Takafumi Konishi exploring Alaska’s bounty

Takafumi Konishi had a good old time in Alaska filming with Heart Films last year. He scored great snow and bluebird weather – and had the luxury of time to enjoy it, putting down ‘good times lines’  in this fun 3-minute edit.

Keep an eye out for the Yawgoons-style reverse carve at 02:13 – a first in the backcountry? He also has some solid stone-skimming game (although needs to work more on his stone selection – Ed.).

As well as switching it on in Alaska’s big terrain, Takafumi Konishi enjoys riding resort like the rest of us. We, at Japan Grabs, can attest to that – not long before he was riding in AK, rather than ‘training’ for big mountain lines, he was building and running a mini-shred pumping derby event, and riding in Rome’s ‘just for fun’ tranny-finder style jam session event, ‘Stoken’. Takafumi Konishi Air

He has classic style on a skateboard too – Mike V would be proud of the street plant in that edit. Rome’s Japan team jump in a van every autumn and do a ‘Kids On Shred’ skatepark tour, where we spotted Konishi man-planting in the bowl. Takafumi Konishi Man-PlantThis sense of fun and skate-influenced style are clear in the playful but powerful way he tears down AK lines.

Heart Films was started a decade ago by Tadashi Fuse’s desire to help more Japanese riders prove themselves on the international stage, by inviting them to Whistler to film. After blazing this trail himself, Tadashi passed the Heart Films torch to backcountry ski and snowboard filmmaker, Keiji Tajima. The story of the last 10 years of Heart Films is told in “GO WILD”, available on Vimeo On Demand here: