Xen

See, you're being logical and rational. That's not how antis work, sadly.

Yes, Yuzu is perhaps the living embodiment of the spirit of Japan. Perhaps not of just japan, but just east asian ethics, conduct and principles. Humbleness, determination, steadfast perseverance against adversity without a nary of a cry or whimper. Does anyone know how katana steel is forged? Check out youtube videos if you can. But in short, katana making starts with the tempering of the steel alloy. Traditionally, rare and hard to come by, and not always of the best quality. A long process is made whereby impurities are hammered out in a gradual process, so that the most durable, tough yet still supple steel is finally made. In some ways, Yuzu is a bit like that, talented, but not always having the greatest advantage- he has asthma, then 3.11 happened, managed to come of age in the toughest field in Japanese men's skating. But all of that he endured, triumphed, and so he is perhaps, the purest embodiment of figure skating as an art and sport. (also I'm late in congratulating Yuzu, so羽生結弦選手おめでとうございます!)

I'm sure all photographers have bad photos of him somewhere, the astonishing bit is they actually published this one. XD He's what, getting up from mid-bow?

So I dug around a bit for Hanyu family crest and came upon this explanation for the origin of the family name. Is this correct? (link) : So it's supposedly a very very old family name?

*squints* Um, is that a semi-fitting suit?

So it's been translated: And more importantly this- so we can worry less.

I'm not really worried much about Yuzu or Shoma really. What would be a nightmare fanwar scenario is if: At Nats, Daisuke places 4th and a younger skater places 3rd (keiji or Kazuki), and the point difference is small. Now objectively you might want to give to the 3rd place skater because well, they placed 3rd, and more likely Keiji and Kazuki (Kazuki especially) has a bigger body of international competition results. Objectively I think JSF would give it to the 3rd place skater, but I don't think the die-hard Daisuke fans will see it that way (if what is said of some of them is true). =/ And that will lead to a more targeted move against a skater with a smaller fanbase. It could get worse if say, either Shoma or Yuzu both do well internationally, but due to some fluke had to miss JNats. Due to body of work, it's stupid if JSF doesn't include them on the team, but that's an opening that the diehard vocal minority would take to a mile. =/ It's just the blah blah blah drama-llama-dingdong would be a nightmare. It is a minority, but it would seriously put a damper on his return. And that fanbase, that would do that, pretty much I don't think they've ever cared for Daisuke's opinions. Time to get out armor....*sigh*

I don't know, I mean I love Daisuke, but I think with Kazuki doing better, and Keiji potentially stabilizing his 4S, it's more likely that Yuzu, Shoma, Kazuki and Keiji will be the picks to rep Japan internationally.

What the heck is this off season even? Okay fine, so next season is Nobu coming back? o_O

Got a better one. There is an actual ballet where a male dancer has to do a solo dressed head to toe in gold: La Bayadere, golden idol dance.

Satton and Kaori could potentially medal, but Bradie will probably also aim for a medal. Polina and Radio could both potentially beat Marin too. And it's not like USFSA chooses the foreign skaters who could really threaten their own team, but they couldn't fully avoid Satton or Kaori. So they picked Marin as the third JPN skater.

There now, posting this to make it more friendly looking. On the other hand, I know people are complaining about Wakababy and Mai's assignments. Has no one bothered to look at Marin Honda's? Look it up...she has a chance to podium where?

I'm sure he'll be more careful this time when he grabs sandwiches and burgers...better check first to make sure it's not Paprika.

Go to which one you can get a room for sleeping. Are all the hotels and Air BnB for both events completely sold out yet? If not, I'm really dissappointed!

Yep, he gets schafted because he's the biggest, most profitable bargaining chip in FS. And well, it was probably needed else the GP would be homeless. o_O And so, Yuzu as bargaining chip saves the GP series, story for this season.

Uh, Lambiel maybe? The reason why I'm saying it's short is this: Nov 2-4 Finland. Maybe leave Finland Nov 5th, and land at night at Toronto? Nov 6th- 13th: Toronto training, assuming no jet lag, only about 7 days to adjust and recover if anything Nov 14th: fly out to Moscow and get 1 day to adjust for jet lagg Nov 16-18: Moscow for COR This is a really tight schedule. My guess is if I had my choice, I would have asked for SC and COR, or or SC and IdF, even if in the latter case the time is tight against GPF, at least GPF won't have him traveling too many time zones.

