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I don't think people with angelic voices get told to pipe down their bathroom singing...

I...don't think ISU would want somebody who's too good at their job. Cos if they did they could easily have had more than a few in their ranks and they'd be a more well-run organization today. The fact that they don't and remain as shady and stuffy as ever is circumstantial proof that it'd work against certain interests. So working from the outside like this and taking potshots at them is probably the only way to oppose some of the practices that are rampant within it. It's not ideal but this has never been an ideal world to begin with. It could be made better with persistent effort though so go for it, I say. ^^

Well, if it were me, I would find not qualifying for Nats by a single podium spot a more-than-fair trade for a chance to compete in close proximity and directly against a skater of Hanyu's caliber (and let's face it, he's really the only one of his caliber) because it'd be like the mountain coming to Mohammad. But I can't speak for everyone, especially since I'm not a skater or an athlete of any sort myself. Nationals seems to be everything to a lot of them because that's the biggest stage they could ever somewhat realistically hope to achieve reaching. While, in my impression, for someone like Hanyu, it's more like sectionals. Anyway, the guy got a bye to the frickin' Olys. Add the fact that he promptly went on to win it, not getting one to Nats would be o.O. As amusing and inviting as the idea is, I don't think sectionals was ever in the conversation. Sides, they basically flat out admitted that the announcement itself was just a formality. It's already a given that, as long as he wants to and feels up to it, he was going straight to Nats.

If he does intend to let it develop into a full blown EX, it'd be longer in its EX incarnation and if it's longer, I really hope he'll include the verse parts of the song because those parts, not the chorus, are my favorite parts of it. That's smart. If they made him skate those comps, I'm pretty sure the guy himself would be happy to but they'd be depriving some poor up-and-coming skater their chance at Nats cos with Hanyu (unnecessarily) occupying a podium spot (because there's absolutely no way he won't), there'd be one less spot for others to qualify. >_< Has he ever skated sectionals before anyway? Logic dictates that at some point early on in his career, he must have had to fight for a place in Nats like everyone else but I don't recall ever seeing a single footage or even an image of one of those performances...

Oh yea, I remember that appearance and what he said. But he had less than two days and I highly doubt he sent it back unwashed and dripped dry so I just drew the next logical conclusion. I mean, it's what I would have done, considering I won't be needing it anymore for a while and it needs to be cleaned and somewhere else fast (there's still the transportation and setup time to consider and all. Niigata ain't far, it's practically the next prefecture over, really, but the city itself is still a couple of hours' drive away).

...I think dry cleaning works. How do you think people clean their wedding dresses? There's this high-end cleaners in the same building where I used to work where people (usually affluent ones) send their more delicate and pricey stuff, like gowns and costumes and what-not. If you can afford them, they are even better than handwashing, because even handwashing can ruin the especially delicate stuff sometimes. I've see a dress with more bling than probably all of Hanyu's costumes combined on the shop's display. It certainly made me think that whoever owns it probably enjoys walking around looking like a disco ball and feeling like they are fighting against gravity all night in banquets. These cleaners will also deliver your stuff to wherever you want it delivered. It's probably too much of a luxury and impracticality when you're repeatedly wearing something quite frequently but if it's a one-off and you need it done fast, these services are your answer because even pricey as they are, they're also the most practical solution for situations such as this one. In the land of kimonos, I'm certain there are no shortage of specialist launderers who handle delicate and expensive materials as a trade. But all the ideas being thrown about are much more fun so carry on.

...I will go with the one option no one has mentioned yet, probably because it's the most boring one: 24-hour dry cleaning. I've heard many a Chinese-speaker (who speak no Japanese) getting done in by 無料. Like they'd see a pot of miso soup with that sign above it at a restaurant and not go for it. And from the kanji for studying, people have openly wondered if the Japanese find studying so tedious, they had to openly express their reluctance in their word for it. These same people also cannot wrap their heads around why carrot isn't 小根 if the Japanese call their white radishes what they do.

