Martina

Ci siamo ancora, ma sospetto che siamo altrove, su social media come Facebook o Twitter (mi rifiuto di chiamarlo X), o che scriviamo prevalentemente in inglese.

Me too struggle with English. I definitely make a lot of mistakes, and sometimes I worry I won't be able to get my point across or explain something properly. All we can do is do our best. Yes, I'm that Martina. I'm not special. I'm a fan as countless of other fans, so, thank you, but we are all equal. It doesn't matter what we do, or how long we've been following Yuzu. It doesn't even matter if we just follow him without doing anything in public or if we do something in a public space, visible to everyone. We're all equal. I wrote a lot of things. I hoped that the press would take an interest in the topic and would force the judges and the ISU to evaluate the competitions correctly. It didn't happen. Now I'm writing because I love to write, and I love to highlight how extraordinary is what Yuzu did in the past and how extraordinary is what he is doing now.

I'll touch on a few of the points you mentioned, but I'm not entirely exhaustive. Regarding the score, it's a long discussion. I remember the 2019 World Championships, the disappointment with the result, but also the lack of understanding. He'd missed a jump in the short program, but even so, I didn't understand how he could have lost. Then I started reading comments from people criticizing the result. Were they just disappointed fans, or was there some truth in what they were writing? I wanted to understand, so I started studying. It's true, he often made mistakes. No one denies that. But the score is made up of so many things. The base value, and Chen's was higher. The grade of execution, and the elements Yuzu performed correctly, were never comparable with Chen's. Most of Yuzu's elements, executed correctly, deserved a +5. Chen made few mistakes, but the quality wasn't great. His scores were too high. The same goes for the components. Yuzu always deserved top marks for quality and complexity. Even in his worst programs, he was still superior to the best Chen. The fact that the highest and lowest scores are excluded from the average slightly reduces the risk of a single judge manipulating the score, but even a single judge can be decisive when the gaps are small. And there are so many things that come into play and influence the judges, including the belief that Yuzu was "old" and therefore no longer in top condition. The +5/-5 system is much more manipulable than the +3/-3 system, and that played its part. As for 4A, Yuzurujenn already answered, it was a childhood dream of him, and immediately after winning in PyeongChang he said that was his goal, so the choice to focus on 4A had nothing to do with scores. He had already won everything, he just needed a new challenge, that's all. Yuzu has never been one to get discouraged by a negative result. Frustration, yes, a lot. But he always thought he could win; he just had to practice more, perfect his skating. Until he realized the scores were assigned arbitrarily, this was discouraging. The knowledge that, no matter what he did, they wouldn't allow him to win. Skating with this knowledge also increases tension, making it easier to make mistakes. There's a happy ending, if we want to see it. It's up to us. Yuzu is still the only skater to have won two Olympic gold medals in the men's event since 1952. In Beijing, he showed that we can be struck by bad luck—the hole in the ice and the sprained ankle—but we can still continue to do our best. We can still chase our dreams. And if we can't achieve what we dreamed of, we can set ourselves a new goal and work toward it, like Yuzu did when he skated a perfect Rondo during Gift.

Hi, I completely understand the difficulties of being a working mother. My daughters were born in 2006 and 2009, so I missed the first part of Yuzu's competitive career. The fandom is huge, and there are certainly people who follow him for his looks. But most of us follow him for what he can do on the ice—because we've never seen a skater like him—and for what he does off the ice. For his intelligence, his sensitivity, and the way he faces every challenge. He wrote his first biography when he was 17 because he wanted to help his rink, so much so that he always donated royalties to the rink, and this although at that time he had no sponsors, and training was very expensive, expecially when he moved to Canada. It's true, he made a lot of mistakes, but he always managed to learn from them. This is one of the characteristics that allowed him to win everything he won. He's truly grateful for everything. He certainly had an extraordinary character to begin with, and his parents certainly gave him a great upbringing, but I think the earthquake played a fundamental role. He knows he could have died at 16. He's never forgotten that. He's never forgotten the difficulties of that period, nor that, compared to many others, he was lucky because none of his loved ones died. This helps him put things in perspective: he can't take for granted that what he has now he'll still have in a few minutes, be it his house, destroyed by the earthquake, his rink, which he lost in 2004 and again in 2011, or anything else. So he's grateful for what he has. He's not just a role model for you. He is for so many other people. Age doesn't matter. I'm older than you, I've followed him for years, and I continue to be amazed and to admire him for what he does.

Hi, I bought the digital version of the book while I was in Japan. These are the photos mentioned in this passage. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v1GUo2AwhCt8-SjkHye9Vn9zfwN7ckBa/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YYbqfpka2z9vdShg6t9F6akfBhkxUwT_/view I have no idea if there are better ways to share images on this site. I haven't read the other messages yet, so I don't know how complete your translation is, but I can always take more screenshots if needed.

Me too try to read and keep all the articles. I was hoping there was something I missed, but I think you're right, with the New Year's Eve so close almost surely there was no media. If Yuzu doesn't bother to say the number some other time, those boxes will remain empty.