Actually I'm seriously eyeing Finlandia cup, because that timing is almost the same as the previous seasons's ACI/COR time difference. And it gives him more time to train out his quads versus swinging him to ACI. He'll need all the time this season to recover, and especially so if he wants to start with his full layout. As for rivals...what if Nathan is actually the easier rival this season? No seriously, think about it, he has college that will affect his training. Which Boyang, Shoma and Mikhail do not have.

If all 3 skate clean. Honestly, it's early season Yuzu vs early season Mikhail vs early season Boyang (and if the always silver at home curse follows him to CoC's replacement). Which is most likely to go clean, good question. No, what I'm more annoyed about really is the timing, the amount of time he has between his 2 events is narrow, and actually not that great for him. =/ This is why we're all chatting about training bases in europe for him instead of him flying back to Toronto, getting 4-5 days of training in and then flying out to Russia.

Dude, it's not even the oly season, why is the Bingo table filling up so fast?

Have fun! And hope you get to see Finlandia too (I have a lot of weird, but good feelings about who is going there). And well, I'm not surprised...the way the wording went in the Chinese press, it seemed like ISU already knew Korea would likely refuse (since Japan took all its extra assignments so fast). As for training base...has no one considered Yuzu going to Spain (since Javi is there and his sister is director for FS in spain right), or maybe Lambiel's rink in Switzerland? If Yuzu doesn't go back to Toronto (the one thing I'm not happy about is the time between comps for him). I actually don't think Yuzu would have been assigned to CoC, Alina would have been though. I think Yuzu got shifted around so to kind of help sweeten the deal (which is fair since Finn Fed has to do this on such short notice). Still, good luck to the Finnish Fed and yay for good organizing skills on such short notice. On a side note: not to defend what JSF is doing, because it pretty much does amount to Yuzu getting schafted....but Yuzu is a fed negotiator's wet dream. Think about how much clout you can negotiate with, just releasing him to an event can net you a lot in return, yet the amount of work you need to do to defend him (if any), or loss really is just minimal. Seriously, a negotiator's wet dream for a trump card.

Yeah, but that's kind of all they use their political powers on though. Which makes me wonder how much power they really have, since it's not more severe than some USFSA skaters, yet USFSA manages to get the ignore button pushed plus some more. It's a bit like Japan isn't willing to go beyond the UR issue for fear of what may happen if they try. =/ Which after the Chinese judges, I don't blame them. No one in China knows for sure, but the general feeling is that this was due to speed skating and figure skating just went as collateral. All the speed skating and short track events got cancelled too, just that figure skating might need to announce earlier, so all the figure events got into the headlines more. It's speed skating that's at the crux of the issue, and in other news, it seems Chinese Nats team just hired the former Canadian men's team coach to China for the men's speed/short track team. Rumor has it the women's side got a former korean national coach to join too. I'd imagine the financial hit is felt even more on the speed/short track side, because I'm not sure how you get audiences for these events? o_O Also, the rink that hosted the WC2015 is in Shanghai, last I heard not under rennovation, which makes the rennovation argument completely void for the Shanghai trophy that also got cancelled...no way that one could not have been used to host CoC if China wanted to. I'm seriously now considering Finlandia tickets in early October. Timing wise, this would work better than ACI.

Let's put it this way...if JSF actually played politics, they'd have more ladies medalling. But then, they might get investigated like the CSA judges too.

What about Aliev > Zhou for GPF? He could go 2 (NHK)+ 3 (IdF)?

Well there's Han Cong...I'm sure Sui won't mind, she might encourage it. And there's always Bates-remember how Swanyu was doing "hand clasp begging face" to Bates before? There's also Ivan Bukin. I'm looking at assignments and worried for Boyang. He probably won't win against Yuzu nor Nathan if everyone goes clean. So he's really fighting for 2nd place. (Honestly, I'm rooting for a Boyang > Nate upset at IdF, and I'm amused that USFSA avoided putting Boyang into SA, so they finally see him as a podium threat against their men) TCC boys have it *hard* this season

I'm probably going to go to sleep soon. Hope the planet survives and doesn't blow up while I'm away.