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micaelis

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Posts posted by micaelis

  1. World Championships for 2024 are done and Ilia Malinin has taken gold.  When is the last time a skater in his 2nd season skating senior level has taken gold in the Grand Prix Final and in the World Championships?  I think it should be evident now that Ilia Malinin is the real thing, a figure skating in the making.  I'm anxious to watch the dynamics of his rise to fame and the means by which he has achieved it thus far.  Don't get me wrong.  He is not a threat to Yuzuru Hanyu.  Yuzu is that GOAT and Ilia will have to do a lot over these next few years to overshadow him but that is not the issue for me.  For me the issue is how a skater very different from Yuzu forms the foundation of being a living legend.  Ilia is not yet a living legend but he has put together a record now that makes him a valid candidate for such an exalted position.  And Yuzu is the one who started it all for Ilia, who credits Yuzu as being the initial inspiration for his going into figure skating and also the direct inspiration for his seeking and attaining the 4A.  In any case I go to bed this night happy with seeing Ilia Malinin as the newly-crowned World Champion.  I miss having Yuzu in competition so I've been looking around for a current contender.  Ilia is the one I chose partly because he's American and partly because he has a presence which none since Yuzu has had as far as I'm concerned.  So I sign off this night with the exclamation - HE DID IT!!!!

  2. On one YouTube video I saw evidence of significant damage near the epicenter although it was spotty.  Sendai is quite distant since it is on the east coast and the quake was on the west coast.  I feel for the citizenry of Japan since New Years Day is the biggest holiday of the year, lasting for three days.  To use an American expression, 'this really sucks'.  For Yuzu personally, since he has become the poster boy for earthquakes in Japan, he's probably already preparing himself for some involvement.  I would not be surprised if he is flown to the area to give support to those suffering.  It would be pure Yuzu if it happens.  I think he suffers with the victims every time Japan has an earthquake, and this is the biggest since 3/11.  My prayers go for all those suffering for the quake and also for Yuzu who probably revisits his experiences of 3/11 every time there is a quake like this.  His ability to empathize is one of the major reasons I so admire him. 

  3. 2 hours ago, Yuzurella said:

    I would like to take pictures of his skating on a frozen lake with nature in the background. It would be beautiful under natural light, or even under moonlight

    A frozen lake under moonlight.  Could there ever be a more perfect setting for "Notte stellata"?

  4. I've been meaning to point this out for some time.  Could one of the reasons Yuzu is so popular, in additiona to his mastery of skating and his ready empathy with others, be that the shape and quality of his face matches the vast majority of manga and anime heroes.  That the gracefully pointed chin, the shape of his face like an upside-down triangle, the lack of beard shadow, all these contribute to an image that, when connected to the actual figure doing those marvelously graceful and powerful things on a pair of narrow blades moving across the icy surface.  It makes the notion of Yuzu as some kind of heavenly being, more than a living legend, but rather a living myth.  It wouldn't take much to depict Yuzu in comics or on screen as a superhero.  In the eyes of many fanyus he already is.  But the fact that Yuzu exudes this aura of godlike grace and majesty makes him an idol to his fans and so frustrates the anti-Yuzu cult.  Try as they might they can't tear him down, and the reason is simple.  Yuzu is the real thing.

  5. An insight into Yuzu has just come to me, probably facilitated by the title of his latest show - Re-Pray - which I think really puts much of Yuzu's mystique in perspective.  You see, when he's out on the ice he isn't skating.  He's praying.  I think it comes from the Zen element so prominent in Japanese society.  But I have noticed also when comparing the Yuzu ten years ago at Sochi to the Yuzu we see today, that Yuzu's physical beauty has actually improved with age.  In Sochi he was still physically and mentally a teenager.  Today the gangly teenager is history and we have a face and manner that might best be characterized as 'serene'.  There is a calmness and reflectiveness in the Yuzu of today that I think is probably a product of his last seasons competing where it seemed that the skating authorities were stacking the deck (they were) and he developed a stoic attitude that allowed his to soldier on and which ultimately brought about his decision to leave competitive skating and pursue the vision of skating that had been with him all along but which now allowed him to see that he didn't need to be competing to progress in his skating.  The various productions we've seen in the months since that 'retirement' (it wasn't a retirement but a clarification of what he had to do to accomplish in his pursuit of perfect expressiveness) has shown him at the peak of his powers.  We see, for instance, that while it still remains a goal to achieve a 4A, with Ilia's doing it, it no longer is a priority.  What is a priority is his quest to make skating a pursuit of beauty rather than simply techinical achievement.  Yuzu's entered a world of skating where the pursuit of points is pointless.