Aw, I beg to differ. I think he's got more hits than misses there. I'm not an expert on formal menswear (I can only tell they're bad when they are really frumpy or good when they're in-your-face sharp like in Kingsmen) so I can't really comment on that. Costumes though, if we're talking only about his senior career (it's hard to judge kids anyway), he's only got one that i'd consider as a complete failure (Vertigo1.0). Others either were dead-on hits (Etude, R&J1.0, PW, all 3 Ballades, both POTOs, both SEIMEIs, both LGCs, H&L, SL, NS, HnN, TFTT, Ienaiyo, ND--I don't actually see the problem most others have with it, I thought he pulled it off really well--HILY, etc.), grew on me (R&J2.0, Requiem) or so-so (WoW, Zieg).

Is the People's Honor Award also awarded to groups as well? Cos his apparently seems to be in the individual category, which I thought was the only category for this award... And given it seems a huge deal that he's the youngest (individual) recipient to date, does anyone have any idea how far apart is his age from that of the next youngest (individual) recipient? At the time they were awarded the recognition, that is. I keep going back to look at the award. How many medals is the size of that thing, I wonder...? What else is there? The National Treasure status? At this point, that may be the only big thing he doesn't yet have under his belt, lol. Tho I think that's only awarded to old artisans involved with upholding traditional Japanese legacies by practicing their trade for more than half a century or something...I have a couple of Japanese earthenware made by one of them.

They should attach a ribbon to it so he can hang it around his neck. Nice giant bling to end all blings. And yet, it'd probably still afford him a lot more freedom than he seems to have been affording himself all his life. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Guy doesn't seem to be cut out for a life of excess so I don't think we'll ever hear about him drunkenly hurting someone (and sending them to the hospital) or forcibly kissing underaged schoolgirls. He may get into, i dunno, online gaming wars or something but everyone involved is incognito so.

Ah, you misunderstood me. I'm thinking that ESPN probably owns most, if not every, image of athletes they ever publish on print but they don't have a single one of Hanyu's because they never bothered covering figure skating outside of the US. I don't think they cover FS in general very much, really. So perhaps when they found that they needed to use several images of him, they realized they didn't have a single one of their own on hand and if they owned the copyright to all the images of all the other athletes, suddenly buying the rights to use the image of just the one from an image agency didn't sit right with them. And being the off season, it's not like there are any events with Hanyu in it they could send their photographers to snap some original pics of the guy in action. So they had to get creative. S'what I think anyway. That said, the illustrator looked like they had a whole lot of fun drawing that pile of poohs and the ones that are still raining down upon him. Thanks for sharing the pics.

Does ESPN own all the other images? Being the huge sports network they are with their very own sporting championship, I'd imagine they own every image they print of athletes. And I'm thinking they probably don't own a single one of Hanyu's seeing how they've never really covered him before.

Looking at the beauty his 4S, which used to be problematic and untamable to him, has become under the good influence of Fernandez, this can only spell good things for the future of his rather stubborn and capricious 4Lz (tho maybe not so much for his 4Lo, which altho slightly more trustworthy, has yet to prove it can coexist well with the 4Lz in a single program). And Hanyu being the bad influence/dirty enabler he is and Jin with the great height he can achieve may trigger the formation of 4Acricketbros4A v4A resulting in the final nail to the coffin of Orser's full head of hair. May it go gentle into that good night.

They won't find anything. The bears know how to cover their tracks.

No. This tumblr post speaks the truth.

That's just a bunch of bears.

Didn't they also do one after Sochi? This one had some kid playing him as a kid back when he was still with Tsuzuki-sensei and had a reenactment of him fighting with older boys at the rink. But they also covered the whole bit about that guy who spearheaded the revival of Ice Rink Sendai so that was good. And the recent 24-hour TV thing had a reenactment of the younger days of the asthmatic kid he inspired to skate, Sora. But since they are reenacting him as a grownup --and not for comedic purposes--and at a period where the pre-Olympic intensity is at its zenith, I guess the cringiness will depend on how much they amp up the drama factor. If they play it subtle, it could work. Though I probably shouldn't be expecting subtlety. Japanese cinema has a lot of great subtle stuff but they're usually from original screenplays or the original work itself has subtle storytelling. They usually aren't so great with understated adaptations otherwise. I'm just going to hope that it isn't too over the top... The one they did of him that documented those pre-PC days that spliced together interviews and practice footage with narration that they released right after PC was pitch perfect. So if this one turns out meh, then we've at least still got that awesome docu to fall back on to wipe away the cringe. Even if it isn't super cringeworthy, nothing quite beats the original anyway. ^.~

