18 and life, you got it!

[Poolshark]

Round reels as a whole are on the decline. Some of us can appreciate them, but there's is simply too much fun stuff out there to fish with that is more ergonomic and well performing to justify buying another c3 or c4. 

I always saw Abu as an iconic reel maker. I always interpreted their slogan as... We stand behind and support our products for life as they do with the the c3's, c4's etc ... My problem with the modern stuff is that they are are simple doyo clones. No different than the stuff from lews and bass pro.

This is where they lost what differentiated themselves to me  from the rest of the market. This is my perspective on the current company anyways. Its probably not even practical to support reels forever, but if they did, I'd use them exclusively. 

 

 

[zell_pop1]

Their ads make me laugh "Swedish engineered". Ya right like others said same reels as Bass Pro or Lews.

[jtesch]

They still make some really good reels in my opinion. The Premier and MGX are both solid reels, same with the winch and the rocket. I just don’t think you can compete with Daiwa right now when you can buy a Tatula SV for $140 or the CT for $100. Never a huge fan of their rods but I’ll take the Villain 2.0 over just about any rod at the $200 price point. Daiwa obviously made a huge effort to dominate the $100-$200 price range for rods and reels and they’re doing it. Even Shimano’s mid range rod lineup kinda sucks right now. One thing is certain. In 2 years everything will change again. Wasn’t very long ago I thought the world would end because the OG Zillion was discontinued.