My impressions (my 2 cents) coming soon as I need to speed more time playing with the racket... I just picked up the racket from the shop last week lol... The Gosen Ryoga Ougi 3UG5 is strung with Gosen R4X Momone 0.66mm strings at 25lbs. Paintwork seems to be great, there is a clear coat on top of the decal sticker, therefore it will not chip easily or peel like my Voltric Z-Force... What seems weird as a design decision is that the Ougi is missing the signature rainbow colored "brush strokes" on either sides of the frame... All the regular Ryoga rackets have this, but the limited edition Ougi does not... I used the racket initially and felt really nice. I used a Yonex Supergrap overgrip and the balance feels very slightly head heavy, and the flex is rather stiff. However due to the hot weather over here, I change the grip to a towel grip, and changed the balance a little bit to even balance going towards a little head light.. Pics:
Pray tell, How much did you pay for it and where did you purchase it from? I've been searching it for the longest time...
I had some troubles finding this racket as most of the stores in Hong Kong are sold out. So mail to order was out of the question. A friend of mine had both a brand new Ougi and a brand new Issen that he purchased last year, but have not strung nor used it, and was just sitting in the closet. I asked him if I could buy it off him, and I paid around $220 CDN for the Ougi. Most money I ever spent on a single racket lol. The Ougi I have has t he serial number starting with RGSW, meaning it is overseas International model. If you were to buy from Japan, you would receive a JPN serial number. Also beware that there "might" be fake Gosen Ryoga rackets out there. Maybe not the Ougi, but the other standard models: Issen, Tenbu and Shiden may have fakes. It was from a thread on BadmintonCN where a member bought a Ryoga Shiden, and it turns out to not have a serial number, as well as some extra markings that you would not see on a normal RGSW or JPN Ryoga Shiden.
