fyere0

Yuzu: Shhhhhh. Yuzu: Come closer. I have a secret...but you can't tell anybody. Yuzu: Promise? You can't tell anybody. Yuzu: Underneath this luxurious and feather-soft duvet... Yuzu: I am completely.........

I can't wait to see Wakaba's SP again. It's perfect for her. Hopefully she has success with her jumps at SA.

I'm a pretty casual watcher myself but when I watch ice dance I'm kind of old school in style preference, and I also look specifically for perfect synchronization, perfect timing, matching limbs/extension, and really good posture and holds, because those I can definitely see without having to identify levels and such. I enjoy junior ID as a whole more than senior because I feel like those are the fundamentals juniors should be and are careful about focusing on. (I enjoy novice for this reason, too!) Teams I like - Nguyen/Kolesnik are very strong all around and could be sublime (though not as good yet as P/C in terms of SS), some of the Russian teams impressed me, and Yoshida/Nishiyama have fantastic synchronization and beautiful edges. The best juniors also do have better lifts. P/C can be messy in some of those details. Their flow is unmatched with a good program and they're very expressive, but this tends to cover up the technical bobbles - their twizzles are sometimes noticeably off, they're slightly out of sync at points in timing and position, stuff that maybe shouldn't still be happening with them at this point. They're like GOAT-level in their discipline now if we're going by scores, and maybe I'm Yuzu's Overly Harsh Judging Panel or Virtue/Moir Coloured Glasses on them, but I don't want to see mismatched twizzles from however many time world record holders. Their new programs - I can't say much either because I'm not a scoring expert but from what I saw (I think I saw the FD, but just once, the voiceover one) I don't know if the choreo serves them that well; there seemed to be a lot of skating flat and stopping to do dance breaks rather than keeping it moving the whole time. But they can sort of do whatever they want from now until the next Olympics and be assured that as long as they don't mess up catastrophically they'll win everything. I hope they don't rest on their laurels, technically speaking.

...I leave for 24 HOURS, YUZURU and THIS IS WHAT YOU DO? He looks like an android from the neck up and - I don't even have words to describe whatever he's wearing. Like asking a person who has just come out of 200-year cryogenic freeze and also doesn't know how to sew if they could make a fancy outfit.

Nobunari Oda has made a blog post about his leaving his coaching position at Kansai University. He says he was suffering 'moral harassment' on the job and the university wouldn't do anything about it. The media falsely reported on it and said he was too busy to continue. I would say "who would treat a person like Nobu that way?" but as we see from recent discussions around the fandom, some don't need much of an excuse to mistreat or harass good people. https://ameblo.jp/oda-nobunari/entry-12531037719.html

It's amazing how the younger men of TJ have grown. Koshiro is so tall. Shun, Kao, and Yuma are becoming handsome boys. And Sota is now older than Yuzuru.

I think P/C need to up the ante technically. They are of course artistic, expressive, etc., but when I watch them I'm always surprised that they aren't as precise or exceptional in terms of skating skills and elements as I expect them to be, considering their status. Some of the best junior teams look like they're outskating them, and they shouldn't be.

It's actually a good litmus test. He can only do a decent 3A out of a jump if the jump is landed well, so he can step smoothly right into the Axel. So as soon as he can do 3A out of a certain quad, it means the quad must have a good landing. And the landing is the last thing he perfects after getting the takeoff and the rotations right. So a successful -3A SEQ means the whole first jump is of good quality. Of course, -3A SEQ is a litmus test only Yuzuru Hanyu would use, but whatever works for him

#rant It's so cool that all these young skaters (and grandpas) are doing Yuzu tributes, but it annoys me a little that the Russian pair just used the Seimei music, which is not actually a track in itself. They didn't pull their own selections from Onmiyoji, which would be fine. Their team had to have ripped it straight from YouTube, because in Yuzu's cut there are a bunch of fundamental alterations to the music to make it precisely what Yuzu wanted to fit his own skating. Like the part with the piano and flute, which I believe was two separate tracks that weren't even in the same key, but Yuzu wanted them together so his music guy made his vision happen. Creating that specific, unique cut was a long and personal process for him so it doesn't entirely sit well with me that other people are using it in competition without attribution and probably unaware of all the fine-tuning and trial and error that went into what they hear. But they are juniors so I don't place any blame on them, because clearly their program comes from a place of honest admiration. I'm at least grateful that the sound of Yuzu's breath at the beginning was cut out, because that would have been weird.

The mental image of him looking at a big heap of rice or a giant onigiri and going *sigh* I never realized that his peak only lasts a day. How complex, to balance all those factors - small appetite, huge nutritional requirements, maintaining a consistent weight, competition schedule, travel. It was incredible that they managed to time it so exactly for the Olympic FS, which I think he said he peaked at.

General attractiveness of these photos aside, I do love when he looks like he's sharing a good joke or an amusing thought with nobody but himself. And you can always see the wheels turning behind his expression.

In one of the practice videos Yuzu did a nice 4-3 combo right as Christopher Caluza hit his end pose, which must have been the time he pointed for people to redirect their attention - but on first watch I actually thought Yuzu did it on purpose, to cause cheers right at that point. Yuzu will steal musical accents all the way through but in general I don't think he does something big or attention-grabbing during an important point in someone else's practice (beginning or end) unless he really wants to mess with them. Caluza is an older skater, likely not well known to that crowd, returning from a long hiatus, and if I were him it would be really heartening to hear a lot of applause right at the end of my runthrough. That's probably not why Yuzu did it - probably just timing - but then again it might be like him, too, to use his power to encourage someone in a sneaky way.

