I have not seen it mentioned here yet, nor on any of the several Japanese blogs I frequent. Admittedly, I also didn’t look very hard either.
It appears Daiwa is introducing a new entry level tenkara rod this coming November. It’s already on their website.
https://10colorstenkara.com/t/daiwa-introducing-new-tenkara-x-rod-x/1400
Peder,
The odd thing about your post is yesterday I also almost made a post here about the Tenkara X rod - after looking at this webpage, ２０２０年ダイワ渓流竿ラインナップ！ [ 2020 Daiwa mountain stream rod line up]
https://www.bun2.jp/feature/0000100.html
Where everything that is new is marked with a red star is new item [ ★印は2020年新製品 , star mark indicates new item in 2020] , and also almost came here to post about it, after first seeing that they are also not listed at Tenkarabum, but then discovered it had already been mentioned here.
Anyway, the spiraling X tape around the sections of the rod blank is an interesting bit of engineering. Their claim being that the X-tape strengthens the rod sections thereby allowing the rod blank walls to be thinner and lighter; reducing rod weight, and swing weight.
The Japan Fishing Shows (festivals) start this weekend in Yokohoma, and Feb, 8 ~9 in Osaka.
Maybe some new tenkara related items will be introduced during the shows.
横浜 釣りフェスティバル 2020Yokohama
1/17（金）・18（土）・19（日）
大阪 フィッシングショーOSAKA 2020
2/8（土）・9（日）
https://www.daiwa.com/global/ja/fishingshow/2020ss/show/yokohama.html
Daiwa is releasing in Feb. a two kebari set:
TENKARA KEBARI SET STANDARD KIZI
テンカラ毛針セット スタンダードキジ（クリーム/ブラック）
[Tenkara Hair Needle Set Standard Pheasant (Cream / Black)]
https://www.daiwa.com/jp/fishing/item/terminal_tackle/keiryu_te/tenkara_kebariset_kiji/index.html
My attempt at cloning the idea. With materials I have on hand. Intentionally making one a little less bushy. Maybe the next try will be a little bit better. 
Not to be pedantic, but it’s interesting that Daiwa has it transliterated as “Kizi” when the word for Japanese pheasant (Phasianus versicolor) is “kiji” (キジ).
I also thought it interesting that they didn’t use the Japanese words for cream and black. Rather they used “kurīmu” (クリーム) and “burakku” (ブラック).
I also noticed the “kizi” translation. Maybe it as simple as local accent. Similar to how southerners and yankees say words like - hi or five - differently. However, cream [クリーム ・kurīmu] seems to be fairly common. Black “burakku” (ブラック) vs [ 黒・kuro] a little less common
Lately I’ve been re-watching some of the Hikaru no Go anime [ ヒカルの碁 (アニメ)] videos on youtube. There are 75 episodes. Japanese language with English subtitles. I can sometimes pick up words in the conversations that are more English than Japanese words. Words that I know have alternatives in the Japanese language.
Apparently, I didn’t pay close enough attention nor do a search before I started this thread. It appears that as usual, @dwalker beat me to it.