This is the one I'm talking about. It's been sitting on my to-do list forever but I never got around to doing it due to sheer laziness. And the lack of a raw I could use for subbing purposes. And a lack of confidence. But mostly laziness. I don't think it's ever been translated in full. Probably. Don't quote me on that. So if one of your pals or anyone else here wants to take a shot at it, they should. It's not a happy interview, but it's an enlightening one all the same. And reveals quite a bit of things you don't get to hear him talk about during other less unhappy times. Which was why I wanted to do it. I would've, too, had my lazy ass not gotten in the way. As well as a couple of other things. But mostly my lazy ass.

I'm guessing in the context of the kind of season he had back in 14-15, winning a silver at WC was almost as good as a gold. But he was on a roll in the 15-16 season so the fall from the top was from a much higher place and as such had gotta hurt a lot more. He was also in a pretty bad mental place. The clean SP he delivered despite that and massive lead he had gained from that but then lost in its entirety must have been a painful blow and shocking eye-opener personally so I'm guessing that made the loss even tougher to swallow. And then you add the uncertainty of whether or not his career would be ending right after that comp...it's a miracle he managed to hold up all night and then switch gears to properly enjoy the gala. He did a half-hour interview the day after that was pretty revealing but I'm not sure if it's ever been translated.

If you recall correctly, they did. Way more than 5, too. See? They gave him a bunch of secondary toppings to choose from out of which he only picked the shavings and the ginger, and completely ignored the rest. >_< They even prepared chocolate and raspberry sauces but he didn't go for those, which helped relieve the pseudo-toothache I was starting to feel watching that clip. Nice. It's always better to be underestimated than overestimated. I always find the pressure of proving people with low expectations of you wrong a lot harder than proving those with high expectations right. Hanyu, of course, had to do a lot--and I do mean a lot--of the latter as well but I'm willing to bet that his desire to bee-dah the ones who were doubting him helped balance things out a bit. xD

It's actually a tad too sweet even for him. Because near the end of the video when he tasted it again after dunking in all the toppings, his reaction was like, "...it's...sweet..." and then followed it up with complimentary remarks since he's promoting the product after all. >_< He actually added the marshmallows because they involved less hassle. He checked with one of the behind-the-scenes guy, asking if the whipped cream is easier to handle or the marshmallows and the guy said marshmallows (obviously) and he was like, "Marshmallows it is, then." Given it's a commercial recording, I'm thinking he wanted the whole thing to go as quickly, smoothly and painlessly as possible and as such chose the most practical and functional methods of delivery. I...am not sure why he thought adding shaved white choc on top of marshmallows dunked in hot choc is a good idea tho. Like, I never got why my dad thought adding chili pepper flakes after drenching his pizza slice with hot sauce is a good idea, either. Why the overkill? The ginger Hanyu decided to add last, for the most part, was a good idea but the honeyed part of it probably made the already sickly sweetness turn into a terminal one. I'll admit, I couldn't help but make a face when I watched him sip all that. He's said something to the effect that he's the same way back home in Japan, and he's been that way since he was a little kid, because he gets all the out-of-home excitement he needs from the rink that just chilling and doing his own stuff at home is a nice way to balance it out. Otherwise, he likes hanging out and having fun outside as much as the next person. But now that we have dealing with the media frenzy in the mix, it's a miracle he still feels like going out to eat sometimes at all, lol. That's got to tire a person out enough to want to stay home and do nothing but chill for long periods of time. @His dependence on his mom. Expounding on what @singermelodie1 said, when your kid has asthma but is also an insanely-driven top athlete who also doesn't seem to like eating a lot, and that insane drive propels them to travel halfway across the world to a much colder place to train when they are not even out of high school yet, you really don't have much of a choice. And when you being there even well into their adulthood eventually helps your child achieve their biggest dream, then you are right where you should be. There will be a time when you'll have part with them for the long term so why not be there and do what you can while you still can and enjoy every moment of it? The last part was what my mom told me when I asked her if she's ever tired of doing stuff for me. I do a lot of things on my own but when I get lazy and decide to leave things for later, she swoops in like a vulture. She also still does most of the cooking, though I do help her out in the kitchen. And I'm a healthy ox who's far faaaar from being an elite anything... All in all, I wouldn't worry about it. Asians, especially, tend to be able to do the sink or swim thing pretty good. I know a bunch who had their parents do stuff for them right up until they moved out and after a short period of adjustment, they all manage fine on their own. I mean not all of them are the epitome of home economy prowess, but they manage. So right up until Hanyu absolutely needs to manage on his own, I don't see a problem with his mom managing the daily aspects of things, so long as she's happy to do it...and trust me, she is.

