Poll - When/How did you become a fan of Yuzu?

[sallycinnamon]

I am a freshman in college of Japan.First time I saw Yuzuru was World2013.I thought he looked smart,but nothing more and nothing less.Few months later,I was completely fascinated with Yuzuru at GPF2013.Short program"Parisienne walkways",it was so cool,so exciting,he marked World Record 99.84 at that time.I realized he's very talented then.Although I was busy with studying for high school entrance exam,I went crazy about him. :space:

Finally last month,I can watch him at WTT2017,with my own eyes!! :yay:

 

Welcome to Planet Hanyu, Haruka! :space: I hope you'll enjoy your stay here.

 

Have you seen both SP and LP at WTT? :pbow:

[mcq]

I feel like joining in XD

 

Ok so for me the first skate that I ever watch and fell in love with was Yagudin's winter. After that, I watched Michelle Kwan's fields of gold (which made me cry), all during SLC 2002. I fell in love with skating then. I have to say I was just a casual fan back then though, I did not even know what a lutz, axel, or even differentiate a quad and a triple. Things were simpler in the 6.0 days (but I like CoP more lol).

 

I started having more knowledge about the sport post Turin olympics, I followed the ladies more back then since no men attracted me again the same way Yagudin did. I was actually aware of Yuzuru around the 2011/2012 season, but to be honest I was not a fan back then, I was not even yet a fan after he won Sochi. But I know he had the talent, I know he is a genious, and I always had a soft spot for him, it just hasn't clicked yet maybe.

 

But to me, his NHK and GPF 2015 performance are everything I ever dreamed of in a figure skating performance. I began to see him differently. I got major goosebumps, and I think I teared up a bit the first time I watched it. I thought to myself : This is THE SKATER. The ultimate, once-in-a-lifetime talent, the GOAT, the best ever, you name it. As I got to know more about him off ice, I found out he has an endearing personality and antics too. So it just naturally happened that I hardcore uber him hard not long after that. The season after that was tough though, with Boston and all, but I survived (to those who has been his fan since junior days, wow, my hats to you, this boy and you been through a lot, with the tsunami, rink closing, CoC incident etc etc)

[Anya]

Growing up from a place where figure skating is non-existent, my love for figure skating started and was limited to these: my very first recollection is Oksana Bauil's pink fluffy and shiny 1994 olympic dress and watching it on VHS! going to the city every weekend to rent figure skating gala VHS! the cutting edge, Ice princess, Kim Yuna's stardom when I was still a kdrama stan, Yuna and Mao during the Vancouver Olympics. I still tried to follow Yuna and Mao until 2010 Worlds but life happened. Days before the start of Sochi Olympics I was already checking the sched for the Ladies since I was only planning to watch the ladies. And then I saw this post on tumblr.

 

This my friends is the tumblr post that shook the tumblr community that time, and that made me an ultimate Fanyu, and there's no turning back for me now: :embSwan:

 

 

http://wolfstargazing.tumblr.com/post/7 ... n-this-yet

[Haruka]

I am a freshman in college of Japan.First time I saw Yuzuru was World2013.I thought he looked smart,but nothing more and nothing less.Few months later,I was completely fascinated with Yuzuru at GPF2013.Short program"Parisienne walkways",it was so cool,so exciting,he marked World Record 99.84 at that time.I realized he's very talented then.Although I was busy with studying for high school entrance exam,I went crazy about him. :space:

Finally last month,I can watch him at WTT2017,with my own eyes!! :yay:

 

Welcome to Planet Hanyu, Haruka! :space: I hope you'll enjoy your stay here.

 

Have you seen both SP and LP at WTT? :pbow:

 

I enjoyed SP and EX.I can't still believe my eyes.

He was in front of me!! :omg:

 

Thanks sallycinnamon,I'll visit this forum and post as many times as possible.

[yolo4a]

For me it was the summer of 2015. In my country, fs is non-exixtent. The only thing i know about fs before was kim yuna, because i like to watch korean variety show and she was clearly treated as goddess In korean so i took notice.

In 2015 summer, I was just newly came for my study in sendai japan, and my lab mate is a fanyus and cant stop talk about him.i think i was a bit making fun bout the boobskirt (yes yes bad me he3) she took offense to that and made me watch a series of yuzu vid perf (starting from nice 2012) khe3. There is no turning back after that. And untul now she never let me forget the the fact that now i even madder than her about yuzu he3

[Valkyria]

I'm slowly becoming more convinced that once you go Hanyu, you can never go back :embSwan:

 

Oh that's for sure. I don't know anyone who was once a fan and then un-Hanyu'ed :ohno:

I feel like you don't even have to BECOME a fan. If he catched your eye the first time you saw him, sooner or later you will end up deep in Yuzufeels.