A blurry thing in the background of a video that's supposed to be starring a different fish.....Yuzuru! Rising from the depths of a misty lake: 4.5 rotations uwu Sinking back down and disappearing: stay mad & maybe i'll give u 5

What on Earth do the Honda parents think Raf will do for Sara, considering what's happened to Marin under his coaching?

Yuzu's butt deserves to be shot in 400mm with $12,000 equipment at all times

Satomi made my purple Origin dreams come true. She and Yuzu are obviously stalking the forum. WELCOME TO THE COSTUME THREAD, SATOMI! I PRESENT SEVERAL HUMBLE SUGGESTIONS FOR OTONAL 2.0!! Get rid of the ruffle buildup on the back of the neck and around the collar. It makes him look hunched, same as Otonal 1.0. When you've got That Neck to work with, use it! Make the front less bulky and adjust the pattern so that it looks optimal from all angles. Currently, the curve of the ruching on the non-wrap side gives Yuzu a belly from certain vantage points, where of course there is none. Streamline the costume overall: his body lines cannot be seen very well compared with his other costumes, which makes his choreography less effective. It does not look like a flexible costume and even gives the impression of stiff movement. When the two new costumes are placed next to each other, you can see that Origin 2.0, like 1.0, is very flattering to Yuzu's figure, while he looks bigger and more blocky in Otonal 2.0 than in 1.0. The sheer, airy look of the sleeves makes the torso of the costume look even more heavy. Otonal's delicate piano music needs a lighter, sleeker, simpler touch in the costuming. Consider changing the depth or tone of the colour, to create a contrast with the look of the previous two seasons' light blue SP tops. When repeating a program, something needs to change dramatically to keep things fresh in judges' minds. To those who don't pay close attention this might simply look like the exact same costume Yuzu has done 3 times before, and signal a lack of effort/imagination.

We have the power.............. SATOMI! THANKS FOR ORIGIN 2.0! VERY GOOD JOB, ESPECIALLY THE BUTTERFLIES! PLEASE VISIT THE COSTUME THREAD FOR MY OTONAL 2.0 SUGGESTIONS!! OTL

Then he will look it up, realize that person is TAT, and for the first time in his life he will abandon a goal immediately and go do something else.

I play the violin and I thought it was so cool when I saw it. He really does draw and angle the bow the way a dramatic violinist would look going from the A to the E string. I bet he looked up lots of Edvin Marton videos to get the feel for it. Now, the way he actually holds the bow.....I've seen little kids being taught a bow hold that way, by making a bunny shape with ears to get the thumb and middle two fingers in place, though it isn't right for properly playing with. However this is figure skating and we are not looking for everything to be completely literal. His hand looks more interesting with those fingers extended.

A little bit off topic but I also think signs that just say 6.0 would be really funny and to the point. Maybe Pooh hunny pots with 6.0 on them. I feel Yuzu would get a kick out of that, finishing a skate and then seeing those perfect sixes he was watching his heroes earn and aiming for as a kid pop up all around the rink. And like, if the ISU is insisting on taking FS back to the dark ages where posing and drama arms get you big points and edges and rotations don't matter, might as well have scoring to match.

Me, in a salty mood: The banners should say "[COUNTRY] LOVES YUZU!" instead of "WE LOVE YUZU, FROM [COUNTRY]!" because then it will really annoy haters from that country who don't love him to be unwillingly grouped into that sentiment, but they can't do anything about it.

Just noticed that the On Ice Perspectives guy (the one out in the middle at the ceremony, whom Keegan showed off some footwork for before he left) was following Yuzu around with a video camera off the ice as well as on. We will get some cool videos from him.

It's crazy that when Yuzuru won his triple crown of GPF/Olys/Worlds, so many of the male skaters born around the same time who are active now (or are recently retired) were either still competing in the JGP like Kolyada, Tanaka, & Kvitelashvili, or were having their senior debut that year, like Brown & Kovtun. Even Javi didn't start on the senior GP until the 2009-2010 season, one year before Yuzu. Yuzu was really very, very young, particularly for men's.

On the topic of watches.....when Yuzu said he liked a thinner/lighter watch I was curious to see if he actually has worn a watch at all, so I went back through a few old videos and screencapped this one from the 2014 edition of 24HTV. (Thank you uploader panda_wei.) He wore it just prior to Sochi, and also later in the spring/summer when he returned to Japan to do the show. Spoiler cut for big image. It's plain black, looks like a silicone/plastic strap, with a shiny red face. (MASQUERAAAAAAAAAADE) It could be something like the Swatch Sir Red, which was released around that time and has the same shiny look radiating from the middle of the watch face. So we know a little something about a younger Yuzu's personal taste in watches: a fairly sleek look, not small but not massive (it looks biggish on his small wrist which means it's a medium size), a bit of fun with a coloured face. Good for a sporty nineteen year old boy. It was the same with the watch he helped design with Lotte and Casio, a pop of blue around the face on an otherwise solid body. I expect some colour on whatever he does with Citizen.

Shoma: Niku niku niku, potato, nuggeto. Yuzu: Burokkori burokkori burokkori, tamago, nuggeto? Shoma: