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He has led the Japanese surf scene for over 30 years in Kamakura, an exotic old town facing Shounan beach. As a young teenager he was fascinated by the beautiful waves breaking on the shore. This original experience naturally drew him into surfing, and with other pioneer surfers, established “Kamakura” surf style, winning many JPSA contests at an early age.
He has led the Japanese surf scene for over 30 years in Kamakura, an exotic old town facing Shounan beach. As a young teenager he was fascinated by the beautiful waves breaking on the shore. This original experience naturally drew him into surfing, and with other pioneer surfers, established “Kamakura” surf style, winning many JPSA contests at an early age. When the first surfing boom came to Japan with the American fashion and culture of west coast, Degawa established himself not only as a mainstream surfboard builder but as a trend setter of “surfing life style” both in fashion and surfboards design. However, his genuine passion to pursue better surfing made him decide to start all over again. He started “NO BRAND” corporation in 1983. It may sound ironic that his symbol of “going back to basic”, NO BRAND, soon became a big name brand in Japan with the world’s top contender Beau Young as well as David Kinoshita riding NO BRAND Surfboards, proving his talent as one of the best shapers in the world. Even with the success of NO BRAND, Degawa continues to seek better performance and quality of surfboard design in both shaping and materials.
In 2004 Michio Degawa chose Surftech as his next challenge to integrate his 30 years of experience into the next generation of surfboard technology, TUFLITE epoxy surfboards. Surftech now proudly presents to the world Japan’s top longboard label “NO BRAND”, offering a 9’2” Hot Nugget and 9’4” Basic Nugget.