  6. OK, here it is.  I wanted to wait until Skate America was over before posting again about the new and (very much) improved Ilia Malinin.  He's worked closely with Shae-Lyn and the results are plain to see.  He took the Autumn Classic by 44 points, and took Skate America by 30 points, collecting a SP score over 100, a free skate program over 200 and total score over 300.  But those numbers really don't tell the whole story.  The program qualities do the job.  His short program is impressive but his free skate is so densely packed with detail you might think yourself watching Yuzu turned blond.  There's hardly a second when Ilia is not involved with doing something.  And he packed four quads into the mix, but what really strikes me is watching the details in the non-jumping part.  There's such a wealth to see and some of it is new to the sport.  Ilia's evidently looking at gymnasts and divers and seeing what they do and thinking if possible of adapting them to action on the ice.  Such is, for instance, his raspberry twist (I erroneously called it a twizzle in an earlier post). I was wondering where the 'raspberry' came from and evidently 'malinin' means 'raspberry' in Russian, a single-rotation jump done where the body is horizontal.  There are other quasi-jumps and such done during the choreographic sequence and along the way even when not doing one of the elements called for by the rules.  All of this prompted the commentator to say Ilia was from another planet (where have we heard that before but in connection with Yuzu) and also 'a superstar in the making'.

     

    Which brings me to my main point and that is to distinguish between a superstar and a legend.  Yuzu became a superstar in the 2013-2014 season, taking gold at the GPF, Olympics and Worlds.  He was the dominant skater then and basically ruled the roost in the years following to the year of his retirement.  Even despite the fact that Nathan was the one taking the gold during those last years of Yuzu's competitive career, Yuzu was still the reference point.  It was Yuzu, not Nathan, who could fill all the seats in an arena and the ice show promoters knew it and acted accordingly.  Yuzu after retirement brought in Yuzu the professional and it can be said that the year following his retirement saw a massive statement about what an ice show could be, turning it from an entertainment into an experience.  What we've seen with Yuzu as he moved through his competition years was Yuzu building the foundations of Yuzu the legend, a legend which consisted of awesome skates, awesome audience response (those Poohvalanches or Poohbursts) which brought a new dimension to the notion of audience involvement in figure skating competitions.  And then there was Yuzu off the ice, Yuzu in Toronto basically living at TCC or at home.  No night life for him.  He was too involved with critiquing his skating and getting through his classes at Waseda University, where he ultimately earned a degree in cognitive science.  And back home in Japan, when he was there, we also saw him in all his efforts toward reconstruction after the earthquake, an event in which he had very personal and life-altering memories.  All of this made Yuzu in Japan a living icon, one of the most popular and respected individuals in that nation.  But there is also Yuzu's international fan-following, a phenomenon which those on this forum know well since they are a major part of it.  When we look at all of this we can easily see that Yuzu has already become a living legend.  And he will remain so.  Others may come along who also become legendary, but once a legend, always a legend.  What is a legend?  A legend is a person who is a cultural or historical reference point.  And that is exactly what Yuzu is.  A reference point and as a skater the Greatest of All Time.

     

    Now we get to Ilia.  Ilia, to begin with, is young, very young although he entered senior level competing at a later age than Yuzu did.  Ilia's first season was that saw him medal at every event taking gold in all except the GPF and Worlds (bronzes there).  I don't know skating history in any great detail but is there any other skater in their rooky year at senior level who medaled in everything.  If there is please point him out.  Then there is the quad-axel, the Holy Grail of jumps.  Yuzu did all he could to make it happen and failed making the podium in Beijing in pursuit of it.  In Ilia's initial competition in the 22/23 season did it and proceeded to do it several times more to prove it wasn't a fluke.  On the strength of his full palette of jumps he coasted through the season but he had a lot of criticism about the quality of his skating.  His PC scores were lamentable.  In more than one interview he readily admitted so but indicated he would be putting major effort towards correcting that situation.  In his first competition of this season he showed he was quite serious about that and his PC scores, while not of Yuzu level were nevertheless quite respectable.  He took the competition by better than 40 points.  Then down in Texas this weekend at Skate America, competition he won last year (the youngest ever) he showed that the Canadian experience was not an outlier.  His margin in Texas was more than 30 points.  As a skater he's the genuine article.

