nekodearu

@rockstaryuzu @Henni147 Interesting points. I see things in a slightly simpler way. What we think of as topics, be it autobiographical motifs or more universal reflections, all come, as you said, from his personal experience, which he expresses using skating as language. And well, although the main arc of his life story thus far has just got its closure, he keeps living, right? He meets new people, makes relationships, learn new things, encounters difficulties of all sorts, listens to music that moves him deeply, reacts to current affairs that he knows from the media, etc. Art is the specific way an artist reacts to the outside world after deep introspection, so I think what he chooses as his next topic just depends on the life he will have from now on as a person. And there is no way for us to know in advance. As long as Yuzuru feels and thinks, hopefully he will have something to say and thus he will have something to skate about. The second thing is that he seems to feel any music so deeply, that it is itself an unlimited source of inspiration for him. In a way, it's also a kind of dialogue with other people, as each piece of music is a creation of another person. Give him music that resonates within him and you will get a new, original program that reflects his own unique sensibility. Sooo... how about a joint concert with BTS in the future?

Ah, you described it so well, thank you! These were my feelings too. For me, the Two Yuzurus internal dialogue was the most captivating and moving of all the narrative parts, visually, dramatically and performance-wise. But I also like his humorous tone in the first part. He has such a cute pronunciation there! His 'doushite' when he wonders why the sun doesn't shine all the time and if the moon is the one to blame made me think immediately: Ah, Yuzu, a children's audiobook please!

Thank you!

OK, guys, I'm ready to say something about Boku no koto (YT edited ver.). Gift was such an emotional rollercoaster, loaded with amazing things and deep meaning, that I wasn't able to give my full attention to this piece until the GC streaming expired. Meanwhile, this is actually one of my post-'puro tenkou' wishes come true. Generally speaking, shows are not my cup of tea, I hardly even watch any exhibition galas (Yuzu's numbers and productions being a notable exception), so when I realized, that there would be no more competitive skating from Yuzu, I admit, I was in great despair. I was fixated on the idea of a new competitive-like program from Yuzu. And now that I've been gifted with the Show of Shows and have finally come to terms with the idea of professional skating, Yuzu has uploaded Boku no koto. Competitive program on steroids. 5 minutes 22 seconds, 8 jumping passes, 5 quads (3 types), 2 step sequences. And you know what? I didn't notice this fact! Not right away. My first thought was: Yesss, THIS song! And then I fell in love with this one flow choreography. I'm grinning at every step, arm or body movement perfectly matched to the music, depicting every rhythmic or pitch accent, rise or fall of a musical phrase, all those crescendos and diminuendos. Even his run-ups, take-offs, landings and Euler transition in the 4T+Eu+3S sequence are to the beat! He used to say that for him, jumps are as much a means of expression and part of choreography as any other element, and here you can see it perfectly. Yuzu the choreographer gave me a meticulously crafted, utterly cohesive piece of skating, so much so that I didn't even think about all those high-level components at first, until I noticed that he had listed them in the description. This cohesion, smoothness, and the palpable peace and calmness of his performance made all the technicalities as invisible to me as one does not sense all the separate ingredients of a perfect dish. This program just gives me pure joy. I don't think I need any competition anymore. Side notes: As one of you mentioned on Twitter (sorry, can't give proper credit atm), Yuzu probably used an autotracking camera. Tech-Yuzu still evolving Also, I like the costume very much. And the motto in the background: "Skate for fun". How suitable!

No cóż, ja się zorientowałam, że jest polski wątek, dopiero gdy napisałaś XD

Very well thought out, not another amalgam of cool shots. Great synchro with the music, Yuzu style. I like how you placed the fire bird

Finally proper media coverage 😂

Hi, Pammi, welcome back! I've been waiting impatiently for you, can't wait to hear all your thoughts and impressions!

Although I understood immediately what he meant, I had not noticed this touching detail before. I envy all the lucky people who were able to be there in person.

Cześć, Alicjo, odmachuję z Warszawy Ciekawa jestem, ilu nas jest w Polsce. Jesteś może również w jakiejś polskiej grupie fanowskiej?

I love the title. 'The Return of the King' would also fit With Aragorn, Frodo and Gandalf in one person.

I think they are a part of his pose from Masquerade? It appears on the screen during POTO, around 2:02:30 GC (and that's a brilliant, dramatic sequence of animation and music imo): the animated drawing on the screen connects both baloon hands with his masked head and the rest of his body visible on the ice. I suppose then, that the hands were either scanned in the studio where he made this pose (most probably) or recreated from some old recordings.

GC, Ashura-chan. He appears with his back to the viewers on the background of the text in white letters that contains a beginning of his bio in English Wikipedia, starting from the word "born..." iirc.

