Chris, it is kind of surprising that these rods were so far from what was expected from Daiwa. Though I didn't expect anything spectacular at a price of about $138. After making the post I checked the troutnews website and these new rods didn't even merit a mention there. The two most recent entries at troutnews under Tenkara were the Nissin Royal Stage rods in early Dec 2014 and before that an Asis Fly Tying kit in Aug. Not much tenkara news there at all in 2104, other than new accessories like new level line, or folding tamo models. Really the only tenkara rod announced there in 2014 before the Royal Stage rods was the Tenryū rod last Feb. Thus going back to the 2014 Osaka Fishing show.

I would expect Daiwa to announce a replacement for the Enshou rods a the Osaka Fishing show in 3 weeks. Unless Daiwa is lowering their interest in the high end Tenkara market, which I doubt. I have read in many places, on Japanese websites, and both the Tenkara Guides and Discover Tenkara guys mentioned the popularity of the Rinfu rods for Tenkara fishing. If Daiwa is paying attention I'd think they would basically take that rod paint it a different color, and put tenkara clothes on it, i.e. a handle grip of some kind suddenly a new tenkara rod, or maybe suddenly fixing something that wasn't broke. Actually it looks a lot like Daiwa kept the Rinfu paint and dropped the rod underneath with these low end tenkara rods. ( Ha, it's not a Type 4 Rod but 4 Types of rods. my disclaimer is I admitted I hadn't yet really sorted out the translation)

The Rinfu rod:
http://all.daiwa21.com/fishing/item/...puu/index.html

The 2015 Osaka Fishing Show:
http://www.fishing.or.jp/english/

D