Kyoto

We’re proud to present the Kyoto. The second of three designs inspired by Japanese culture and design philosophy, the Kyoto is a titanium incarnation of the Fuji. It’s minimalist, incredibly fluid, and a joy on the string.

SPECS
Diameter 52.7mm
Width 45.6mm
Weight 70.0g
Material titanium

In September 2025, we released the Fuji, the first of a three-design series that served as a tribute to Japanese culture and design philosophy.

The series was meant to reflect our appreciation for an approach that centered around obsessive care towards physical form (teinei / 丁寧), a minimalism and restraint (shibumi / 渋み and kanso / 簡素), as well as an everyday-ness (yo no bi / 用の美) and joy (tanoshisa / 楽しさ) towards tools and objects.

In case you missed it, here’s more on the Fuji design journey.

The Fuji was a result of multiple redesigns and conceptual overhauls. After four years in development limbo, we settled on a form factor that sufficiently reflected the influence that has permeated our process so deeply over the years. The Fuji was pocketable, fluid, and felt like an everyday companion that combined comfort with great performance.

The Fuji also served as a stepping stone for its successor — the series’ next iteration. Core to our design process has been the practice of materials exploration — an exercise in understanding the traits of different materials across density, hardness or softness, rigidity, and perhaps most importantly, feel.

We’ve stated repeatedly over the years that titanium is one of our favorite materials to work with. It’s not as rigid and unyielding as stainless steel, but has a strength and density that exceeds the usual aluminum alloys. It offers an incredible flexibility and potential, without constraints that feel overly limiting.

There’s also the way machined titanium reflects light in a remarkably warm fashion, accentuating curves, lines and features, which stainless steel and aluminum just cannot replicate.

There’s a sentiment in Japanese design philosophy that states that for any object or tool, the use is its very test. If an object is too precious to be used, handled, it has failed — conversely, objects should grow more beautiful through constant use.

For those reasons, titanium served as the perfect material for this project — to us, it represents a balance of industry and craft. It has excellent tensile strength, and a density that serves its functional design well, and yet gives its form a refined, polished sensibility. It’s enduring and durable, and it also ages in a way that reflects time and history, and not careless damage.

How better to encapsulate the notion of beauty in utility (yo no bi / 用の美) than a material that is dually beautiful and incredibly functional?

When paired with a W-shaped profile, the hub curvature (a perfect arc) prevents a “min-max” weight distribution where everything is packed at the rims, and instead provides more mass in the mid zones. With some intentional adjustments to the Kyoto rim areas for stability and power, this results in a playfeel that is extremely agile and floaty.

We want to address the elephant in the room — the 70g label. If you’ve been here before, many of our designs have playfeels that do not match what cold numbers would suggest — and the Kyoto probably exhibits the greatest dissonance between the digits and playfeel. This is perhaps the lightest, most flowing and fluid 70g you’ll play — it very much feels like a 64-65g yoyo. You’ll never find an issue with its weight, we promise.

Its physical footprint — a 52.7mm diameter, matched with a 45.6mm width, gives it a very relaxed proportion in hand. It’s as pocketable as the Fuji, which shares its diameter, and it feels extremely comfortable and just right.

The Kyoto shares the Fuji’s ease, comfort, and seemingly casual power and capability. It’s easy, comfortable, and appropriate for the everyday. Where it departs, beyond material choice, is in the way that it plays and moves. Whatever the Fuji had in fluidity and smoothness, the Kyoto dials it up to 10.

Kyoto pays homage to the city that is perhaps singular in the way it represents Japanese design, craft and industry. Our time in Kyoto was steeped in exposure to kimono, ceramics, woodworking, and kyo-kanagu, and has formed a deep and lasting impression on the way we think and approach everyday objects.

here’s yuji, making magic with the kyoto.

We’re proud of this one — we hope you enjoy the Kyoto as much as we did making it.

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The kyoto is equipped with

Stratos Pads by Atmos

Type Ii Concave Bearings by Atmos

CloudWeave micro by Atmos

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april 2026

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