This is exactly my strategy when trying to convert my friends. They may not have fallen as deep in the hole as I have, but now they want updates and always ask me for videos when he competes :thumbup:

[Sombreuil]

I became a fan through Japanese gymnastics!

 

I always liked figure skating in a casual way- my mum and I watched John Curry in 1976- I'm possibly the oldest person here. The problem is that apart from exhaustive football coverage UK TV tends to only show the big sporting events- Wimbledon, Ryder Cup, Olympics- so you only get to see other sports on those sorts of occasion. T&D gave fs a boost in the 80s but that only lasted as long as they did. The internet was the game changer- you could watch whatever you wanted as often as you wanted so that not only could you enjoy it, you began to understand the finer points a little. I watched gymnastics.

 

I watched Team Japan trying to win the team gold again for years, and followed what I could find on the internet. In 2014 I read a couple of translated interviews with Uchimura and Kato in which they were asked for their reactions to the CoC crash. I was curious so I looked it up and obviously it was awful. I watched him struggle at NHK, win GPF, and then went back to YouTube to have a look at the OLympics, the previous competitions, the documentaries, and of course after all that you've got the full blown virus haven't you?

 

It wasn't the best time to pick it up - Shanghai, Boston- but it certainly wasn't the worst either - NHK & GPF 2015. My family think I'm nuts- I have a battle on my hands for the remote any time the TV deigns to show anything (B ESP - snooker or cycling instead of the men's SP- grrrrr) - as far as they're concerned sport happens in a muddy field with a ball, and no one I know likes the sports that I do so I haunt the internet. I think the fact that my favourites in both are Japanese puzzles them but that is coincidence- inconvenient coincidence as I don't speak Japanese so am reliant on translations and pathetically grateful to those kind people who take the trouble to post them. I've never been the sort to be patriotic in this sort of thing - I follow the athletes I like best. I actually like a lot of different nationalities in both sports but my family only seem to be able to remember two of them- that's ok as I have no intention of memorising all their pet football hates- ( that's the way football works- you have one team you adore and a sliding scale of hatred for all the others). Also 'that Japanese bloke' doubles for both when their memories fail them!

[kiki]

I think I first discovered Yuzuru around 2006. I remember watching a TV show about Shizuka Arakawa. As Olympic Champion she went to meet a group of young figure skaters and among them was Hanyu. He mimicked Shizuka's famous layback Inabauer. He was adorable! I have loved him since. I wonder if that footage is somewhere on youtube.

 

I remember Shizuka commenting somewhere (long before he became Mega Star Yuzu) that he is very versatile and has the ability to interpret any kind of music. I think he was still a junior. It seemed like an insignificant comment but so true!

[Ahlai]

Then, on tumblr during that time, there was a video of Yuzu posted: he landed a perfect jump on the ice, then proceeded to slip and fall walking on the floor. A version of this:

:rofl2: I find that just adorable!

 

I think that's one of the first videos I saw too! I was introduced to Yuzu only late this season and am now regretting letting life push me out of FS fandom for so long :cry:

 

Skating isn't really broadcast here (we get the Olympics and maybe Worlds highlights) and I had no internet access when I first left home so it was easy to fall away. More recently I'd watch the occasional vid on Youtube but wasn't interested enough to put the effort into getting my head around the new judging system. Then, being the responsible parent I am, I'm watching Youtube over my daughter's shoulder when she clicks away from yet another Yuri on Ice crack!vid to a clip of this skinny Japanese kid simply owning the ice and I was hooked. Then I come across clips like the above, and the dreaded Cup of China incident, and learn about the Tsunami and... what can I say, this boy has stolen my heart and I ain't even mad.

:embSwan:

[¯\_(ツ)_/¯]

I think I first discovered Yuzuru around 2006. I remember watching a TV show about Shizuka Arakawa. As Olympic Champion she went to meet a group of young figure skaters and among them was Hanyu. He mimicked Shizuka's famous layback Inabauer. He was adorable! I have loved him since. I wonder if that footage is somewhere on youtube.

 

I remember Shizuka commenting somewhere (long before he became Mega Star Yuzu) that he is very versatile and has the ability to interpret any kind of music. I think he was still a junior. It seemed like an insignificant comment but so true!

<-- this one? (yuzuru appears from 5:33 onwards)

 

(gotta love the part where they asked him what he's gonna show them and he said the biellmann and the overzealous dude (who was practically shouting into everybody's face...not sure why he still needed the mic really) asked him to go ahead and as he was skating away to do just that...

 

Overzealous dude: He's gonna show us the Biellmann and then he's gonna show us the Ina Bauer!!!

 

And Yuzuru's body language be like: Huh?? When did I promise that?? Ah what the heck...

 

(Sorry for going off-topic...)