     

    I would think it very likely Ilia will be the poster-child of this Olympic cycle.  He IS a superstar in the making but what really makes a superstar goes far beyond the mastery of one's sport.  It needs charisma, something which Yuzu has in abundance and which Ilia also does.  It's different from Yuzu.  Ilia's not Japanese.  He's an American teenager whose great passion when not on the ice is skateboarding.  That is somebody people can readily identify with.  Also Ilia doesn't have an earthquake in his biography.  That gave Yuzu a major motive when pursuing his skating career.  He was proving to himself and to others that there is life after the quake.  Ilia's charisma is there, though, the sign being that there were a number of plush animals raining on the ice after Ilia's free skate performance.  Nothing on the scale of the avalanches of Poohs after Yuzu skated.  But it's early going.  The thing is that Ilia is quite good looking and that makes it easier to becoming a superstar.  But what really tells the tale is the smile on Ilia's face after a successful performance.  His smile is absolutely radiant, one of the best I've ever seen.  Interviews are another matter.  Ilia is not made for interviews.  He will come out with some pious platitudes but it is evident he doesn't have the depth of vision Yuzu has (again, no earthquake).  Yuzu has stared death in the face and has had to deal with the reality of thousands of deaths where he could have been one of them.  Eastern Virginia (Ilia's home turf) is not noted for earthquakes but if, for instance, an F5 tornado had torn through his home town and killed dozens and his home was spared while people just two blocks away had theirs blown apart and possibly their lives also, we might be seeing some sensitivity in Ilia's awareness.

     

    In summary on Ilia, I think, unless a major meltdown occurs, that we are entering the Age of Malinin.  That's a superstar designation.  Being a legend involves much more than success in one's sport, though.  One has to be an admirable human being at the same time.  The jury's out on Ilia right now.  Except for that one faux statement a while back we've got no reason to view Ilia negatively.  But a lack of negatives do not make a legend.  It is impossible to view Yuzu negatively (unless you're one of those who are determined to see him thus), but Yuzu's pluses are almost too numerous to list, though they boil down to his innate friendliness and courtesy (remember the Japanese can give the world lessons on courtesy), his willingness to help others and his intense interest in the phenomenon of figure skating.  Yuzu, it must be said, is a man on a mission, a mission to somehow reform figure skating and make it as pure and honest as possible.  He left figure skating in order to continue that campaign.  But he's dealing from a position of strength.  He is, after all, a living legend.  Only time will tell whether Ilia ever reaches those exalted heights.

  7. Just a short note regarding Ilia's horizontal jumping.  He calls it a raspberry twizzle.   He does it again in the Japan Open from last weekend.  It's still not fully developed but he's made it a bit cleaner.  The thing is he's going into territory not seen before in figure skating by making at least elementary jumps horizontally part of his technical vocabulary.  This bares watching.

  8. A postscript to my earlier post about Ilia and Autumn Classic.  I overlooked this in earlier viewings of his free program but finally it registered and in order to make certain I was not hallucinating I ran this particular element several times using YouTube's .25 speed.  Yes, my eyes had not deceived me.  There it was, not very elegant and so probably early in development, but here he was in a jump doing a single rotation.  What's so great about a single rotation?  Not much if you are talking about skating jumps as they are usually done.   But here it was, a single rotation, made extraordinary because in this jump Ilia's body was HORIZONTAL.  Has any other skater done the same thing?  I highly doubt it, but Ilya doing it makes sense to me because there have been moves he's made, not just in jumping, which have a certain 'gymnastics' aura to them.  This is what makes me view Ilia's future development as something very much to be watched.  The kid is very much able to think outside the box and one wonders what wonders he might produce in coming years.

  9. Well, the new season has started and Autumn Classic International is now history.  In the men's division one Ilia Malinin is the clear winner, taking the gold by 44 points.  How did this happen.  He didn't even have his trademark 4A in his performance.  What he did have was a lightyear's improvement in his PC scores.  Seeing him now he's hardly the same skater we were seeing last year.  He said he was going to work on his skating skills and performance components and he kept his word.  He's not in the Yuzuru Hanyu class (nobody is and it is likely nobody ever will be), but what he is marketing this season is a skater who now has a completeness almost totally lacking last season.  There is ruin for improvement, of course, but right now looking at who will take the GPF and World's this year, I would now say that Ilia Malinin is the one to beat, not Shomo Uno.  If Ilia continues through the season as he has begun he might very well end the season with gold from everything.  It's been a long time since we've seen that.  If you doubt me, go to YouTube and look up the videos from Autumn Classic.  You'll see what I mean.  It doesn't seem to be the same skater we saw last season.  I'll give five stars to Ilia for keeping the promise he more or less made last season in saying he was going to work on his skating skills and his program components.  The 44 point margin he had in taking gold at this year's Autumn Classic indicated he's kept his promise.

