General Yuzuru Chat

[gapil27]

1 hour ago, nekodearu said:

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!

I love the costume too. I wish I could see a HD version of it. I want to see the details 

[nekodearu]

8 minutes ago, Briq_S said:

I enjoyed reading your post! 

Thank you!  

[Pammi]

Google translates Yuzu's tweet response to Takebe Satoshi:

Mr. Takebe...! Please don't apologize for that...! If my poor choreography ends up being MIKIKO-sensei's choreography, I'm too sorry for MIKIKO-sensei... I look forward to working with Takebe again someday! Yuzuru Hanyu

 

 

LOL I love how my copy and paste of the translation makes Yuzu's crying emoji so big!! That is what his tweets actually look like to me, the emojis jump out - he is so cute

 

EDIT: Takebe said on his radio show that Mikiko had choreographed Ashura, and Yuzu corrected him shyly on his YT channel (community tab) in case you don't know that already)

[rockstaryuzu]

so I've been thinking about this idea of what comes after GIFT for Yuzu. (obs, he literally has Notte Stellata in two weeks, but after that).

 

The issue at its core boils down to: he's been a wildly successful pro skater so far, how does he keep that going? It's not a question of technical prowess or even artistry anymore. He has proven himself in both those areas. Though his physical stamina obviously plays a role in what he is able to do going forward - i.e. is the pace of 1, 2 hr or so, solo show put on for 2 or 3 nights every month or two, really sustainable? - it's also not going to affect whether he can sell out arenas for years to come.

 

No, the challenge is different from that. The real Everest here, is content. What does he fill a two-hour show with?

 

GIFT, like Prologue before it, and even CiONTU before that, is a show that finds it's basis in Yuzu's own life. It draws on all of his experiences so far to create an engrossing, moving depiction of what it's like to be the boy who follows his dream at all costs. This is rich source material for his creativity, but even for someone as much like an anime protagonist as Yuzu, eventually all the good stories will be told and he can't go back and keep re-telling the same ones every time, no matter how compelling a personality he is! (And he is wildly compelling to listen to! I could do it all day. )

 

He has done it his whole career. Every character he's played, every story he's told on the ice so far, has had elements of the real Yuzu in them: SEIMEI the wily warrior who vanquishes the monsters. The flirty flaneur of Parisian Walkways. Romeo - and Juliet. Phantom. Swanyu. etc etc all have succeeded because either the character has something Yuzu also has, or Yuzu has been able to find a bit of them in himself. The prime example of this being LGC, during which Yuzu so much embodied Prince the resemblance seemed uncanny - yet at the same time was sublimely himself, dragging the audience along on a swaggering rock'n'roll soliloquoy about the meaning of life.

 

Now that GIFT has monumentally expressed all of that in one exquisite, one-time-only, 3 hour-long package, has Yuzu come to the natural end of his autobiographical style of storytelling? If so, what stories can he tell next? what should he skate about now?

 

Stagnating is out of the question, of course. Other skaters have done that - moved through the years and the decades with the same limited bag of artistic tricks still earning them places in ice shows. Hanging  on because they once were good, even as their technical skills faded. Pleasing ever-smaller crowds with the stuff they used to do, never exploring new avenues of expression. I don't think any of us want Yuzu to do that, no matter how much we love Ballade or H&L or RJ 1.0. It's plain to see from what Yuzu has said in his interviews since turning pro, that he doesn't want that for himself either. And I certainly can't picture him doing any of the common ice show cliches. Nor Disney on Ice (unless it's the story of him and Pooh-san, told for kids.)

 

So what should he do, in terms of finding program content? What stories should he tell? While I can't tell him what he should do, I can point out that the answer lies exactly in what he's done with GIFT. By taking his own life story and re-imagining how to tell it, Yuzu also was taking intensely personal reactions and emotions and opening them up into a more universal truth. As he said himself of the loneliness and alienation expressed in GIFT (i'm paraphrasing) "All of us are like this to an extent."

 

It's that thread of universality, I believe, that would serve him best, going forward. As he starts thinking about next moves and decides what kinds of shows he'll continue to put on, as long as he keeps looking for the threads of common human experience that underpin not only his own story, but all the best stories, he'll be able to continue to be fresh, innovative, and enthralling in his chosen art. Each thread contains the potential to lead him in many directions, opening up whole worlds of expression he's barely begun to explore.

 

It's an exciting prospect!

 

 

 

 

[Perelandra]

43 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

so I've been thinking about this idea of what comes after GIFT for Yuzu. (obs, he literally has Notte Stellata in two weeks, but after that).

