Juvenile Offender by Big Brother Yo-Yos
Reviewed by Chris Rhoads
July 18, 2010
Introduction
In late April of this year there was a wonderful post put up on a couple different forums about how Yo-Yo companies are personified. Quite a few photos were put up showing how the community views the different companies. There were many fun and creative submissions. This has gotten me thinking about how I see some of the companies I love to throw. When I posted in one of those threads I put up a picture of Einstein and Oppenheimer as a representation of One Drop. A couple days ago I was looking back at those old posts and came to a realization. There was one company that I thought was lacking representation, Big Brother Yo-Yos. The funny thing is that I have always had an image in my head when I think of Big Brother and that is of Captain Ivan Drago from Rocky IV; the enormous, Russian adversary to Rocky Balboa. Stick with me here, it will make sense. For those that have not seen this “epic” piece of cinematic craftsmanship, Drago is this hulk of a man but he is far from cumbersome. He has quick reflexes and is precise. THAT is how I see BBYY, every product under the BBYY banner has been this hulking beast of a yo-yo; even the mini sized Swirly with its massive rims. While they are bulky yo-yos they still react quickly on the string and are nimble through even the most convoluted of tricks. They are the bruisers towering over the General-Yos, SPYYs and CLYWs in my case. Today we are looking at the Juvenile Offender (aka the JO). This is the yo-yo that many consider successor to the Bully. This yo-yo has a lot to live up. Now we get to see if Doug Spence’s latest creation will have its gloved fist raised in victory or if it need to just lay there as the ref stands over it, mercifully giving it the 10 count.
Specs
- Diameter: 55.90 mm
- Width: 44.00 mm
- Gap Width: 4.50 mm
- Weight: 69.50 mm
- Bearing: C-Sized Standard 8-Ball
- Response: Flowable Silicone
Construction
The Juvenile Offender arrived as most Big Brother yo-yos do, in the translucent, white, plastic, screw top container that has been Spence’s trademark since the original Bully. After I pulled the yo-yo from the container, I just sat it on the desk and marveled at it for a bit. This thing is massive. When placed in my case it truly does tower over all the other yo-yos in my collection and it positively looms over its little brother, my BBYY Swirly. Looking at the profile of the yo-yo we can see that the JO is part of an emerging trend in yo-yo design; it is a hybrid of the H-Shape and the V-Shape. Each half of the yo-yo starts off with a 0.6 mm flat rim that transitions into a V-cut catch zone. Half way down the catch zone there is a step cut into the wall that gives the JO a more pronounced H-Shape. The end result is a large amount of weight is pushed out to the rims of the yo-yo. Moving from the catch zone to the cup we see that Doug has given us a nice set of sharp spikes and an angled IGR for thumb grinds. One welcome addition to the Juvenile Offender is the inclusion of a bead blast finish. Normally Doug has shied away from media blasting his production run yo-yos. This changed with the release of the Big Brother TT. While I have not had the pleasure of playing a production TT I can say this. If the TT and Juvenile Offender share the same bead blast finish, I now understand why everyone went nuts over the feel of the TT. The Juvenile Offender bead blast is a little smoother than a Candy Blast finish while catching the light just like Candy Blast. At this time the retail colors are Half Red and Half Black or Half Clear and Half Blue. Both of the combos look killer but I would have to say that the Clear and Blue just looks incredible, especially when it is out in bright sun.
Photo Courtesy of the Big Brother Yo-Yos Facebook Page
Weight
This is where the Juvenile Offender gets interesting. On paper, this yo-yo is pushing close to 70 grams. It is a heavy yo-yo. The funny thing is that on the string you do not feel the weight. It is light, slightly zippy, and a little floaty. Being such a big yo-yo, the weight is distributed through out the yo-yo with a good deal of it in the rims. When I first looked at the specs, before I received it, I thought it was going to play close to the Bully. They could not feel more different on the string. The Bully is heavy, slow but not sluggish, and determined on the string. The Juvenile Offender gave me hang time when I popped it into the air for Kwijibo. This is a heavyweight that feels like a middleweight.
Response and Bearing
The bearing is nothing spectacular, just a standard 8-Ball. There is nothing wrong with that. I found that the stock bearing plays well but it did need some cleaning compensate for it being heavily lubed. Other than that, it is going strong and playing great.
The response is a recessed flowable silicone. Doug has expertly installs the silicone for all of his yo-yos himself, which is no small feat when you consider that he usually has 100 to 200+ yo-yo runs. The recess is perfectly executed in the JO being deep enough to keep it dead unresponsive while still giving tight, snappy binds.
Playability
On the first throw I was floored by this yo-yo. As I said before, I was expecting a slower playing bull of a yo-yo. What I got was this zippy gazelle. It is fast on the string and feels lighter than the stats lead you to believe. Now don’t get me wrong, it isn’t a blindingly fast yo-yo like some of the lightweights out there but it is quick and agile on the string nonetheless. The 4.5 mm gap is plenty large enough for three or four Lindy Loops without it slowing the yo-yo and the wide-open catch zone is a breeze to catch during an Eli Hop. One thing I really appreciated with this yo-yo is that it is very easy to maneuver in confined spaces. During the play period for the Juvenile Offender I decided to try to learn the trick Triple Tower. The movements for this trick lend themselves to a smaller yo-yo because it requires you to place the yo-yo into some confined spaces close to your throw hand. Even though the JO towers over my Ministar I found it just as easy to get into those tight spaces without the rims catching on the strings.
The spikes of the JO are a welcome change from the spikes on the Bully. I don’t know if they were too dull or if the lack of bead blast was the reason, but I found the Bully spikes to be unusable for matador tricks. The JO spikes on the other hand are perfectly suited for the job and are easy to catch, as long as you have large hands to wrap around the yo-yo.
Finally lets talk about the grinds. Remember that gorgeous looking bead blast finish I mentioned earlier? Well it isn’t just for show. This yo-yo is a fantastic grinder. So much so that I am kind of mad at Doug. I hope this finish is brand new to him because if he has been sitting on this and not using it on his retail products, he and I will have to have words. Just about the only grind problem I encountered was thumb grind catches where you pop the yo-yo into the air and catch it on your thumb. The cups are a hair too shallow for my large thumbs and I found that every once in a while the yo-yo would bounce off my thumb when I tried to catch it. It isn’t a huge deal, not everyone is 6’5” like I am. If you have normal size hands I am betting you will not encounter this issue.
Final Thoughts
There are many ways I can sum up this yo-yo for you. I could tell you that it is the best thing to come out of BBYY in quite some time… it is. I could say that you really owe it to yourself to play one… you do. Heck, I could tell you to strike up the song “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor because the champ just KO’d another one… it did. Instead of listing every synonym of the word “excellent” that I can think of I am going to leave you with a small story. Last week was my son’s sixth birthday. During the week I had to plan the party for him and the immediate family, the party for him for my wife’s side of the family, and the party for him for my side of the family. No small task. Being that it was a busy week I decided to treat myself to a week off from reviewing. I had played the Juvenile Offender for its required week, the week prior to my son’s birthday and had my notes on it ready to be turned into this review. Normally I am playing the yo-yo I am reviewing next most of the time so having a week where I get to choose whatever yo-yo I want whenever I want is a little bit of a novelty for me. That being said, I found myself going back to the JO even when I didn’t have to. I played it most of last week because it is THAT good. That right there says something about the design of this yo-yo. Congrats Doug on adding another hooligan to your stable of killer performing delinquents.
