saltycandy

I'm on Nobu's side here, but with all due respect Rika has more potential to achieve comparable results to Dai's (Kandai's most successful skater to date and the one who gave the club its strong foothold through his achievements) than any of Nobu's current students. That's not to say Nobu couldn't potentially coach a skater to greater heights in the future too, but I doubt that balancing studies and practice (as suggested by Nobu) would be the key to greater competitive success. It would give athletes better prospects for their future for sure though. Besides Dai was coached by Nagamitsu, not Hamada, and according to the referenced article above Nobu accused no one besides Hamada of engaging in the harassment (and maybe in questionable coaching practices?) Dai had a strong bond with Nagamitsu and said many times that she is a very kind person (among others she coaches Keiji, Moa and Sena atm). So right now this doesn't seem to be an issue with the coaching or culture at the KFSC per se but one that's specifically connected to Hamada and possibly some higher ups of the club, who might be shielding her, because her methods are seemingly proving to lead to desirable results. Anyway, that's a lot of speculation. I believe the issue at hand is very delicate and should be handled extremely carefully. Let's wait for a complete translation before jumping to any conclusions. Edit: Clarification of Nobu's side of the story

Before I became a Yuzu fan, I was a dedicated Dai fan (still am actually) and am familiar with his autobiographies and many of his interviews. Imo your characterisation of him is the most insightful one here and comes pretty close to my impression of him. The only thing I'm on the fence about is to call him fearful. I know he used words in that vein, but I think the English connotation is stronger or at least a little different from what he possibly meant to say in Japanese. He's not exactly overly self-confident. (And bar that first 3-year period under Morozov's tutelage almost always had been that way. That's why it wasn't specifically Yuzu's presence, which made him aware of his shortcomings. He often made himself much smaller than he actually was and even thought he wasn't really talented at all. ) He was fairly competitive when he saw a realistic chance to win, but had a tendency to get discouraged and dejected when he felt significantly inferior to his opponents or when any obstacle just seemed too high to overcome. Instead of going on the offensive and fight, he would give up or "run away" to use his own words. I think I'd call him rather insecure and tentative/evasive than fearful (or maybe we mean the same thing, but just use different words to describe it ). I absolutely agree with you, that he's very emotional and sensitive. All of these characteristics together (basically being a "herbivore" with a relatively gentle, defensive personality) can be seen as weakness and that sort of mindset certainly was a disadvantage as far as being an athlete is concerned (he always saw himself more as a performer with a mindset closer to ballet dancers or other stage artists than an athlete anyway and he wasn't driven by competitive results as much as by wanting to be the one, who got most appreciated by the audience), but also as a personal strength. He's always described as exceptionally kind, empathetic and considerate and is loved and seen as a role model by his teammates for it. It actually reminds me a lot of how Yuzu recently called Javi "almost too nice to be a competitor". According to IK, who translated that interview on twitter. Pretty sure it should have been "as a result I tended to focus more on my flaws" instead of "their flaws". At least IK's interpretation goes against almost everything Daisuke has been saying in the past and the statement as translated makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless Daisuke has a severe personality disorder. (Or maybe he chose rather unfortunate, ambiguous words in that interview.) As referred to above, one of his "trademark" characteristics has always been his self-deprecation. He's always been praising other skaters for what they did well/better than him. Here he's praising Taka K. to the heavens: And here he briefly talks about Yuzu/his younger rivals (from Friends+ with Shizuka in early 2013):

Not denying that Yuzu accomplished a herculean feat with his leap from 9th after the SP to 4th overall while injured, but whenever people imply that he secured those spots entirely by himself or that he enabled Tatsuki and Daisuke to go to the Olympics I'm a little...eh? I'm all for credit where credit is due, meaning that Tatsuki's Olympic spot didn't hinge on Yuzu's placement at all and Daisuke (who competed with an inflamed knee himself) helped earning his own spot by placing 6th. Rounded out by Yuzu's 4th and Takahito's 8th place finish the scenario was: 4 + 6 = 10 (3 spots) / 4 + 8 = 12 (3 spots) / 6 + 8 = 14 (2 spots) Takahashi and Mura missed securing the third berth by one (!) point. Had Yuzu withdrawn due to his injury they more than likely would have either secured the three spots on their own (because then Daisuke would have finished 5th and Takahito 7th = 12) or with the help of Nobu, who would have replaced Yuzu. Ergo Daisuke deserved his berth that he helped earn by his own efforts (while, similarly to Yuzu, putting his knee on the line for the team, because at that point obviously noone knew who would get the spots in the end). That said I too don't want Yuzu to compete this time around and potentially aggravate his injury and believe that Shoma, Keiji and Takahito will be up to the task, especially in this significantly depleted field. It will be interesting to see who would get to occupy the third spot next year. Might be none of Tanaka or Mura, but possibly Tomono or Sumoto instead.

People complained through the roof about it. Some still do. Just read the GPF ladies SP thread in that other place when a discussion about how to determine, who among the Japanese ladies will be getting the two spots on the team, broke loose. Some people still bring up how they think it was unfair that Daisuke was chosen in 2013 as an example. Which it of course wasn't, because he met all of the selection criteria (except for his placement at Nationals) and was the most accomplished skater out of those three in contention for the 3rd spot, the same way as Yuzu does and is. There is no question Yuzu deserves it just as much as Dai did and he will be chosen, there's absolutely no doubt about it. It has more or less already been confirmed. I don't get why there's even an ongoing discussion about this anywhere. Sorry to be coming out of lurkdom for this, but for me this is such an upsetting déjà vu, exactly because the current situation and so-called "controversy" resembles the one in 2013 so much. People just seem to enjoy complaining without employing reason or logic and everyone gets their share of it. Sadly that's how it works.