Hey, the PBT version of Taro that NovelKeys has been working on is now live and in-stock! Check it out:
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Pretty cool. I hope we will see more projects like this in the future maybe with proxies for other regions.
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This is really nifty.
With a designers’ permission, having quality cherry PBT alternatives that are readily available would help satisfy many people’s desires who can’t wait for a year long GMK GB
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1000% percent. It’s great for all of us. (I picked up two of their new Cherry PBT sets)
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Given that Cherry is an actual company that makes keycaps (albeit currently only for their prebuilts), calling them “Cherry Taro” is somewhat confusing as it implies that Cherry is the manufacturer of these caps when they’re not (they’re merely Cherry profile). I know NK doesn’t want to reveal the manufacturer, but they could at least come up with a brand (like Cannonkeys did with NicePBT or Kinetic Labs with Polycaps).
They are nice looking caps though.
EDIT: They also re-branded PBT Notion to Cherry Notion, so this appears to be an intentional decision.
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I feel the same - couldn’t quite bring myself to phrase the post title the way the product title reads. 
That’s my favorite part about this!
It’s all the good stuff that draws people to clone sets without the icky clone part. Artist still gets credit, integrity is maintained, the people get PBT that’s pretty. Everybody wins. I’d personally love to see this happen with a lot more colorways.
I don’t even think it would compete much with something like GMK in the grand scheme of things. Despite some cloud of conventional wisdom saying “PBT good ABS bad” I think plenty of us prefer the sound and feel of ABS over PBT in some situations, on some switches, etc. - but I’d say just as many of us would like to use this or that colorway regularly without it going shiny.
I can think of a colorway or two where I’d be inclined to pick up a set of each if it were an option. My dream scenario here: Phantom R2, available in doubleshot ABS and dye-sub PBT. Turn that into a pipedream, add MT3 profile… But seriously. I’d use Phantom PBT until my fingers fell off - and I’d have GMK Phantom on some unobtanium custom on the centerpiece shelf of my curio cabinet. What do you folks think about all that?
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I think it’s also because the profile is called Cherry Profile
Is there a proxy for it in Europe?
True, but unlike SA/DCS/DSA/etc. Cherry-profile is named after the company that invented it, and “Cherry” on its own generally refers to the company rather than a keycap profile or a switch form factor.
Given the enormity of makers using the name Cherry to only describe a profile, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to use that here. In the case of something like DSA Milkshake vs Cherry Milkshake, it’s easy to see the distinction - had they stuck with PBT Milkshake, that would technically describe both sets and is confusing (as both are dye-sub PBT). While coming up with a name (like NicePBT) could be good for branding, I think they just intend to call these “NK_” but want the flexibility if they shift to different profiles.
Just my two cents
I think this is somewhat contextual. Of course if someone says, “that’s a cherry switch,” I assume cherry the company and not them meaning “mx-compatible switch”, but if someone says it’s a modern cherry set, I’d assume cherry profile.
Considering Cherry use to also make caps before they sold the tooling to GMK I can understand the potential confusion for sure, but I don’t think NK is necessarily wrong about their naming scheme nor their approach to it considering the evolution of how the word/name is used.
While it would be more of a mouthful, a more accurate less confusing name would be “*Cherry-Profile PBT |keycap name|” a la Cherry Profile PBT Taro.
Yes but we’re pretty familiar with the world of mechanical keyboards, and we know Cherry doesn’t make keysets anymore and that Cherry profile is a thing. A newcomer who doesn’t know that would reasonably think that Cherry made this keyset, considering they still make all sorts of other mechanical keyboard products (switches, stabs, prebuilt keyboards, etc.), and especially since no manufacturer is otherwise listed.
I personally wouldn’t be surprised if this results in a cease & desist from Cherry the company, as feels like it might be legally iffy (trademark infringement perhaps)