Umebachi

Just watching the Olympics dressage freestyle on Japanese satellite Channel (BS Green channel グリーンチャンネル). The Japanese commentators at the start of the competition was explaining how they set the order saying “it’s just like the Free Program for figure skating - top ranking competitors are grouped into categories, with highest performers at the end, randomly selected within each group!” I wish one of them would perform to Seimei. Perhaps one day…. Japanese dressage will take another decade to get to this level but my hope is that Tokyo Olympics will raise the profile. Yuzu could pick up dressage. The he can perform well into his 70s like Mr Hoketsu. Freestyle is like Figure skating, judged on technical and artistic merits. Plus they have judges spread out on 7 points around the ring!! Unlike FS sadly…

Naomi understands and speaks Japanese, just not fluently for public interviews. She speaks Japanese in an adorable child like manner and her expressions and gestures are very Japanese - shy and floppy at times. In Japan they have shown her chatting with her grandfather who has now fully accepted her and embraces her with love and kindness. So proud to have her represent Japan - she is helping our society evolve and progress and become more open to different ways of being Japanese. I am glad she was the one to light the torch. Also I am relieved Yuzu avoided being associated with this Olympic event, as the organizers had utterly neglected the Tohoku recovery theme, and he should not be manipulated and used by them to cover up for their sins. Naomi brings a fresh perspective and she has her own unique message that won’t be tainted by this pandemic Olympic.

Yes, the TBS Kanto is available on Forjoytv.

I would love to see him perform White Legend again - with his more mature interpretation and movements! Re: PW - I was at the SCI and screamed along with the rest of the audience. Of course I would not mind seeing PW again but I think he will choose another program since we have already multiple video recordings of his mature SCI PW. Also if he wants to revisit his old programs, I would not mind seeing an upgraded and refined version of Etude as the Short Program for Beijing 2022. It's a beautiful piano piece with dynamic music and emotional content.

Japanese:　Lily*さん、お疲れ様です！　本当にそうですね。アプリを通して世界中の方々が言葉を交わせれば有難いですが、Google翻訳は日本語を上手く訳してくれないのが残念です... English(sort of translation)：　Lily＊　Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. I agree with you！It would be nice if we could all easily access Translation Apps, but Japanese seems to be a particularly difficult language to translate. I find it takes too much effort to compose Japanese sentences in order to avoid odd and sometimes hilarious translations. In any case, I am glad to find many people, esp on twitter, willing to offer almost instantaneous translations of Yuzu's words into English, Chinese and other languages. Better than Google apps, we have the Fanyu Crowdtranslating Machine (FCM) that is helping to spread his words across the globe! And I am happy to be a part of the FCM and contribute to the effort.

Yuzu as Ashura. The artist Azusa Nakazawa (twitter handle @azusanakazawa) uses traditional Japanese painting technique to depict historic scenes and horses. He painted this depiction of Yuzu as Ashura (buddhist god warrior) just before the Worlds 2021 - to wish him well. There is a common theme running through Ashura and Lord Uesugi Kenshin - warriors who wish to stop fighting and seek the golden way. The same artist recently had an exhibition, which included this lovely piece: "Hiding behind flowers" - a depiction of Yuzu as Ushiwakamaru, youthful Minamotono Yoshitsune probably just before he meets Benkei on the famous Gojo bridge in Kyoto. This looks like Abe-no-Seimei.

I fully agree with all that you say above about the Olympics. I also wanted to leave the topic out of this forum, but as we are approaching the Olympics I think it's important to share what is going on so that the satellites can understand and be prepared for the heart twisting that is going on in Japan rn. The situation in Japan wrt the Olympics is only superficially covered in international media, and they don't go far enough into explaining the outright politicization by the government (who couldn't care less about Tohoku recovery) and bullying by the IOC. This is a common theme that infiltrates ISU/JSF as well as most elite sporting events (tennis, for example). The Olympics has become so tainted and toxic in Japan that I wish Yuzu would be left in peace and allowed to focus on his 4A (and protect his mental health). PS I should add that I fully appreciate other satellites wishing Yuzu to be a torch bearer as a recognition of his contributions to the athletic world. I would have loved to see Yuzu participate in the opening ceremony with Nomura Mansai as the artistic director. It is unfortunate that even Mansai left that position and it has been taken over by another politically compliant personage...