     

    Another thing, I think Ilia has the makings of the men's next superstar because in addition to his talent he also has really marvelous charisma.  It's not Yuzuru Hanyu charisma.  It's totally different.  Ilia's an American teenager.  He radiates that quality.  His personality is boisterous, brash at at times, and sometimes arrogant, but he does have personality.  Right now there are no other male skaters who have a similar wealth of personality.  I think this Olympic quadrennial might well turn out to be the Ilia Malinin show.  He has the skills and magnetism to make it so.

  10. I just watched that interview of Max where he calls Gift the greatest event in figure-skating history.  It was during that discussion that there came to me a thought as to why Gift, as well as all the other shows he's done - Continues with Wings, Prologue, and Notte Stellata - his real achievement has been in redefining what an ice show should be.  Right now the prevailing definition is that an ice show should entertain, either as a collection of skaters mostly doing their gala programs or an ice show that is organized as a story-telling spectacle - Disney on Ice, for instance.  What Yuzu has done is recast the ice show as a work of art in its entirety.  Yuzu intend his shows not be works of entertainment but rather works of enlightenment.  In so doing the skating must also aim for that, must aim to express the ideas that make the show a work of art.  In so doing that skating must harness the athletic elements to serve the aesthetic demands of the show.  In so doing  the skater must avoid engaging in moves that are simply athletic stunts.  In competition we would see this in skaters who skated only to seek across the board 10s in the program component score and where the technical element is subjected to gaining those 10s.  In an ice show that would be the overwhelming mandate.  As far as as jumping and such goes, that old Bauhaus motto - Less is more - would be the operating standard.

     

    Part of all the problems we are seeing now is that figure skating is a relatively new activity.  It does not have the several centuries of development we see in ballet or that we see in opera.  It's history is comparatively brief.  It's still trying to find a way to bring about a successful merging of the athletic and the aesthetic such as in competitions, for instance, there would be no technical score but the entire judging would be on the program components.  In essence it would be going back to the old 1-6 judging system but one with a greater sophistication, one which would retain the elements that are now the program components but would weight them so that some of those elements would have greater weight, perhaps by making what is now the technical element one of those elements, an important element but not one which completely overshadows the others.  I'm not quite sure of exactly how those program elements might be ranked but I think you should be able to see that the effect would be that the skaters would be skating a program and not a succession of technical elements.  I think that it would be that competition programs would be essentially what exhibition programs are now.  That would be an ideal world.

  11. The first of this month was the centennial of the 1923 Tokyo earthquake and I'm wondering if Yuzu took part in any commemorations of the event, due to his actions dealing with the 2011 earthquake in northern Honshu.  Much of Tokyo was leveled by the quake and there were over a hundred thousand dead.  It prompted the rebuilding of almost all of the city.  A quarter century later Tokyo would have to rebuild again, this time the city leveled by the thousands of bombs rained down on it.  I've seen pictures of Tokyo in the 1930s and I've taken innumerable walking tours on YouTube of present day Tokyo.  I think they did a better job this time around.

  12. 1 hour ago, Beatrice said:

    Well, this was not solely an aspect of Japanese culture.

    Apropos Shakespeare and European theater culture:  Let's not forget that for many centuries, the female roles were performed only by men dressed up as women !!!

    In Shakespeare's time they were performed by adolescent boys.

  13. In following all the angst and extasy over Yuzu's marriage I think one thing should not be forgotten when speculating how this might affect his skating. that being that while figure-skating is for some skaters a sport (primarily the jumpers like Nathan and Ilia) for others it is an art (Jason the prime example here), figure-skating for Yuzu is a religion, an absolute that requires a total commitment.  As such I see Yuzu's marriage as something he needs to fulfill his mission.  Coming from a close-knit family and aware of how the shared love of his sister and parents is a reality that illuminates his skating he sees now with his parents getting older (they're hardly ancient right now but those times are coming) Yuzu has decided he needs to create his own family to replace what inevitably will occur particularly if his sister should marry and his parents retire and look forward to their final years.  Indeed, they will still be a vital part of his life but Yuzu is looking down the years when the situation will be different.  He needs to create his own family in order to continue his skating mission.  It's the insights he's gained over the years from his experiences with his family that have so enriched Yuzu's humanity during these many years of his being married to the ice. That marriage can only be continued by having a family of his own making to replace that which while viable now will become dated as his parents age and his sister makes her own independent life.  I think nothing will strengthen Yuzu more than his becoming a father.  Being a father as well a husband will enrich his skating even more because he will now have a living and loving investment in the future by creating a new generation of Hanyus

     

  14. 10 minutes ago, Newprogramsplease said:

     

    She has bad quite a bad reputation for sexually harassing Yuzu on her personal instagram.. most likely it is not her. Her character and personality is ... should we say not very ladylike.

