiple Code Breakers and you have to jam with new ones, old ones and really well broken in ones.  What's more, you have to try grind tricks, ariels, foot tricks, high body stalls, portals, body crosses and skate tricks before you can really say how good a sack is.

So I've been jamming with a lot of "fresh from the package" 5.1s recently.  I'm still not ready to give my final assessment on the series just yet, but I am willing to make some prelimenary observations on each one.  It's after midnight and we're in the middle of a huge weekend, so I'll keep each review brief.

Green Shredder: This one definitely out plays its sister sacks from the 5.0 series.  The whole series seems a little more wide-board friendly and the Green Shredder uses that advantage to take supremacy over the Black and Red Shredders.  If you haven't jammed with its sister sacks, I can only say that you get what you'd expect from a good horizontal corduroy.

Code Breaker: This one had me scared when I first saw the fabric.  It's a linen and I've never been a big fan.  I have to say that I've been pleasently surprised by its jammability.  It's a good grinder, but the fabric is so yummy it more than makes up for it.  The unique cut of every design is making this one a mad popular seller as well.

Boneyard Red: Definitely the best seller in the series.  This one is also a linen, but it's a great jammer and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do when they're broken in.  Not my favorite jammer of the series, but there's no question that the design is too awesome to pass up.

Power Grid: Another horizontal corduroy that jams as well as we've come to expect from the most popular fabric in Myachidom.  This will almost certainly take over the title of the best selling purple Myachi of all time (the Purple Reign currently holds that record) and it's a good jammer.  No word on how it will break in.  It should be great, but my early impressions don't suggest that it has Beard/Line type wideboard potential.

Fishbone Orange: This one is going to be the toughest to break in, but I'm thinking it will be well worth the effort.  It's got a really durable feel and an almost denim feel, so you if you know my Myachi tastes at all, you know I'm mad excited about it.  It was the first sack I got from the new series and I'm hard at work getting one broken in (the old fashioned way).

Blue Spectrum: I'm more excited about this sack than any other in the series.  I just got one today and I'm jamming with it like crazy.  The look is great, sure, but this is almost certainly the best jammer in the series.  Obviously I haven't broken one in yet, but I feel safe in saying that this could be a legitimate follow up to the Yellow-Jacket.

Aztec Black: I actually haven't jammed with this one yet.  It's the only sack in the series that I haven't got my hands/wrists/elbows/feet on, but I feel safe saying it will be pretty similar to the Aztec Red and Aztec Blue before it.

The Medallion: A slightly thicker and fuzzier corduroy, it's got surprisingly good grip right away.  This is a sack that I'll have to break in before I'm really willing to make a judgment on.  That being said, it's hard to find a corduroy that isn't a reliable jammer.

The Jungle Fever: It looks like an angry Rolling Thunder and it jams like a sweet corduroy should.  So far it's right behind the Boneyard Red as our second best seller and it's easy to see why.  I haven't really had much time with them so I have little to say except that they're pretty sick.

Hounds Tooth Red: Jams almost exactly like the Hounds Tooth, except this one is a little wider and consequently, much better.  This will probably be the one that really contends with the Blue Spectrum for "best jammer" title.

Puzzled: I'm really surprised by how awesome this sack is.  I was a bit iffy on the fabric at first, but after seeing them, I've fallen in love.  They're a thicker canvas, but they jam really well pretty quick.  They also have sick break-in potential, so I'm looking forward to having a lot more good to say about them later.  Kore has taken this as his all time favorite Myachi, so I expect to have a well broken in one to experiment with in the near future.

Othello: It's hard to say anything bad about a wideboard Myachi with a white and black, contrasting geometric pattern.  It's awesome and in most series it would be the hands down favorite.  In this series, it seems to be struggling to get noticed.

Overall Impressions:Myachi history and it's not just a bunch of corduroy.  There are some great jammers in experimental fabrics so the collectors, veteran jammers and newbs should all be able to find something they like.

I know I say this (almost) every time, but this might very well be the best series we've ever made.