On the streets of Tokyo, Zoomadanke's "Kodaman" (Takeshi Kodama) and "Easy" (Hiroki Iijima) look like any other young men in their 20s or 30s. The second they start playing kendama, however, the pair will put on a performance that completely redefines the traditional wooden toy.
Zoomadanke is a professional kendama performance unit that was formed in December 2010. There was no major company pulling strings in the background — just two men, Kodama and Iijima, who decided that they enjoyed kendama so much they would make it into a career.
"It all just started out as something fun," says Kodama, 34. "The image of kendama was rather uncool, and people mostly looked down on it as a plain and sedate toy. I thought that if we could change that image, people would see how great it really was."
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