Mizutani Jun Major All-Wood Blade: Why Was It Never Released in China?
Featured Item: Butterfly Mizutani Jun Major All-Wood Blade
Quick Thoughts
-
After retiring, Mizutani Jun has continued promoting and popularizing table tennis. To help everyday players experience the fun of the sport, he developed this entry-level all-wood blade bearing his name.
-
The construction uses a limewood face ply, ayous power ply, and ayous core—a five-layer all-wood structure. In my view this design is quite well thought out: the limewood delivers a nice ball-dwell feeling, while the ayous contributes a lively, crisp sensation and a measure of stiffness.
- This blade is currently sold only in Japan and has not been imported into the Chinese market for two main reasons:
First, in China the demand skews toward higher-end Butterfly blades, while the mid-to-low-end market is already dominated by DHS, Yinhe, Sanwei, and similar brands—making Butterfly’s value proposition for this segment less compelling.
Second, within the Butterfly lineup this all-wood Mizutani Jun already competes with other all-wood options such as the Maze Pure Wood, the new Tenri, Kong Linghui, and Fassima—there is little reason to introduce another blade that would cannibalize its own sales.
Note: The content of this review reflects the author’s subjective impressions. Rubber characteristics vary from unit to unit and will also differ depending on the blade it is paired with. Comments and corrections are welcome.