Feeling Good is a divine piece of music and a not infrequent choice for skaters but I feel Buble's style doesn't do justice to it. I've heard a bunch of covers and the only other version I like almost as much as Simone's original is Muse's one. So if Hanyu ever chooses to do it, I hope it'd at least be either one of these two. As little as I would mind seeing his interpretation of it, though, there are lots of other soul and blues music he can choose from so it'd also be very very nice and inventive if he picks something that's lesser done. He's the first to do PW and LGC, right? And even though it's a classical piece, has anyone ever skated to Ballade #1 before? It's hard to imagine a skater being undaunted by the slow to frenetic tempo before Hanyu came along and being the dynamo he is, Buttle ingeniously decided it was a good fit. Before Hanyu, no one had ever done SEIMEI or H&L before either And I think the first one who did R&J (1.0) that way, without actually using the original theme from the classic R&J as a cut, was also him? Not too sure about the last bit... You gotta love how when he pioneers a program, he puts so much of himself in it and the final work, usually skated to almost artistic perfection in all its supreme difficulty, imprints so strongly in a viewer's mind, it's hard for anyone who comes after to use it and reinterpret it. As far as classical goes, I wonder what Hanyu would look like skating to Beethoven's 7th Symphony Allegretto, specifically the 2nd movement. It's been used in movies and shows quite a bit but when I dived around to see a skating program using it, I came up empty. It'd be harder to incorporate it into a competitive long program now since the music has so much buildup (and, like Bolero but less repetitive and not as slow though it has interludes where Bolero doesn't, the buildup to a crescendo is a major part of its impact) and 4 minutes may not be enough to create the perfect atmosphere for it unless the editor is an absolute musical genius...but I'm going to dream anyway. And I'm not stopping there. It's gonna come complete with a choreography by the one and only Misha Ge. What? If the whole thing is going to be an impossibility anyway, I might as well dream big.

Wow, if Brian goes to the RusNats, he and whoever goes with him would be the only non-Russian coaches there. Even if he doesn't*, it'd still be the same for whoever does. That'd make for an interesting atmosphere, I'll bet. *But barring personal emergency, I dont see a reason why he won't.This being such a controversial and high-profile move, and only being the first year of their partnership, I'm sure it's important that he be there to support Med because it wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that's what the RusFed would require.

For Chan and Fernandez, I'm saying that simply by scores and results alone, Fernandez wins. But when I factor these scores and results against the backdrop of the competition, which means the strength of other competing skaters, it looks even better. And when I include this second factor, Chen, who was pretty high up if we looked at results and scores alone, falls behind rather significantly. I'm not really putting in just clean performances, but also clean-enough-to-win-against-tough-competition ones, because mental toughness, in my books at least, should encompass at least that much.

My (admittedly rough) calculation is based on the entire last quad and based on results and scores alone, I would say Fernandez has got a better handle on his competitive mindset than Chan. Chan never quite regained his momentum after first being dethroned by Hanyu way back in back in 2013 and lost even the chance to gain it back after taking his 1-year break post-Sochi. It's like he got a wake-up call as to what true competition is really like (since he was pretty much without any, as decreed by the ISU, until Hanyu came along) and couldn't quite muster up the fighting spirit to scrabble his way back to the top. He managed to stay relevant as a top contender but not by much. Fernandez, by comparison, stayed pretty much within striking distance of the gold all throughout.