Winnie_20

Maybe the JSF should ask their skaters first about what they think they can do, competition-wise, before announcing their assignments. I really hope Sota will show up, for you! Me, I'm good either way, I'm kind of more of a fan of the Ladies than Men's skating in general, and also adore Sota and Yuma, and am dying to see the little Honda girl.

Ooooohh, that'd be awesome! Hope you can make it!

Entire event, all categories, is livestreamed. :-)

Is that it? I cannot read Japanese names and google translate is hopeless. edit found a list on twitter in English, yay!!! Yuhana Yokoi is coming, too, she was here last year, too, I think?

I see it, but I still don’t believe it...

I guess I don’t really expect Shoma to show up. Personally, I would be happy with only Wakaba or Rika already. :-)

Any news on junior / advance novice?

I just don’t believe it. no way no way no way

What?!?!?! Where is this info? Also, tickets have been for sale for a good long time already and are dirt cheap. 10 or 12 euro for all-event four days, IIRC. edit saw post on GS Shoma, Sota, Rika Kihira, Wakaba and Yuma?!?! NO WAY!!!!!

Sorry, guess I should've been more clear. I meant the international competitions that are *not* Worlds, 4CC etc, but the smaller competitions. It should be sometime in January, but last year I think it wasn't a big announcement and it just sort of... showed up on new sites sometime.

Do we know when the Japanese federation makes the announcements for international competition assignments?

I never would have gone to Helsinki (almost twice, even, sigh) or to Barcelona two years in a row, or Milan. I am, however, addicted enough now to figure skating to want to continue to attend major events in Europe, if I can, regardless of him coming or not.

Loving it, but oh dear, please please don’t hurt yourself. It’s so scary...

Wiahing all the Japanese single skaters at NHK well today in their free skates! And a special shout out to Shoma for being lovely 👏 and to uncle Voronov who clearly thrives on the Japanese homeground. :-)

I have no idea yet how he finished his two JGPs, but just saw Koshiro Shimada’s SP at Linz (yes, I am behind) and holy hannah, he has grown soooooo much! What a star! I just completely fell in love with him! And how is it that Stephane Lambiel keeps turning his students into skating clones of his? I mean that in the nicest and best way possible. I watch Deniss and I see so much of Stephane on the ice, and now again with Shimada. It’s amazing and beautiful and *hearts*

It's probably because I'm not much into Galas... or ice shows, for that matter. (I like them when I'm there in real life, but on telly, they're mostly just background entertainment for me.) In that same vein, I remember Plushy's Nijinsky as his competition program, but have no feels whatsoever about him skating to it in recent years at ice shows (apparently, at least that's what I gather from people's comments in this thread). It sounds like that is a good thing, too. :-)

OMG like what the heck, how have I never seen this before?? HOW DID I MISS THIS?!

Otonal and Asian Dream Song/Pretender are all "modern" classical piano, but very different styles. I had an, shall we say, "issue" with Hope & Legacy, in that I was so familiar with the original two compositions that I found it surprisingly difficult to really get a good feel for the song, because I kept automatically thinking about the two different pieces. Not sure why, because I never have that problem with other 'mix' pieces. Nijinsky, for example, also has some very familiar music thrown in (e.g. Scheherazade), but there it doesn't detract. Otonal reminds me strongly of another famous piece, one that's been used often in figure skating, a zarzuela called La Leyenda del Besos. Must be some melodic lines, and of course the Spanish/Argentinian music influences. I'm a Joe Hisaishi fan (like, really, I once bought a PILE of his piano sheet music books in Japan, so good!) but if I had to make a choice, I think I'm going to be a lot happier with Otonal than with H&L, strictly speaking about the music, anyway. :-)

I would KILL to see him wear something like that. Except the hair doesn't match the rest of the whole. It needs something... something... less wild, maybe? Prettier? Oh goodness, what am I doing?! I'm supposed to be working, not thinking about someone's hair, for pete's sake!

I haven't had the chance to sit and read through the topic yet, but I guess Hanyu decided to pay tribute to his two big influences by skating to their two great programs? I vaguely remember Otonal from way back (someone give me that piano sheet music NOW, I desperately need it!), probably saw it once at the time, I guess (it was right around the time I started watching figure skating), but Nijinsky is hard to forget. Hurah to Yuzu to picking these pieces, they're lovely and I'm sure he'll do brilliantly making them into his own. As for costumes... the more flowy, the better. Hopefully let Johnny Weir create them, he knows what to do! What a great thing to wake up to on this Friday morning! I have to work this morning, but then it's HOLIDAY, yay, so a great start already! (Only, how am I going to focus on work for another four hours now?!)

Pretty sure all ISU competitions, certainly Junior and Senior, have prize money, and it’s always listed in that document. Even the small Challenge Cup in the Netherlands has prize money (heck, they even have prize money for the Skating Battle on Sunday, IIRC).

Personally, I’ve followed his career since he won the JGPF in 2009, but really not sure when it went from general appreciation to ‘real’ fan (whatever that is). However, having met a Japanese fan in The Hague earlier this year who had come all the way from Japan to support a junior skater she was fan of (someone who I had never heard of before, and whose name I still don’t see show up on JGP assignments, so not a big name in that sense)... that made me really realize there must have plenty of Yuzu fans who were already fans of his before his victory in the JGPF. That’s quite a time, some nine years already, if not longer! Wow, that is long-term! I’m sure that’s normal in other sports like, say, Tennis or show jumping (! You can stay in the saddle for many decades with people to keep supporting you) but not in figure skating! (Although Plushy was around for quite a while, too, I guess, lol)

Sometimes answers are also to be found less in the realm of the mystic and pretty straightforward: Hanyu won an OGM... and then kept skating. That will get you a lot of fans, simply by being in the spotlight (especially since he then continued to win competitions). and then he won another OGM. And apparently still continues skating competitions. People tend to like that sort of thing. ;-) If he had stopped skating competitions after his first OGM, public interest would be much, much less by now.

Well, he already won the JGP and Junior Worlds in 2009/2010 when he was just 15. I am pretty sure at that point a lot of people were sitting up paying close attention. :-)

Really happy to see Hana Yoshida continue to do so well, and a 3A, wow! She was at the Challenge Cup in the Hague earlier this year and absolutely stunning, she was that good. She even skated in both the gala and the skating battle, total delight. She's incredible!