    Thank you for the correction.  I was only going by what I was able to find on the net.  I do stand by my opinion that Yuzu should not marry another skater.  One skater in the family is enough, particularly when that particular skater is a living legend.

  15. I don't know how accurate this is but I just learned from a video on YouTube that the mysterious other in the Hanyu marriage is Mayu Watanabe, a former actress and singer who retired in early 2020.  From what I learned by doing further online research she is heavily into otaku culture, so she would be right at home in Akihabara in Tokyo.  I've had a feeling for some time that otaku culture is no strange land for Yuzuru Hanyu.  His headphone fascination and video gaming are straight out of the otaku playbook.  I think if Mayu is the lucky lady it's significant that she retired from the entertainment business in early 2020, so she's not giving up a career to be Yuzu's wife, although the suspicion haunts me that that might have been because she finalized her engagement with Yuzu at that time.  I don't know.  I do know, however, that the little background on her I've so far unearthed would make her an ideal mate for Yuzu.  They inhabit much the same world.  In any case I'm glad he did not marry someone else in skating.  I don't think any other skater would have made a good wife for Yuzu.  He needs someone who is not a skater to allow him to focus entirely on HIS skating.  I don't know whether this young lady is the mysterious other but if she is I think Yuzu has probably made a good choice.  That's all for now.

  16. On 8/4/2023 at 10:01 AM, yumeaki said:

    Yuzu is a ninja to the bone. Always appear suddenly and drop surprising news. I doubt he will marry someone on a whim so he might have dated his current wife for a while. How he did that is beyond me.

    Congratulations, Yuzu! Have a blissful marriage!

     

    I'm still adjusting to the news.  Will there ever be a time when I'm fully adjusted?  I doubt it.  That Yuzu somehow concealed this supreme secret does not surprise me.  We should all know by now that Yuzu only allows us to see what he wants us to see.  His monklike existence at TCC is clear evidence of that, plus the fact that even in Sendai the house where he lives remains a mystery.  If someone knew it you can be sure they'd have spread the information.  Like his jumps on the ice that 'come out of nowhere', his marriage is the same, coming out of nowhere.  Now the great secret is 'Who is she?' (assuming it's a she since even Yuzu's gender orientation is a question in progress).  I imagine right now in Japan the speculation as to who Mrs Hanyu is is the number one question on people's minds.  Will the world ever know?  Perhaps not.  As I said, Yuzu only allows us to see what he wants us to see.

  17. Well, things are settled enough that I feel I can make my thoughts known about the new kid on the block, a fellow by the name of Ilia Malinin.  You're going to hear a lot about him in the coming years as he becomes the one to beat in men's singles.  I know, a fair number of you are rolling your eyes or screaming with rage.  His people skills are not very good but then how many people skills do average American teenagers have in this age of smart-phones and social media where you don't have to deal with things like face to face talking, at least face to face 'serious' talking. 

     

    So let's leave behind all matters of Ilia Malinin the brash brat of figure skating and just look at Ilia Malinin the skater.  Here we're looking at something major. Major beginning with the 4A, which he's done in competition enough times for everybody to know it's the genuine article.  Then let's look at the rest of his jumping and we see a skater in full command of all six quads.  In fact he's definitely better than Nathan at his best and I'm sure that's part of the reason that Nathan decided to go back to school.  He knows that if Ilia is skating clean there's no way that he can beat him.  And what might the situation be when quints become an issue.  In one interview Ilia said that he would not try any quints in competition until the ISU gives point values for them.  In another interview where quints came up Ilia hinted that he's already doing some of them in practice.

     

    But jumps are not all of figure-skating.  There's all the other stuff, such as PC elements which Ilia, early in the season said he's working on.   He has, in fact, if you compare his early season skates with his late season.  There is marked improvement.  If he is able to get on top of the Program Components he will become the sport's next legend.  But not a new Yuzuru Hanyu.  The difference will be that these next years might be deemed the Age of Malinin, but that label will be because he defined this particular era.  The thing is that while Yuzu defined the era from his first World medal (the bronze) to the last year of his competing he also defined figure-skating as a whole.  He became the example of the very very complete skater who showed just what figure skating is about.  Ilia is not capable of that.  Nobody is.  Yuzuru is the gift that keeps on giving, even after he retired from competition.  His first endevors after retiring - Prologue, Gift and Notte Stelatta redefined the ice show, Gift particularly, which was an event the likes of which figure-skating has never seen before and will never see again unless Yuzu comes up with yet something new.  Might we see that?  I think it possible, possible because Yuzuru Hanyu is the only skater around these days who's clearly able to think outside the box.  He's not hemmed in by such factors as 'it's never been done before'.  For Yuzu, if it's desirable to be done, he'll just go out and do it no matter if it's never been done before.