I don't write this very often, but I am one of the people who updates Wikipedia. My updates are mainly in Italian, and in fact Yuzu's Italian page is among the most complete, and every now and then I make some updates to the English version. There is one detail that I would like to add but I can't. Does anyone know how many spectators were present at the Hiroshima shows? I tried to look for the information but I couldn't find anything. If anyone knows a newspaper that published the data and can give me the link, it would be a great favor.

In the book there is also the image of the pendant:

Wonderful video. A huge thank you to everyone who worked to edit it. An article about Yuzu on the AIPS site: https://www.aipsmedia.com/aips/pages/articles/2024/36133.html

Thank you. Mine is just one of the possible interpretations. I left out many things because it is already a very long article, and I had to focus on videogames, it was my basis for being able to publish in that magazine. Aside from that, there are certainly countless things that I missed, and things that can be interpreted in another way. But I think it's important to write critical texts, to talk about Yuzu. We can help each other discover details, and we can contribute to Yuzu's fame. He is the genius, but if no one highlights it, his fame remains confined to those who already know him, whereas I would like ever greater recognition for him.

I published an article about Yuzu's solo shows. It is in Italian, but with the automatic translation into English it is understandable. If you want to read it, you can find it here: https://www.fantasymagazine.it/36238/i-videogiochi-come-rappresentazione-della-vita-il-tour-re-pray-di-yuzuru-hanyu

Today the Japanese National Championship began, and there is a real possibility that Uno will win his sixth title, joining Yuzu who has already won six titles. I explained why, even if Uno were to win their sixth title, their successes are not comparable. https://sportlandiamartina.link/2023/12/21/all-japan-figure-skating-championships/

I watched the video live. Congratulations to everyone for the beautiful messages, and thanks so much to all the people who worked on the editing. You've done an amazing job, and the beginning is brilliant.

I sent an email yesterday with a photo and a very simple message written on it.

I am speechless. I am devastated by this announcement.

Today I published my review of RE_PRAY on FantasyMagazine. The text is in Italian, so if you want to read it and you don't know my language you have to use an automatic translator. I still wanted to publish it there because, however small, FantasyMagazine is not a blog but a registered newspaper. To the extent of my possibilities, this is an attempt to talk about Yuzu in a context other than the sporting one, because Yuzu has now gone beyond sport and what he does is art. The review: https://www.fantasymagazine.it/35689/-

I didn't even consider going to Japan because of the costs and time needed to make that type of trip. But I took a train trip of almost 800 kilometers to watch RE_PRAY with two friends (one of whom traveled 250 kilometers). We wanted to share the experience. I only saw Yuzu live at the 2019 GPF. When he was on the ice he was magnetic. During the warm up, or the official practice on Friday, for me it was as if there was only him on the ice. It's not that I chose not to watch the other 5 skaters, I just didn't see them. Yuzu caught my eye. So I understand that your gaze was drawn to him, regardless of how wonderful what he had built was. As far as I'm concerned, RE_PRAY is a work of art.

Yes, several people took an intercontinental flight to be able to see RE_PRAY live. I didn't feel like it, congratulations to those who did it. And while the Japan Open gave away freely 4,000 tickets, Yuzu tickets were sold via lottery, with many people unable to attend the show live and having to settle for cinemas (over 100 halls) or Asahi/Beyond depending on the country they live in. But I can't put these people in the screenshots, I limited myself to the simplest comparison.

A month before RE_PRAY the Saitama Super Arena hosted the Japan Open. This is the audience in comparison:

I agree. And I have the impression that this conversation provided Yuzu with many ideas for his projects.

There will also be subtitles in Chinese. For me, Yuzu knows very well that many people will find a way around the limitations to watch RE_PRAY even from China, so he made sure that they too could understand and appreciate the show.

Subtitles in other languages will arrive as soon as possible.

In Korea steaming works, it's just the archive that isn't available. In Japan they have Asahi. Those who have to find alternative solutions are the Chinese, and we know that this problem exists with China, and the Russians, and I think this is linked to the international situation, with limits set by governments that Yuzu cannot do anything about.

Not in a competition, but in training he tried it. Of course, he have done it only few times compared to current skaters, but for his time he was one of the most important jumpers. He was the second skater to perform the triple axel, and the first to do it regularly, and he was the first skater to perform two triple axels in a free program. We can only hope that Yuzu doesn't get hurt. I too understand why he is dissatisfied with that free skate. But he's dissatisfied because it's him, in recent years we've seen a lot of skaters who, as long as the result arrives, don't worry about how they skated. Who knows why it is him we support, and not the others...

we will never free ourselves from worries, even if he now trains on 4A less intensely than in the past. However, the fact that in GIFT he skated under the influence of painkillers is emblematic. He can't afford not to skate in one of his solo shows, and figure skating is a risky sport. We can only hope that he doesn't get hurt, but there will always be worries. It makes me laugh a little to think that the man who won gold thinks his competition was a failure. It would be nice to know what Patrick Chan, Javier Fernandez, or even Daisuke Takahashi think. But it's true, he could have skated a much better free skate than the one he skated. And in Beijing on the salchow of the short program he was unlucky, in the free skate he had a sprained ankle, he knew that the marks would be meaningless, and he presented two extraordinary programs. Extraordinary even with their imperfections.