If he were to make a comeback, I feel like he wouldn’t be very welcome around here…
Going back to Anti Yo though, back in '06ish, they were extremely popular. I had just started yoyoing around that time, thanks to YYF and their exhibition they had at a toy festival in Singapore. After a month or so, I started to get really in to throwing (More so the culture of throwing than actually learning), and knew of relatively few brands, but EVERYONE new Anti Yo.
You either had a Bapezilla, or wanted one. I had the chance to try out a Bape, and back then, it amazed me. There was just something special about it… It looked cool, and was metal. What more could you want? Since then, I have greatly developed as a yoyoer, and although it has been a while since I’ve thrown an OG Bape, looking back, it was really a bad throw by today’s standards. There was a vibe, and the shape is a bit vanilla, at least nowadays. I feel that if a company like CLYW released yoyo like this today, it would be thrashed by the community.(The one I got to try had a lot less vibe than others, I was told. The vibe in all of them was due to misaligned axles, and an odd bearing seat design, if I’m correct.)
So yeah, Anti Yo had a lot of hype. So much, that a new thrower like me knew who they were. But, I think this hype eventually lead to them not producing yoyos for a few years. After a while, there was a big backlash on the Bapezilla’s, mainly due to the vibe I think. (Correct me if I’m wrong. I left the scene before the backlash, for about 2 years before yoyoing again.)
In the fall of 2011, they made a comeback, and released the Ywet, which I came close to buying, but didn’t, mainly because of the weird response.