So what’s the story on AntiYo? Who is the person behind it? Are they still around in the community?
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What even is it?
A good starting point.
That name is not the best though
Yo, I have a couple of brushes with Anti-Yo and want to brag about them here:
- I designed the logo. Back when they first launched, Anti-Yo were the talk of the community, so I wanted to capture that visually.
- When Kiya was letting me stay at his apartment a years ago, he introduced me to Its-Its, which I kept lovingly referring to as “eetsits”.
- The End, which was the first schmooved yo-yo, was a modified version of The Eetsit, and still one of my favorite throws.
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Oh wow, that brings back memories! Back when I was broke adolescent trying to make it in Northern California, it was just about all I could scrape up to go down to the little corner store to buy one of these.
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The company has made a name for itself in customer service, with Kiya having flown to the UK to meet unhappy customers to see what is wrong with their yo-yos.
Now that is how it’s done folks.
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That’s some great yoyo history. I’ve never heard that before!
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Dang that’s a lot
Awesome didn’t know those little points!
Have to say, it makes me kind of sad to know we’re at a point where many don’t know about AntiYo. I’ve collected them for a number of years now, sold off some recently, but have some that will never leave. By far they are my favorite brand, they had something that is missing in the industry these days. Wish they’d make a comeback, even if it was just one more yoyo, but it seems that the light has been shut off and they’re done.
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Forgive me is this seems ignorant, but what was so special about them? I’m only about two years deep into this Hobby, so I don’t really have any knowledge of them other than their yoyos are fairly rare and highly coveted.
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I was just happy to be a tiny part of what they were doing. Their yo-yos were exciting and fresh and they brought forth a new style of hype and cool to yo-yo marketing that hadn’t been around before.
I believe they also created the “hyper exclusive buy it before you try it drop” trend that is pretty common with small companies. (cough cough)
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I’m with Chad. They look great, are definately part of the hype-beast culture, and I want a Viszilla. But do I just want one cuz they’re aesthetically pleasing, or impossible to find? Yes, probably.
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Certainly some of its nostalgia. But there is something aesthetically pleasing about the color choices, the original Bape blue/green is iconic. The slipmatte finish had a nice feel as well.
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They had a certain cache at a time when metal yoyo design was just developing and things looked either sterile or… corny.
I wrote a couple blog posts about their stuff. Kiya and Sonny had a special gift of making it feel COOL. I can’t believe we’re in a place where their place in the community is not common knowledge.
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I mean… Where are they?
Oh, absolutely nothing is special about them! Their yoyos, even for that time period, were by no means good players at all! They are simply very hyped up and collectible. Yes, they’re fun yoyos, but by no means out of the ordinary or great.
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Kiya transitioned to focus on Self Edge and Sonny had other stuff (family) taking up more attention. They released a few things in cooperation w One Drop, but kind of gave up the ghost. It happens.
I actually think that while the Fluchs and Eetsit had some vibe issues, Anti-yo was really prized by a lot of top players because the shapes and weight distribution were at the top of what was available back then. Especially the Eetsit/Bapezilla. They weren’t perfect but neither was that time period.
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This is a big part of it for me. The designs were subtle enough to make them unique, their blasting technique (as far as I know, outside of Walter, no other yoyos have been done in their technique), the colors, the stories behind them, the marketing.
They were looking outside the box, and I think they still would be doing this if they were still working with Anti-Yo. The Fluchs, I believe, was the first metal version of a FreeHand. Bapezilla and Peak were THE yoyos to have for quite awhile. People wanted the YWET before they ever even seen one 
Search AntiYo on another (older) popular forum, there is a fairly large thread about it even though no one had seen one.
They were ahead of the curve in a lot of things, social media marketing, they developed their three part replaceable axle at least a couple years before side effects were a thing, The Kuntosh (a shape that most popular competition yoyos are now) was designed years before that shape was common.
Kiya and Sonny are both really nice guys, still hope that one day out of no where there will be a surprise release from them. Kiya still maintains the Anti-Yo twitter account, and I still get excited whenever I get a notification from it hoping it’s a release. 
edit: One other thing that made them special, they’d randomly design yoyos for people that inspired them. Make 1 or 2 and give it to that person. They designed a version of the YWET only for their friends that mainly played responsive, never released them for the general public. Things like this made/make them special.
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