     

    But let's get back to Ilia.  As we head into the new season we have to look back to the season just recently ended.  At the beginning of the season Ilia, entering into his first full season of senior competition was seen as an up-and-coming skater. At the end of the season, where Ilia had picked up four golds and two bronzes (has any first-season skater ever done the same?) and delivered for the world to see four clean 4As, well, it's obvious to see.  Ilia, as far as the men go, is the one to beat.  It's that simple.

     

    But he will not be without competition, and it is fitting that the competition will be coming from Japan.  There's a new skater who will be entering his first full season skating senior level - Kao Miura - who is entering after a season surprisingly similar to Ilia's last season skating junior level, particularly as far as Junior Worlds is concerned.  Two seasons ago, Ilia's last as a junior, Ilia captured the Junior World title with a very credible skate that had him the victor by some 44 points.  Kao in the same competition had some issues and ended in 13th.  This last season, with Ilia taking the spotlight in the men's senior division Kao diligently applied himself and at the Junior Worlds took the gold with a margin (you guessed it) of some 44 points.  But Kao was not an imitation of Ilia.  Nor is he a Yuzu.  Basically I'd compare him to Shoma.  They exhibit the same sort of reticence, almost shyness, when dealing with things off the ice.  They seem to have the same feelings toward the music accompanying them.  And their skating style shows some similarities. 

     

    I think we will not be disappointed to find a rivalry of sorts emerging between Kao and Ilia, probably not this year but I feel it will definitely be a factor in the following season.  Yuzu had his rivals - initially Patrick Chan, then Javi, in the end Nathan.  One of the things making Yuzu so remarkable is the fact that he was in competition long enough to have had three main competitors.  You don't see that very often.

     

    But finally Ilia and Yuzu compared.  Begin with this last season.  Ilia begins the season fresh off a Junior World Championship with a very respectable margin of 44 points.  He ended the season with four golds and two bronzes with no competition where he didn't medal. In that sense we have a duplicate of Yuzu's fourth senior season (203/14) where he medaled everywhere and took the GPF, the Olympic and the World Championship golds.  In short, at the beginning of the season Yuzu was up and coming.  At the end he was the one to beat.  That is exactly the same situation with Ilia.  Next, comparing Yuzu's and Ilia's personalities.  Obviously there is no similarity but with Ilia you do have a personality.  With Nathan you have none.  Nathan did not register on the likability/unlikable factor.  Ilia does have presence.  It might be brash.  It might be arrogant.  But at least it's something.  Beyond that, however, you can see in his body language and particularly his facial expression that when out on the ice while intensely competing he is also having fun.  His smile after a successful skate is totally genuine and infectious.  With Nathan there was nothing.  He was an automaton.  Ilia is everything but.  In that sense, just like Yuzu, the Ilia you see out on the ice is the real thing.  Like Yuzu what you see is what you get.  Admittedly the Ilia one sees is not often admirable but there is something to admire or reject.  Yuzu, of course, sailed blithely above that situation.  The Yuzu out on the ice is the real thing also but there are no negatives.  That is a good part of the reason Yuzu's the GOAT.  Yuzu can be a permanent icon of figure skating at its finest.  He defines the sport.  That's not going to be the case with Ilia, but on the other hand it is good for figure skating to have a poster boy who does have charisma, unlike the situation with Nathan.  And there is also the other element to be dealt with in these upcoming seasons, and that is Kao Miuro.  Ilia and Kao, I think, are going to be a very intriguing rivalry in these next few seasons and meanwhile there will be the very different developments outside of competition where Yuzuru Hanyu is showing just what a professional skater can do. Yuzu set the standard for figure skaters in competition.  Now he's going to be doing the same for skaters after retirement.  It'll be interesting.