Hi, Micaelis, it looks like you really like this guy and are looking for someone to share your passion with, which is totally understandable . But let me tell you part of my story. I watched figure skating since I was a little girl. For me it was a fascinating, colorful, fairy tale world. And then Evgeny Plushenko stepped onto the ice and everything changed. I was a teenager, and he became my first "skating crush". When he decided to leave the competitive circuit (for the first of many times, lol), I couldn't find anyone able to reignite even half the excitement. And it wasn't due to the lack of any new good skaters. As soon as I saw Lambiel's debut, I knew he would be a big name in this sport. But it wasn't enough for me. I felt disappointed and stopped following FS. This way I missed almost all of Yuzu's competitive carrier, but that is another story. Toutes proportions gardées (as there is no equal to Yuzu in the skating world and history imo), my point is that love/interest/admiration for one skater doesn't easily translate into appreciation for another, no matter how good he or she is. I guess that some of us really like and admire Ilia, but others strongly dislike him or his skating, or both, and there are those who remain indifferent, because e.g. they don't even follow FS and have no interest in this sport, they are just strongly attracted to the one-of-a-kind phenomenon called Hanyu Yuzuru, which goes far beyond figure skating itself. In fact, we come from so many different cultures, environments and fields of interests that Yuzuru is probably the only common factor that unites absolutely all of us. Here we find other people who can understand our fascination for him - the same way you're probably looking for someone who could also reflect your emotions about Ilia. But we come here to talk about Yuzu. It's not about right or wrong framing, it's about what this place is about Honestly, for now, with all the fresh Gift experience and Notte Stellata on the horizon, I don't have any room left for any other skater - or any other artist, or generally speaking any other personality than Yuzuru, and it's him and his newest projects that I would prefer to focus on. These moments are precious to me, I want to savor them as much as I can, for as long as I can. As a fellow satellite, I hope you will join me in this process

I don't think his metaphores can be so unambiguously applied to one single thing. It's poetry, and although it has origins in particular events in his life, these words convey more universal meanings and emotions, and interpretations may differ depending on the receiver. In an interview after the performance, he said that he wanted to tell a story that many people could connect with, because (I paraphrase) he believes that as humans we can experience the same struggles, loneliness, darkness and desires. That said, I feel free to interpret the moon as the state when he doesn't rely only on himself, but draws the energy from the people who take care about him and support him. He reflects the light so that he returns it to the world, shining in the middle of a dark night as a source of hope for those who need it. As a little kid he was like the sun, bursting with joy and confidence, like a firebird. For a while his world was warm and friendly, but it didn't take long for the first wounds, scars and shadows to appear. However it was this 9yo boy, living his dream in a perfectly safe world, who, as his alter ego from the second part, eventually helped him get out of the dark, cold room of his competitive life marked by inner conflict, closed with the knob-less door.

I didn't see it posted here: The podium of my favourite Yuzuru programmes was already crowded, even if I divided them into several categories, but now they have to move up a bit more to make room for Haku-chan.

I still can't recover from his Ashura-chan I've watched the coda x number of times, and I can't marvel at how, at this crazy pace, he managed to take all those steps on the tips of his skates PERFECTLY to the (syncopated!) beat of the music, while making energetic but entirely controlled arm movements, completely independent of the movement of his legs, and all without losing his balance. I mean, he's on the ICE!!! And in general, throughout this program he managed to achieve the impression of being wild and the effect of a completely loose body, while maintaining perfect balance and full control of his gestures and steps. Love this guy!

1:53:14-15, right behind him.

Nice association. I have a much darker and more dramatic one. Because they are part of a somber pose from Masquerade, I read them as a gesture of total self-disclosure, as Masquerade is all about internal struggle, suffering in the dark, loneliness, being misunderstood, unwanted roles and finally ripping off the mask and regaining his true self.

The screen panels were lying down the whole time (at least in the second half of the show) and automatically went up at 1:52:44 after the words "dare ga wakaru" ("does anybody understand [who I am]?"), along with the words "isshou wakaranai" ("Nobody will ever know"), very quickly, so at the moment of "game over" they are already up.

To be honest, the first couple of times I watched it, I didn't care about the jumps, but as I got deeper into the details, I initially thought it was all triples and had to slow down to the lowest possible speed to count the turns correctly

It was on Disney+ and not on the Globe Coding. People say that it was one of his recent interviews (Asahi Shimbun GIFT Exclusive Interview? I didn't see it yesterday, but if it was this one, then there is a post with a translation thread in our video section).

Thank you for sharing! His resurrection is nothing "cool" or special, just a process of suffering and struggle that one day brings light, and the only way to open the next door is to struggle in the darkness until you break out of your shell. - This is a great summary of why this story was so captivating to me. I very much appreciate that Yuzuru, despite having lived so long in a rather closed environment, is so down-to-earth, genuine, honest, keeping his feet on the ground. I don't know if I understood him correctly, but if I'm not mistaken, he did not eventually revoke his somewhat depressing thought that we are not special: we are one of many and easily destroyed, and even if we die, the world will go on as usual. And yet he seemed to have found the meaning of such a fragile existence. This appealed to me very much. Unlike him, I haven't done anything in my life to impress other people and make me "special" even in my own eyes. But as humans we share the same nature: we are insignificant on a cosmic scale, yet we are precious and our lives are precious because each of us has our own "color," as he said, and sees the world in different colors than anyone else, and thus can find meaning true to ourselves in our lives. This is not the first time I've heard this narrative, but the way he told it, and the fact that it was him who told it, hit different. I'm sorry for such a long and pseudo-philosophical post, but that's how it is: he's not just a skater or entertainer, he makes me think time and again.