fishheadanon

seriously tho, I'm sure he has a rice cooker I haven't yet met an East Asian without at least one rice cooker in the household (I think the previous tenants of my apartment had 3 at a point)

Why so concerned about thinking up "rivals," "challengers" for Yuzu? Why speculate relationship details between skaters which we know next to nothing about? To quote Mr. 2xOGG, "I don't want to talk about my rivals. I am my only rival." He also said that other skaters would pay much more attention to him than him paying attention to his rivals, which in hindsight is basically a correct assessment.

Look, I would advise believing approximately 0% of what pink forum anons say about Yuzu's condition. There are some antis there who like to make up rumours before every competition, some extremely wild, just to try to irritate Yuzu fans. I wouldn't spread that kind of thing around and make people panic for no reason... just saying...

Yeah, it's just how he is. As a fan, I'd really rather see him be happy and healthy than to see that many more years of competitions from him.

There's a reason Fuji's viewership is near the lowest of all the Japanese TV stations lol.

It's interesting to note that, if you read from the beginning of Yuzuru's fan thread from that other place, just how many times fans have bemoaned his decisions (eg. moving to Canada, choosing Parisienne Walkways, adding a 3rd quad to LP etc) and how those decisions turn out to have benefited him greatly in the end. Of course I'm not saying he is always right or that his and his team's judgment is unquestionable, it's just that he is ultimately competing for himself and responsible for his results, so I don't really see the point of being disappointed at this stage... who knows how things will go even two months from now?

Thank you so much! Well, even he says it's still a rumour....

I may have missed the source, but where exactly did Max talked about Seimei 2.0? I would be super grateful if someone can point it out for me!

It's pretty funny to me how some fans think they know better than him, the actual reigning Olympic and World Champion, about music choice and layout planning. Guys, it's early yet. People were moaning and weeping after he said he's reusing Chopin for 15-16 and see what that decision resulted in.

Regarding choosing GPs, there is the skaters' choice and there is the preference of the federations involved. I recall that Javi said he was declined at least once by SA in some interview? While Yuzuru has some obligation to JSF and the various Japanese sponsors (just look at the list of people he had to acknowledge when he withdrew from Nationals last year), he doesn't owe Skate Canada anything and so I'm inclined to think Skate Canada is his own choice, probably because of less traveling and time issues. Since the order of the GPs has changed this year he may choose somewhere else, COR being the most likely in my opinion.

Places are made of people and no place is a monolith. I'm sure there are people who are indifferent to/dislike him even in Sendai. He fought through hostile situations before, he'd be fine. To be honest I'm more concerned about the spacing between the GPs. Weird scoring aside, Skate Canada is pretty close to NHK isn't it? It seems not the best for adjustments.

There's next to no chance they'll let him off from NHK. Viewer rating = $$$$$ and he is still the one who guarantees the highest ratings.

I'm praying for him to go to COR instead of SC, the time is more suitable considering SCAC and NHK.

That's very illuminating, thanks for giving so much backstory haha. I think I got too used to Yuzuru's style to treat other skaters' media shenanigans and rivalries as some kind of norm. Though I've seen it mentioned that the Russians can have very dramatic fights...not just between Plushenko and Yagudin... so the things Patrick said through the years aren't so bad at all, maybe he just presents it in a way that can be twisted by media. And yes, I do agree with you re:Patrick's comments about quad technique.

I think Yuzuru's english is not actually awful. His listening is quite good - he can understand all kinds of questions asked in heavily accented English during press conferences lol. He has also been seen conversing with skaters from many countries so while he's not fluent other people (and Brian) can at least understand him. I think it's just that he tries very hard to answer questions with the kind of precision he is capable of in Japanese - a task which is difficult enough in your native language. He's already improved a lot from his early days haha. I don't know much about Patrick's personality but he does have a long history of .... saying not so polite things about other skaters lol. He had a sort of mouthing off battle with Joubert through the media and he said something not so complimentary about Plushenko long before Yuzuru appeared on the scene lol