     

     

     

  18. I see that they had an earthquake during the performance of Fantasy on Ice in Makuhari.  The epicenter was off the coast of Chiba prefecture, which is where Makuhari is.  It occurred in the middle of Javi's performance, a fact for which I give thanks.  Had it happened when Yuzu was on the ice I am sure it would have freaked him out.  There 's a history of Yuzu on ice when earthquakes occur (actually only once did it occur but that earthquake just happened to be the most powerful in the history of Japan with Sendai the city closest to the epicenter).  Even with Yuzu on the sidelines in Makuhari there I'm sure he must have had some strong flashbacks.

     

    Actually, on Yuzu and earthquakes, I'm wondering if he is involved in any way with plans for commemoration of the Great Kanto Earthquake, which happened back in 1923 on September 1, some 100 years ago.  Tokyo has a history of earthquakes with an average frequency of every 75 years.  By that measurement Tokyo's 25 years overdue.  And Yuzu has a history of public service mainly for the rebuilding after 3/11 but he's pitched in on other earthquake charity drives also.  With that prominence I would not be surprised if he's been requested to figure in any of the events that will commemorate (though not celebrate) the 1923 quake.

  19. My favorite Yuzu costume - the 2nd Phantom of  the Opera.  It shows Yuzu's V-shaped torso marvelously and is really in the spirit of the program.  After that Masquerade, but maybe because the program itself is so great, even better than POTO.

  20. In a recent post I talked about Yuzu as a super-complete skater but I neglected to add another possibility not yet seen which would really turn the screws on the figure-skating establishment - The Yuzuru Hanyu Invitational Figure-Skating Prize - a competition with big bucks prizes and an emphasis on the program component elements rather than the technical elements (there will be some points there but the main points are for the PC elements).  It won't be ISU sanctioned and the ISU might penalize skaters who participate but I don't think it will because the negatives generated by such a move would be not worth the effort.  An invitation only competition it would invite those skaters who are heavy on the PC numbers (Jason Brown for instance).  I think Yuzu could bring it off.  He has no trouble obtaining large amounts of financial backing and there would be plenty of interest in the media.  Just a thought.

  21. I've been thinking about Yuzu and his frequent label as a 'complete' skater, meaning athleticism and artistry combined.  I'm thinking now that he might be called a 'super-complete' skater in that he is now engaging in a lot of self-choreography and to top it off he's now an ice show producer.  About all that's left undone s coaching.  If  nothing else, all these achievements on top of his competitive achievements truly make Yuzu the Greatest of All Time.

  22. I know there are a fair number here who disapprove of Yuzu appearing in SOI, and some have even said he might be under some sort of duress to do so.  I don't think that's the case.  I think he's scouting for skaters for future shows he might produce.  Has anybody notice that the only non-Japanese skaters in Notte Stellata were Shae-Lynn Bourne and Jason Brown.  Those were both skaters Yuzu has had extensive contact with.  Shae-Lynn is a choreographer with whom Yuzu has frequently collaborated in creating programs for him.  Jason was training alongside Yuzu at TCC in Toronto before Yuzu got locked down in Japan when the pandemic hit.  He had gotten to know Jason fairly well, I'm sure, but more importantly he had seen that Jason has an approach to skating not greatly different from his own.  Thus both had been vetted for inclusion in what I assume will be a growing list of skaters who can conform to Yuzu's ideas of what figure skating should be.  

     

    We have to realize that Yuzu when competing has had little up-close exposure to other skaters, generally either with those in the last skating group in competition and those from other disciplines he associated with in the following galas.  The contacts was necessarily short and since in the galas he was dealing with a shifting cast of skaters, he really wasn't able to come to know other skaters to the depth he feels is necessary to decide whether they're right for his brand of ice shows.

     

    By skating with a spring-summer ice show he does have repeated contact with a number of skaters and since each ice show, whether FOI or SOI, has its own cast of regulars, a cast differing from other shows, he decided he'd skate with SOI so he could come to know its regulars.

     

    And then there's the question of do they want to get involved with a Yuzuru Hanyu production.  Does such a production have solid foundations?  Well, Prologue, Gift and Notte Stellata showed that Yuzu has backers with deep pockets and deep connections which have enabled Yuzu to put together a trio of shows, each with a different structure and emphasis, that have become instant legends in the annals of figure skating shows (Gift most spectacularly).  I think it safe to say that there are legions of skaters who would jump at an opportunity to be part of a Yuzuru Hanyu ice show.

     

    So that's my take on things.  I might be wrong but I'd be surprised if I am.  Yuzu has shown with his productions over these last several months that he is really frustrated with the tenor of ice shows as they are organized today.  He wants something that offers more than entertainment.  He wants his audiences to be somehow enlightened.  It's that particular desire of his that elevates him so far above all others skaters, whether today or in the past (John Curry excepted).  Yuzu is on a mission and it is through his ice shows that he will be preaching to the public.