 

The issue at its core boils down to: he's been a wildly successful pro skater so far, how does he keep that going? It's not a question of technical prowess or even artistry anymore. He has proven himself in both those areas. Though his physical stamina obviously plays a role in what he is able to do going forward - i.e. is the pace of 1, 2 hr or so, solo show put on for 2 or 3 nights every month or two, really sustainable? - it's also not going to affect whether he can sell out arenas for years to come.

 

No, the challenge is different from that. The real Everest here, is content. What does he fill a two-hour show with?

 

GIFT, like Prologue before it, and even CiONTU before that, is a show that finds it's basis in Yuzu's own life. It draws on all of his experiences so far to create an engrossing, moving depiction of what it's like to be the boy who follows his dream at all costs. This is rich source material for his creativity, but even for someone as much like an anime protagonist as Yuzu, eventually all the good stories will be told and he can't go back and keep re-telling the same ones every time, no matter how compelling a personality he is! (And he is wildly compelling to listen to! I could do it all day. )

 

He has done it his whole career. Every character he's played, every story he's told on the ice so far, has had elements of the real Yuzu in them: SEIMEI the wily warrior who vanquishes the monsters. The flirty flaneur of Parisian Walkways. Romeo - and Juliet. Phantom. Swanyu. etc etc all have succeeded because either the character has something Yuzu also has, or Yuzu has been able to find a bit of them in himself. The prime example of this being LGC, during which Yuzu so much embodied Prince the resemblance seemed uncanny - yet at the same time was sublimely himself, dragging the audience along on a swaggering rock'n'roll soliloquoy about the meaning of life.

 

Now that GIFT has monumentally expressed all of that in one exquisite, one-time-only, 3 hour-long package, has Yuzu come to the natural end of his autobiographical style of storytelling? If so, what stories can he tell next? what should he skate about now?

 

Stagnating is out of the question, of course. Other skaters have done that - moved through the years and the decades with the same limited bag of artistic tricks still earning them places in ice shows. Hanging  on because they once were good, even as their technical skills faded. Pleasing ever-smaller crowds with the stuff they used to do, never exploring new avenues of expression. I don't think any of us want Yuzu to do that, no matter how much we love Ballade or H&L or RJ 1.0. It's plain to see from what Yuzu has said in his interviews since turning pro, that he doesn't want that for himself either. And I certainly can't picture him doing any of the common ice show cliches. Nor Disney on Ice (unless it's the story of him and Pooh-san, told for kids.)

 

So what should he do, in terms of finding program content? What stories should he tell? While I can't tell him what he should do, I can point out that the answer lies exactly in what he's done with GIFT. By taking his own life story and re-imagining how to tell it, Yuzu also was taking intensely personal reactions and emotions and opening them up into a more universal truth. As he said himself of the loneliness and alienation expressed in GIFT (i'm paraphrasing) "All of us are like this to an extent."

 

It's that thread of universality, I believe, that would serve him best, going forward. As he starts thinking about next moves and decides what kinds of shows he'll continue to put on, as long as he keeps looking for the threads of common human experience that underpin not only his own story, but all the best stories, he'll be able to continue to be fresh, innovative, and enthralling in his chosen art. Each thread contains the potential to lead him in many directions, opening up whole worlds of expression he's barely begun to explore.

 

It's an exciting prospect!

 

 

 

 

 Thank you for your insights

 

Yuzu has a brain full of dreams and aspirations, he also is in possession of prodigious talent and a drive to continue improving and exploring the current boundaries of both his skating and performance art forms. Whilst, none of us know Yuzu personally, it is possible to deduce that Yuzu will be the least likely person to stagnate and try to relive 'past glories' by going back to formulaic ice show formats. 

As most of us suspect, now that Yuzu is liberated from the constraints of the narrow world of competition, he is able to truly examine what kind of skating he wants to present and collaborate with people from many disciplines in order to gain inspiration, sound out ideas and learn from people with broad views and thus, expand his horizons. It would be of no surprise if Yuzu presents more shows with innovative concepts as well as new programmes and still able to include the firm favourites in either their original or reworked forms. Either way, whatever Yuzu decides to bring to his performance it will be astonishing and wonderful. As you say, an exciting prospect indeed. Yuzu has a myriad of options to select from and the creative processes that Yuzu will tap into will no doubt yield more fantastic performance art works. 

Personally speaking, it is privilege to be able to witness this incredible journey, with Yuzu and the global fan base.

