Cotton Summer Keikogi Compared
The first one is KendoStar's Kurenai I bought this for myself, because I was looking for a light weight indigo dyed gi to wear for teaching in Copenhagen, which is about 2.5 hours of travel from my house.
Characteristics: The sweat wicking mesh lining makes it soft and dulls blows. Essentially it performs just like a double weave gi, while being both much lighter and cooler. It has a back seam, which prevents the fabric from bunching uncomfortably if you wear an obi. The fabric itself is soft, with that comforting indigo smell accompanied by desirable anti-bacterial i.e. anti-stink qualities.
Appearance: The indigo is beautiful and gets rub marks fairly quickly, giving it that slightly weathered appearance that is so coveted. The thread is thinner, meaning the rice grain pattern is delicate, so it both conforms and stand out as special. The back seam assures a traditional appearance
Cost: It is not cheap, but it is a good investment and money very well spent.
Conclusion: It is one of my favorite keikogi and I become increasingly fond of it with time. I love it for the light weight properties and accept the compromises, but this is not a gi I would want for 40 C keiko.
The Second gi is Kendo24's Summer Gi I bought one last year and then bought a second one this summer, because some weeks I train 4 times and I don't like having to do more than one load of laundry or swelter in overly hot all season gear.
Characteristics: It is a special design with rows of rice grain separated by a special very thin weave that invites air in. It is the coolest keikogi I own.
Appearance: It's just regular navy dyed blue. The color starts fading after a couple months of weekly washings and slowly becomes further and further from the aizome shade it is imitating. From afar the mock rice grain pattern looks fine and even up close it looks good enough.
Cost: The most affordable summer gi on the market in Europe.
Conclusion: There's a reason I own two, in terms of shear practicality, it's great in the hottest weather and you can afford to own a whole pile of them. Also, they are more comfortable than single weave regular gi. If I was a beginner and could only own would keikogi, this would be it.
The third gi is NineCircles Kendogi- Non Indigo Dyed Summer. I had one in club inventory that was bought for a youths summer camp we held for all of July.
To be honest the Miyabi and the Bujin keikogi seem completely identical. It appears to only be a difference in the tag. Miyabi is an extremely well respected quality brand and Bujin is Kendo24's house brand and I find their quality to be superb, so when choosing between the two, I would simply have it be a question of what other gear do you desire and which vendor supplies it.