  23. Well, we've gotten through Notte Stellata and now it's time to descend from the heights and address the mundane worlds of Stars on Ice and Fantasy on Ice.  After Continues with Wings, Prologue, Gift and Notte Stellata the normal format of ice shows seems horribly ordinary, indeed even impoverished.  True, there are ice shows like Disney on Ice, which are more highly structured than the summer ice shows, but they are still simply entertainment.  If you look at how Yuzu has approached things from his first self-produced show, Continues with Wings, we can see the consistent thread running through them of a certain high seriousness.  He's not trying to entertain.  He's trying to enlighten and in so doing he's trying to raise ice shows into the realms of high culture, giving them the same sort of seriousness we see in opera and ballet.  John Curry, the 1976 gold medalist at the Winter Olympics that year, attempted to do the same but it never quite got off the ground and was later terminated when he contracted AIDS and later died from the condition.  Part of the problem, in retrospect, is that he did not have nearly the charisma and superb talent that Yuzu has.  Yuzu is, after all, the GOAT, a designation that is becoming more widespread since his retirement and one that is now on the verge of being universally accepted due to the fantastic success of his ice shows, particularly those of this past year.  There have never been ice shows of this nature.  He's reset what ice shows can do by producing the most successful ice shows in the history of figure skating.  In years to come the history of ice shows will be structured as before Hanyu and after Hanyu.  The ordinary ice shows will continue to limp along, of course, but the attendance at those will largely be determined by the presence or absence of Yuzu in those shows, since Yuzu is the greatest guarantee of a sold-out performance in the history of the ice show just as he was the guarantee of a sold-out arena in any competition in which he participated.  He can fill any ten-thousand seat arena on his own.  He can even fill a 35,000 seat stadium on his own, with the demand for tickets having to be dealt with by lottery.  What is most important, though, after Notte Stellata, is the fact that Yuzu has no trouble raising the money and the talent to go forward in his projects.  In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Yuzu in some future time would sponsor and invitation-only competition, one not sanctioned by the ISU or any national skating federation, in which the jumps will be devalued and the emphasis in the judging will be the program component elements.  Yuzu wants to bring the art back into figure-skating and if anybody is capable of accomplishing that it is Yuzuru Hanyu.  He is, after all, the GOAT.

  24. 6 minutes ago, fenraven said:

    You make some good points, and that's why I liked your post. I can see you've given this some thought. I also think you may be right about why NC headed back to school. As far as Malinin goes, I doubt he will eclipse Yuzu at any point, despite the 4A. I don't think anyone will, because Yuzu is a singular human being and skater. He was born for the ice, and he's also an innovator. He continues to break new ground and push boundaries. He will certainly be remembered for his numerous wins during his competitive years, including the two Olympic gold medals and the Super Slam, among other things. And now he's putting together events that amaze and astound people all over the world. He'll continue to expand on that. But aside from all that (whew! he's accomplished a lot!), he's a wonderful person, with charm and charisma to spare. He's always respectful of others, and he's one of the kindest, most generous people I've had the pleasure of following. I wish I knew him in reality, but that will never happen. The "typical American teenager" is lacking in grace and humility, and I wonder if he'll ever acquire it. I'll be honest: I don't think much of him so far. Maybe in time he'll win me over, but he'll have to work hard to do it. I'm an American; I don't embrace him just because we share a country. I do embrace Yuzu, however, because of who and what he is. I don't think Malinin has a chance of winning me over to his side.

    I do agree with you about Ilia's callowness.  As I said he does not show the depths that Yuzu has and probably never will.  As I said, Ilia does not have an earthquake in his past but I also think he does not have the solid family life Yuzu has.  Yuzu's parents are not skaters but they have provided Yuzu with a stable environment during his arduous years of competition.  The other point you make is also good.  Yuzu is a much more thoughtful and gentle person (except when he's on the ice competing) but as I've pointed out time and time ago in my posts over the years, Yuzu is a magnificent human being, giving of his time and money to help others.  The thing is that even from the small snippets I was able to see of Gift I can see that he has a vision of what skating should be and he's ready to devote his energies to realizing that vision.  In Gift  he has permanently made a mark in the history of ice shows.  The ice show today is not what it was the day before Gift.  Every ice show program on the planet must now recalibrate themselves to meet the challenge that Yuzu has set before them.  There can be no going back because business as usual will always be so inadequate when seen in the light of Yuzu's achievement.   

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