The Kobe 9 EM Philippines Puts a Pair of Tsinelas in the Outsole, and Nike Built It for One Country

Nike is bringing the Kobe 9 EM “Philippines” back on November 18, and what lands on SNKRS is a Protro rather than a straight retro. The colorway first appeared in April 2014 as a shoe built for a single market, sold in Manila and almost nowhere else, and it has spent the years since as one of the harder Kobe pairs to explain to anyone who was not already paying attention. Most of the case for it sits on the bottom of the shoe, where there is a flip-flop.

The Kobe 9 was the year Kobe Bryant’s signature line went high. The Elite version ran Flyknit up over the ankle and took most of the attention, and the EM was the other half of the plan, an engineered mesh build that Nike offered in both heights. The low is the one that stuck. Nike’s 2014 release copy describes Flywire woven into the mesh upper and integrated with the lacing, which is the entire construction in one sentence. No leather, no overlays, a lace system doing the job a cage would normally do. That made the EM Low the Kobe 9 people actually played in, and it is the reason the model’s best graphics ended up on the low rather than on the Elite. The 9 has never been retroed with the frequency Nike gives the 4, 5 and 6, so its colorways have held their reputations longer than the volume of the line would suggest.

Nike’s product copy for the Protro names a drop-in React foam midsole, a carbon fiber plate in the outsole and traction blades along the inside edge. The graphics are where the work was done. Designer Erick Goto, who is of Filipino descent, built the 2014 original around three references that Nike spelled out at the time: a weave pattern on the upper taken from the straw baskets and containers in daily Filipino use, chrome at the heel standing in for the jeepney, and a tsinelas, the thong sandal, printed into the sole as a nod to barangay and sandlot players who hoop in whatever is on their feet. The photographs bear all of it out. The upper reads as a woven block of orange, red and blue against a navy heel counter, Kobe’s script signature sits in red on that heel, and the sole is translucent enough that the sandal shape and the red of the drop-in midsole both show through from underneath. The chrome Swoosh and the metallic sheath logo on the tongue are the only hard surfaces anywhere on the shoe.

Worth flagging, because the feeds have already blurred it: JustFreshKicks places the jeepney reference in the multicolor forefoot, while Nike’s own 2014 release put the jeepney in the chrome at the heel and gave the forefoot weave to the basket pattern. The brand’s version is the one to go with.

What makes this release different from the rest of the Protro calendar is that it is not a reissue of something American buyers lined up for and lost. Nothing was lost here, because almost nobody outside the Philippines could buy it. Nike spent 2026 taking market-specific Kobe designs global, and this is the second clear instance: the Kobe 8 Protro “Shanghai Fireworks” made the same trip out of China a week earlier on the calendar. Two in one month is a strategy, not a coincidence. The upside is that a design nobody could reach now reaches everyone. The cost is that a shoe made as a gift to one audience becomes general inventory, and the people it was addressed to get to buy it on the same terms as a reseller in New Jersey. Nike has not said whether Philippine retail gets any allocation ahead of the global drop, and that answer would tell you how much of this is tribute and how much is catalogue.

Nike’s own product feed lists the adult pair at $200, which is where the current Protro line sits. The Kobe 10 Protro “Blue Lagoon” carried the same number in October and the Kobe 3 Low Protro “Mamba Eterno” came in ten dollars under it. The original sold in the Philippines at P8,495, which is the detail that gives the reissue its context: this was never a hype-priced shoe in its home market, it was a flagship basketball release sold at flagship basketball money. One note for anyone pricing it out early, JustFreshKicks reported the adult figure as either $190 or $200 before Nike’s feed settled it.

The Kobe 9 EM Low Protro “Philippines” releases November 18 in style code IO6262-600, listed by Nike as Laser Crimson/Obsidian/Silver, at $200 in adult sizes. Nike’s feed carries it as a SNKRS entry opening at 15:00 UTC that day, and the pair is searchable by style code on nike.com. Sneaker Bar Detroit reports grade school sizing as well, though Nike has not confirmed a second size run or any stockist beyond its own channels.

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The Sneakers Team

The Sneakers Team is the editorial desk behind becausesneakers, founded and edited by Nick Engvall. Nick has spent more than two decades in the sneaker industry. He built the original Eastbay Blog, led the first dedicated sneaker team at Complex, ran the first UGC and seeding programs at Finish Line, was employee number nine at StockX, and served as Senior Director at Stadium Goods. He hosts the Sneaker History podcast, and his first book, Small Luxuries: Sneakers, arrives in October 2026 from Motorbooks. Release details on this site are checked against the brand's own product information before publication, and anything we cannot confirm is labelled rather than stated.

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