Daiwa Zillionaire Takes Top Award

Daiwa President Carey Graves comments: “After seeing all the advancements and new features that we were putting into this reel, I had confidence that my team had created one of the best low-profile baitcasting reel ever made. Within our R&D, Marketing teams and the whole company, we felt that that Zillion SV would lead us to an award at ICAST this year and lo and behold the retailers and media felt the same way. What a great honor!” 

The win, says Daiwa Field Marketing Manager, Marc Mills, was a long time and coming. “Style, innovation, research, and passion come together in the birth of the new Zillion SV TW. With 40 years of research and experience in magnetic braking systems, Daiwa has added a brand-new SV Booster System gives anglers total control, now with the added benefit of longer casting distance. The reels also feature Daiwa’s new Hyper Drive design for an ultra-smooth retrieve and powerful winding performance,” comments Mills. 

“Zillion has been a really popular name for Daiwa going back through the years,” adds Mills. “But over the past seven or eight years the design has stayed largely the same. This year we’ve really made a lot of changes and technology advancements in the reel—a new shape to the reel, improved palmability, new braking system, new gearing, and so much more. This is a special reel for us. Voters felt the same thing with dealers and media placing the reel in top place when everything was said and done.”

New design concepts are the pinnacle of Zillion’s durability and innovation. The Hyper Drive Design consists of four new elements: Hyper Armed Housing, Hyper Drive Digigear, Hyper Double Support pinion gear, and Hyper Tough Clutch. Hyperdrive Digigear is a new gear design that makes the teeth of the gears more efficient at transferring power, therefore making the gear set feel smoother, more powerful and also reducing gear noise. The reel also features Hyper Armed Housing, an aluminum frame and side-plate for maximum rigidity and precision performance of the internal components. Hyper Double Support is a two bearing support system for the reel’s pinion gear which means no side-to-side movement and an ultra-smooth gear rotation and retrieve. Furthermore, the Hyper Tough Clutch is a redesigned and reinforced clutch mechanism that increases durability and performance. These features combine to make the new Zillion SV TW a peak example of design, function and innovation. 

“First off, the Zillion SV TW features a new Hyper Drive gearing system. What we’re using is a different cut, different angle tooth pattern, which allows more metal at one time to touch each gear. This allows us to transfer power and torque more efficiently and the angle and the shape of the gear teeth provides a super smooth rotation. The result is very fluid, and almost feels like there are no gears in the reel. The smoother you can make the rotation, the longer the gears will live and work well with each other. It also helps because with a fluid almost air-like feeling, you feel the lure better and what the fish are doing. It keeps your mind more focused on your lure and fishing,” adds Mills.

It should also be noted that Daiwa is using brass gears in the Zillion SV TW. In the U.S. market, anglers fish bigger lures and catch much bigger bass than those standardly caught in the JDM market, hence the move to brass gearing in the Hyper Drive system, which is harder and more resilient than the aluminum gearing used in JDM versions of the reel.

Besides the Hyper Drive gearing, Daiwa is also proud to introduce a new braking system in the Zillion SV TW called the SV Booster System. “In the past we’ve had our standard SV system—the one we have in Tatula—which is a one-step braking system, where it will really help you cast smaller and larger baits with less backlashes (and has been extremely successful and popular). The SV Booster System is a two-stage braking system that gives anglers control and stress-free casts without backlashes, but also provides 10% to 15% more distance in your casts. To help with that we’ve added our G1 aluminum spool, a much thinner, lighter spool that really reduces spool inertial allowing better casting of lighter lures,” says Mills.