[Kagme]

Wow, so many interesting stories here, I didn't think I would be interested but before I knew what I was doing I had read the whole thread.

 

Mine is pretty bland, I was brought by YOI and even though the Victor/Yuuri relationship was cute I felt much more invested in the competition in itself, and when I like or discover thing, I am a little... Intense, so in January I began bing-watching competitions, starting with the singles, and later on pairs and ice dance.

 

I cannot for the life of me remember what exactly was the first Yuzu competition I saw since my watching was heckting and not in chronological order but I think it was GPF. I first saw Javier, and even though I knew next to nothing about figure skating, I thought "Oh, I like this, this is musical and dynamique. It is good"

and right after, I saw Yuzu and just forgot about Javier and went "Wow ! I still know next to nothing about FS but this is strong an beautiful and I absolutly love it !"

But I wasn't a fan yet, then, as I caught-up with every big competition aired I realized that when I watched men I was always looking forward for Yuzuru's skating, and that through each competition I was a bit more invested in him, feeling depressed when he did not do well and smiling with him in the K&C...

 

Then I began searching on how to recognize jump and steps, and technical requierement and layout programs, and I fully realized after that Yuzuru wasn't just skating beautifuly, he was also so strong and precise and his technical habilities were no jokes. I was very close to being a fan, but not there yet, even though all my friends and family knew Yuzuru's name by then.

 

The coup de grâce was when youtube recommended me on of those 'cute Yuzu moments' video and it was so adorable I began looking for interviews and any Yuzu-related stuff... I was pretty much done by then. With no hope of escape from him. It was barely a month since I began watching FS and it was close to 4CC and as I was looking for a stream or information, I discovered GS and seeing that there was so many people crazy for him made me feel a bit better.

My family don't watch FS at all and they have an... adamant position on what masculinity should be, and having my brother scream "they are all gays" when he see me watching FS or having my mother cringe with a "Well, he is a bit feminine" and the rest of my friends who cannot stand the word "Yuzu" (they have very low tolerance, it has barely been a few month and I am in no way ready to stop following him) anymore, I was delighted with community around him !

[Hanmgse]

Sochi is winning now! You know guys, I'm actually happy that every year we get more new fans, I used to think that after Sochi it would be hard to get more fans since most people only watch skating every four years. I'm glad I was wrong.

[VieObsolète]

After watching the first episode of YOI, I remembered something about Sochi olympics games that I used to call "The girl in red". After searching everywhere about her (and found out it was the amazing performance of Yulia Lipnitskaya :bow: ) I went on wikipedia and saw the performance of the world champions an the last winner of the Olympic games. I saw the skating of Javier and loved it a lot but when it came to Yuzuru... It was defenitly something else :devil: . I was in love with the feeling he put throught his performance, his delacy, his manners, his character. That night I remember I read everything I could find about him, watched many videos and his documentary Spirits of an athlete (If I'm not wrong). I started watching every competition and continued YOI (even if I wasn't a big fan of the last episodes due to the big quantity of the fanservice put in it but I'm really happy it introduced me to Yuzuru).

 

During the sp of the last GPF, I was in a student conference, there was no data in the hotel where we were, but as soon as I saw that he was first, I started shouting and jumping everywhere :yay: My friend was trying to calm me (in vain), he knew it was about figure skating, he kept repeating "If people ask you why you are this happy, don't tell it's about FS, never" (people in my country only care about football, football and more football) but I couldn't help it, when everyone was talking about leadership, global citizen an stuff, I was relating everthing to Yuzuru :space:

 

Yuzuru is power. Yuzuru is love. Yuzuru is life.

[kiki]

<-- this one? (yuzuru appears from 5:33 onwards)

 

(gotta love the part where they asked him what he's gonna show them and he said the biellmann and the overzealous dude (who was practically shouting into everybody's face...not sure why he still needed the mic really) asked him to go ahead and as he was skating away to do just that...

 

Overzealous dude: He's gonna show us the Biellmann and then he's gonna show us the Ina Bauer!!!

 

And Yuzuru's body language be like: Huh?? When did I promise that?? Ah what the heck...

 

(Sorry for going off-topic...)

:bow: Wow!　　Thank you!　　I am not sure if that is the one I watched.　　I did describe what is going on this video. It must have been what I saw. :laugh: It looks like a local TV segment and I am not a local. Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me but I remember the kids being more rowdy and Shizuka trying to calm the kids down. Oh it was so long ago and It was nice to go back and reminisce. :s_yes

[mintchocolate]

Because of YOI tbh,sometimes I feel not welcomed because of this.Some harsh words towards the anime make me sad. I encountered some fans dissing yoi in my posts. I was wondering what they would react if I told them the truth.Anyway I love yuzu, I just ignore these ppl and move on