 

Just hoping for improved ticket buying opportunities for international fans in the future. The analysis of the livestreaming purchase will go some way to revealing the numbers and locations by country of international fans. Truly hoping for permanent copy of Prologue and Gift to purchase and treasure

[rockstaryuzu]

1 hour ago, Perelandra said:

Just hoping for improved ticket buying opportunities for international fans in the future. The analysis of the livestreaming purchase will go some way to revealing the numbers and locations by country of international fans. Truly hoping for permanent copy of Prologue and Gift to purchase and treasure

Yes to all that

[ValerieFang]

在2023/3/1 at PM11点59分, LAY说:

I read your article yesterday 😊Deep in my mind, I was kind of knowing the authoress must be a fanyu to be able to write it so beautifully🥰Congratulations Valerie👏👏👏

 

ahh thank you thank you so much!!! 

[Anni]

17 hours ago, Henni147 said:

 

Yes, I root for him, too, that his wish may come true one day 

 

 

Happy news from me: Some of you might remember that my old computer broke, and with it, my good old video editor was gone, too. On Wednesday, I finally received a new editor!! I couldn't resist to try it out right away and fulfill a vision that I had in mind for quite some time now.

 

Back in 2018, I had created this video about Yuzu's signature moves to the music piece "Meaning of Life" by Brunuhville. At that time, it was my plan to continue the series to another piece from this composer, called "Timeless". I felt that it's the perfect theme to describe Yuzu's skating: it's timeless. It never gets old and no matter how many years have passed, Yuzu always manages to preserve the soul of his programs while taking a new, fresh approach to them at the same time.

However, with my limited technical possibilities, I thought it would be a waste of potential to tackle the project back then. So I decided to wait until I would have the proper equipment. Now the time has finally come, and GIFT was the perfect occasion to realize my visions from five years ago. In fact, the show has surpassed my wildest dreams. It was so rich of amazing skating, innovative ideas, and mesmerizing sceneries, it couldn't have been any better. I just couldn't not capture my favorite moments in a special montage. Funny note: the music cut happened to be a tribute to Yuzu: it's 1:11 long 

 

I was hesitating a bit with uploading at first because I don't want to get flagged, but some fellow fanyus encouraged me to share my work, which is indeed a matter of the heart to me, so I decided to put it up here for a limited time. I hope that you like it  

 

Yuzuru Hanyu Series II: Timeless (GIFT Rewind)

 

 

Thank you Henni for sharing this wonderful video.
 

Here a new post from Ean with Yuzu's beautiful Ina Bauer

[NEWS]

 

"Technique and mastery of artistry."

 

 

[Henni147]

6 hours ago, rockstaryuzu said:

so I've been thinking about this idea of what comes after GIFT for Yuzu. (obs, he literally has Notte Stellata in two weeks, but after that).

 

The issue at its core boils down to: he's been a wildly successful pro skater so far, how does he keep that going? It's not a question of technical prowess or even artistry anymore. He has proven himself in both those areas. Though his physical stamina obviously plays a role in what he is able to do going forward - i.e. is the pace of 1, 2 hr or so, solo show put on for 2 or 3 nights every month or two, really sustainable? - it's also not going to affect whether he can sell out arenas for years to come.

 

No, the challenge is different from that. The real Everest here, is content. What does he fill a two-hour show with?

 

GIFT, like Prologue before it, and even CiONTU before that, is a show that finds it's basis in Yuzu's own life. It draws on all of his experiences so far to create an engrossing, moving depiction of what it's like to be the boy who follows his dream at all costs. This is rich source material for his creativity, but even for someone as much like an anime protagonist as Yuzu, eventually all the good stories will be told and he can't go back and keep re-telling the same ones every time, no matter how compelling a personality he is! (And he is wildly compelling to listen to! I could do it all day. )

 

He has done it his whole career. Every character he's played, every story he's told on the ice so far, has had elements of the real Yuzu in them: SEIMEI the wily warrior who vanquishes the monsters. The flirty flaneur of Parisian Walkways. Romeo - and Juliet. Phantom. Swanyu. etc etc all have succeeded because either the character has something Yuzu also has, or Yuzu has been able to find a bit of them in himself. The prime example of this being LGC, during which Yuzu so much embodied Prince the resemblance seemed uncanny - yet at the same time was sublimely himself, dragging the audience along on a swaggering rock'n'roll soliloquoy about the meaning of life.

 

Now that GIFT has monumentally expressed all of that in one exquisite, one-time-only, 3 hour-long package, has Yuzu come to the natural end of his autobiographical style of storytelling? If so, what stories can he tell next? what should he skate about now?