Thank you for sharing! The Ashura statue at Kofukuji Temple in Nara is my absolute favorite religious artwork of all times!　My mother took me there when I was small as it was her favorite statue, and I have returned to view it many times ever since her passing...　The statue is a masterpiece that captures the expression of emotional conflict and its resolution - from anger and aggression towards repentance and compassion. There is a poignancy in the expressions of the statue that is similar to Uesugi Kenshin's musings/reflections. These are very difficult concepts to express in art, but it seems Yuzu is gradually moving toward that goal. In that "Yuzu as Ashura wearing ruffles" discussion, it's interesting to see someone pointing out the similarities in style between Ashura's simple garb and Yuzu's Etude costume: i.e., an asymmetric ruffling of textile across one shoulder. (Side note: In Japanese, we refer to "ruffles" as "frills"　 フリル probably because "ruffles" in Japanese can't be distinguished from "raffles".) I am looking forward to the day when Yuzu appears in a severely simplified costume that will somehow echo the complexity of emotions expressed by the venerable Ashura-zo.

Yes I was wondering about that, thanks! グダグダ（Gudaguda）is not a new term nor specific to SNS. The meaning is not quite dilly-dallying (which implies some playfulness) - I think it's closer to: slow, sluggish, dithering without a clear direction. I see the term being these days to describe the Covid vaccination program in Japan - really グダグダ！

Thank you for doing the translation! I hope this will get wider readership among the general Figure Skating community. Despite the large amount of Japanese to English translations being generated by the fan community, I have noticed a relatively high "wall" that divides this community from the English-speaking FS /sports journalists who seem to know so little about Yuzu's background or his way of thinking. They can no longer use the "language barrier" as an excuse for the ignorance when so much material is made available online. They seem unable (or unwilling) to do the minimum research expected of any professional journalist.

Congrats to @Henni147 and everyone who contributed to the project! Thanks for taking the time and making that extra special effort - all for the public good! This is an important moment to have the wiki pages in good shape as we start to move toward the Winter Olympic season.

For those of you with ForjoyTV subscription, you can access Nittere Plus (channel 56 on my subscription). I assume there is access on iSakura...? In case you are looking for the channel, it is written in Japanese as: 日テレプラス

This is the ice show "Luxe" which is the third in the series of ice shows starring Daisuke Takahashi. Last two years' production were focused on combining Japanese historic/literary dramas/Kabuki with skating, but they are now taking a totally different track. In this year's production, they worked on IT and projection mapping with body sensors attached to the skaters to synchronize the light projections with the movement of the skaters. In this TV segment, Dai-chan explains that he challenged Keiji to perform to a dance of two men in love - another way of pushing the boundaries of figure skating!

Indeed! And he will continue to find and meet new challenges head on! As I have said before, I believe he will continue to develop in amazing and unexpected ways, way beyond and past the Olympics. As an athlete, he appears to be a late bloomer and is only now coming into full maturity: 4A will be a great crowning achievement. Intellectually, he is only just begun, barely dabbling his toes in the water, and I am looking forward to him getting much more deeply involved in complex systems research. Ultimately, my fervent hope (and prayers) is that at a later stage in his life he will take leadership in nurturing the development of a new political movement that will take Japan (and the rest of the planet) out of the terrible funk in which we find ourselves. He is a rare and precious phenomenon that appears once in a blue moon, and who could influence human society in profound ways.

I think TCC offers a much safer and richer training environment than working alone in Sendai Ice Rink at midnight (the rink has to be open to public during the day for their business/revenues). I agree that Yuzu has benefited greatly from working on his own this past season, and learned to manage his training and his physical conditions on his own. This must have given him greater confidence and will no doubt lead to new and different ways of training. But I expect he would also want inputs from the diverse team of coaches available at TCC - not just Brian but Ghizlain, Tracy, spin coaches etc. And in reference to 4A training he mentioned he missed getting access to good physical care/sports medicine - which is excellent in Canada. (I recall when he was recovering from the lysfranc injury in 2015/2016 season he said in one of the interviews that he appreciates the quality of Canadian sports medicine.) He knows that at TCC he will be given a lot of space to pursue his own training regime, and no one will be "telling him what to do". Another consideration is Covid-related: given the mess that the Japanese government is making of Covid policies including the huge delay in vaccination (Japan has vaccinated around 2% of pop with one dose, far worse than India at 6%), it would be safer for Yuzu to travel to Canada this summer when the country might start to open up with higher vaccination rate (currently at 40% of pop with one dose). As mentioned in the interview, Brian mentioned that he is working hard to persuade the province to allow overseas athletes back into TCC. Let's hope this happens! My older family members (in their mid 70s) in Tokyo don't expect to get vaccinated until July or August - so there is little chance the younger people in Japan will get vaccinated before the fall at the earliest - so not before the start of the new FS season!

