Stick around long enough, and you’ll notice how things happening remind you of things that happened. In Ryuhei Kitazume‘s new part, you might clock the peak-Transworld video style voiceover waxing poetic about the magic of ledges like it’s Kalis talking about Love in ’96, the Y2Kish jump-cut editing reminiscent of The Reason, or the music video that cuts halfway into the part. But Shinpei Ueno and the minds at Tightbooth have always ran this style.
No, the thing reminiscent of another time is that they’re trying to make a skate video feel Big. Or at least Bigger than they’ve felt in a while.
A proper teaser, a 26-minute premiere recap posted on their YouTube (like, yes, people 13 timezones behind should know there’s a video premiere happening in Japan, wtf is the point of the internet otherwise?), subtitles in two languages …couple this with the “we may as well TRY to do something else!” roll-out currently being applied to WKND’s premiere tour and you feel a lil’ more hopeful about all the blood, sweat and tears going towards a 2026 skate video amounting to something more substantial than just more …idk, #content?
Ryuhei made me go “what?!” when he didn’t try to just pop to flat off the corner on his S.F. library clip, scream “Jeeeee-zus!” [non-religiously] at his nollie heelflip, and my ankles felt a crunch on some of his drop-down manny tricks as I wondered how many times he and his homies ran back the clips in slo-mo to ensure they were above fraction-of-a-millisecond scrutiny on any potential touches. It is such a relief we share the same political views on ledges despite existing in such vastly different stack brackets ;)
Hello, Skateboard Oscars Season™. Video by the legend Shinpei Ueno.