Being based in Hong Kong, SER experience some very unique boot spottings that may not be possible elsewhere. The most intriguing though, are the special boots exclusively sold to the Japanese boot market.
Towards the end of 2009, I had one of the most shocking boot spottings ever while in training. One of my team mates turned up in a pair of Mizuno boots none of us had ever seen before. That night after training, I looked up these boots (called the Mizuno Wave Ignitus) and found very limited information on them. The next training session I went up to my team mate and asked him how he got these boots and if they were unreleased? He replied by saying that he bought them in Japan and looked surprised that I was making such a big fuss about them. After more than a month, the Mizuno Wave Ignitus was released worldwide, however in a different color to the ones they had been selling already in Japan.
Not only does it seem that the Japanese football market get some boots earlier than the rest of the world, but they also have exclusive boots and exclusive boot colorways meant only for them.
Another shocking boot spotting we had was when another team mate showed up in a brand new pair of Adidas boots no one had ever seen before. These boots were called the Adidas Pathiqe X, which looked to be a cross between the Predator, Adipure and the Tiempo Super Ligera’s.
Specs:
Upper: Kangaroo leather/artificial leather
the stitch of the Kevler material which is superior in durability
out sole: Plastic make out sole (12 these multiple tractions)
265g (26.5cm one foot)
We do not know much about these boots, but the feedback we have received from teammates is that these are great football boots. If you have ever played with these boots before or have any further knowledge about them, please feel free to email myself [email protected] or leave a comment below!
The Adidas Adipure Japan is another boot we’ve spotted on the training field, but unfortunately know nothing about it.
The Mizuno Supersonic wave is a boot causing quite a stir and a boot that SER will be reviewing in the coming weeks along with the Mizuno Wave Ignitus. The only colorway available to people outside of Japan is the White/Black colorway but in Japan they have many different colorways that I wish we could have acsess too.
There are a ton of boots in Japan unknown to many of us football boot fanatics, so please feel free to share any boots you have spotted exclusive to the Japanese football market or any other market with us!
Wow, never imagined this! But James, are these Adidas and Mizuno boots actually authentic or just some Asian fakes?
they are authentics, just made specially for the japanese market.
I know why Japan has these range of boots. If you look at the stud configuration of the boots, you’ll notice they are a bit different to regular. They are almost a hybrid of firm and hard ground boots. This is because many pitches in Japan are simply duirt. I don’t know why, but when i was in Japan, they had a lot of dirt grounds in schools. it’s like the dirt you see at some baseball grounds. I think because its hard to find good hard ground boots for this type of ground, they released these Pathiqe boots for this. They are a good, K-Leather boot and they are hard ground, something thats hard to find. And these won’t have much of a demand overseas, so thats why its only in Japan.
Does that make sense?
Yeah…I’m from Hong Kong, and the pitch at my school is really quite hard…
but it really depends. After it rains, it gets softer, but if you’re playing while it rains, it’s like playing in mud…so for me it’s even harder to find
a good boot for me…maybe a TUNiT or something…