Thanks for doing the AI translation - that’s really quite good! So much better than the Google translation that is such a disaster zone! The only missing aspect is the nuance and tone of Brian’s “voice” which doesn’t quite come through. Here is my interpretation: When Brian realized that Yuzu was not doing the usual routine he knew something was up. But instead of asking “what’s happening/what’s wrong?” he contained/held back this thought tightly in his heart and tried to say “let’s go” with as much lightness (not quite casualness but rather an effort to maintain normality in an extremely abnormal situation) in his voice as he could muster. You can feel Brian’s sensitivity and understanding of the delicate situation. Yuzu is clearly in a precarious state and he is making to pull things together back to normal routine. The last thing he needed was someone flapping about and throwing him further off balance. This is my interpretation of Brian’s words but the choice of words in this sentence shows the delicacy of the balancing act that Brian was having to go through at that moment. The literal translation, while correct, doesn’t quite capture this mood. Thank you Brian for being such a respectful and sensitive coach. He knows Yuzu is now grown up and does not need “instruction” so much as silent moral support. The bird has flown the nest but will occasionally fly back to rest his wings. This post has been tagged by yuzuangel as [NEWS].

To be clear, that is not his thesis but an article in an academic journal which summarizes the first part of his thesis. As far I know, his full thesis is not yet made publicly available by Waseda U.

Oh that's brave of you to translate, Thank you!! It's so difficult to convey the emotion because we can't quite carry the onomatopaeia into English. We will need to be like Jabberwocky level of craziness to be able to convey Vanessa's intensity!

@Henni147 Thank you for doing this! Great to have data-based analyses available at our fingertips!

The Japanese National Veterinary and Life Sciences Library encouraged students during this pandemic period to access their university's repositories of theses and treatises. They specifically gave examples of Yuzu's special article in Waseda Uni journal and Tatsuki Machida's doctoral thesis. Now we will have vets and future vets of Japan reading about the ISU scoring issues. Very important for the well being of animals in Japan. This post has been tagged by yuzuangel as [NEWS].

Yuzu has selected a field that is extremely under-represented. In an earlier interview, he noted how little research there is on figure skating compared to other sports. His research is among the first in this area, and there is not much competition in terms of being "scooped" academically - especially when you are among the path-breakers. Also, Yuzu is not publishing for tenure, so the usual "publish or perish" paradigm is obviously not relevant here. He is interested in open source type of research - sharing widely to encourage the expansion of the field and inviting MORE competition. Finally, among the Japanese academics, there is huge surprise to see an undergraduate thesis of this calibre. I think it is quite rare to get a ground-breaking research done at the undergrad level in the USA because the curriculum is generally geared toward liberal/broad education and less specialized at that stage (I am Japanese but did my BA and PhD in USA). It's probably the same in Japan (this is a conjecture on my part). But Waseda's Human Sciences department seems to be quite an innovative group, as they are tackling a new area of scientific research and taking a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving. As a retiree, I have the pleasure and privilege of starting to educate myself in this area and am amazed at the enormous progress being made in this field. There is a marvelous convergence of neuroscience, behavioral sciences and harnessing of technology to enhance research. In the sports field, I do expect Yuzu to continue his research and will likely make further contributions. His undergrad thesis is just the first small step in that direction!

Here is a tweet string with a good summary of Yuzu's reserach article. As I noted above, please take note that this article covers only one part of his longer thesis. There might be more articles to follow. This post has been tagged by yuzuangel as [NEWS].

Thank you to Planet Hanyu admins for creating the platform in the crazy aftermath of Worlds 2017 which was instigated by the unfair scoring discussion. Now, four years on, we are once again discussing unfair scoring and preparing for pre-Olympic year, but what a difference a quad cycle makes! We now have a serious, research article addressing the topic of judging and a star skater who is no longer tied down to the Olympics title but is looking ahead to a brighter future. Congratulations and ありがとうございます!!　 I totally agree with you! Looking forward to Hanyu branded events - which will go beyond the simplistic cheerleader style ice shows of N America or the embarassingly clumsy, Showa-era (i.e. clonky old) Japanese ice shows. I have deep dislike for FaoI and only tolerate watching it because of Yuzu. The entire show brings back too many trauma inducing memories of my teenage years in Japan, when this type of shows were common. Yuzu's Continues with Wings gave a glimpse into his more artistically mature and coherent approach to ice shows. It would be great to see him produce or co-produce with prominent skaters in the Europe. Perhaps Stephan Lambiel's Art on Ice would be a good place to start? That would give Yuzu a wonderful partner to expand his artistic style, and Stephan is familiar enough with Japanese esthetic style to give space for a meaningful collaboration. I fear that in N America the show director would insist on some low-ball ideas like a poohbeardance or asianSamyuuraishow. Please note that this article covers only the first part of his thesis, which comprised three parts. Yuzu might be going for 2 more articles to cover the other parts of his thesis. (This is a common practice in academic research.) I would not want to have an incomplete package to ISU, if one aims to be truly effective in messaging. The timing is extremely important.

That used to be one of my favorite songs - and I had almost forgotten about it! Thank you so much for bringing it forward!! I totally agree with you- it does fit Yuzu very well. It would be lovely if he could skate to this song in some future gala/ice show.