 

Stagnating is out of the question, of course. Other skaters have done that - moved through the years and the decades with the same limited bag of artistic tricks still earning them places in ice shows. Hanging  on because they once were good, even as their technical skills faded. Pleasing ever-smaller crowds with the stuff they used to do, never exploring new avenues of expression. I don't think any of us want Yuzu to do that, no matter how much we love Ballade or H&L or RJ 1.0. It's plain to see from what Yuzu has said in his interviews since turning pro, that he doesn't want that for himself either. And I certainly can't picture him doing any of the common ice show cliches. Nor Disney on Ice (unless it's the story of him and Pooh-san, told for kids.)

 

So what should he do, in terms of finding program content? What stories should he tell? While I can't tell him what he should do, I can point out that the answer lies exactly in what he's done with GIFT. By taking his own life story and re-imagining how to tell it, Yuzu also was taking intensely personal reactions and emotions and opening them up into a more universal truth. As he said himself of the loneliness and alienation expressed in GIFT (i'm paraphrasing) "All of us are like this to an extent."

 

It's that thread of universality, I believe, that would serve him best, going forward. As he starts thinking about next moves and decides what kinds of shows he'll continue to put on, as long as he keeps looking for the threads of common human experience that underpin not only his own story, but all the best stories, he'll be able to continue to be fresh, innovative, and enthralling in his chosen art. Each thread contains the potential to lead him in many directions, opening up whole worlds of expression he's barely begun to explore.

 

It's an exciting prospect!

 

I have been thinking about this question as well. Personally, I still hope that one day we get to see the full 10 minute versions of Ballade and Rondo. Yuzu and Jeff managed to figure out the ideal music cuts of 2:50 for the short program that captured the main structure and motifs of the orginal pieces. However, the narrow competition rules limited them in multiple aspects:

Spoiler

1. In Ballade, they were forced to skip the entire second main theme, which made the narration kind of incomplete. Also, the required three spins took important space in the chreography away. In the layout of Olympic Ballade, Yuzu had to sacrifice that amazing mini sequence after the 4S for the camel and sit spin. In 4CC Ballade on the other hand, he had to give up on the dramatic ribbon combo before the step sequence for the sake of the sit spin. The placement of that combo in the choreo was absolutely brilliant because it maintained the tension and excitement until the end and also fit Ballade's atmosphere, which music experts describe as a "culmination in a beautiful catastrophe". The late sit spin was not bad, but compared to the big combo, it felt kind of anti-climatic. A fusion of these two versions, combined with a new choreo for the second theme, would break through the stratosphere of figure skating.
2. In Rondo, Yuzu and Shinya deliberately skipped the the coda in A major and adjusted the music arrangement in a way that it stayed in A minor until the end. This decision can be interpreted in a way that, in the course of his competitive career, Yuzu did find his inner determination and strength, yet he could not experience that "final light-up", still wandering and searching for answers to some fundamental questions. However, if he managed to reach that ultimate stage of glory in his professional career, it would be the perfect symbolism to perform a full version of Rondo that eventually concluded with a coda in A major.

Yuzu now has the freedom as a pro skater to fully focus on the choreography and optimize it based the original music. He is no longer limited by any competition rules that force him to make compromises. For me, Ballade and Rondo are not just world-class short programs. They have the potential to become the pinnacle of performing arts in the 21st century - the ultimate bridge between past and present - classic and modern era. That's how monumental they are.

 

The other thing that comes to my mind is: In GIFT, we could see a first glimpse of Yuzu's visions. While he was retelling the story of his life thus far, he also entered a new world: the philosophy of art, culture, and life. I can imagine that, in his future shows, he may dive deeper into various philosophical questions and build his programs around those questions. These are some possible topics that we may get to see in the future:

- Persona (already approached in GIFT)

- Ego and Id

- Metamorphosis

- Human and Nature (an extension of Hope & Legacy and Ten to Chi to)

- The Language of Skate

Yuzu is that type of performing artist who always has a central lead theme in mind that induces all of his other decisions: the story, the music selection, the choreography, the setting, the costume style. This is not only very mature but it also helps the audience to understand his programs and thought process better. I am pretty sure that he will stick to that strategy in the future, too.

[Anni]

11 hours ago, YuDai said:

Yuzuru posted a new (very cute) message on his youtube community tab (why do I never receive notifications for these??)

 

So Ashura-chan was choreographed by him, I'm so impressed It was one of my favourite programs in Gift

 

Yuzu is so adorable and humble.
I also like his choreo for Ashura-chan.

 

By the way I didn't get any notification either.

 

[LaCarmi]

8 minutes ago, Anni said:

 

Yuzu is so adorable and humble.
I also like his choreo for Ashura-chan.

 

By the way I didn't get any notification either.

 

I don't think you get notification for community posts I didn't, too...

[Yuzurella]

Max: "Hanyu comes before figure skating. In this regard, we should ask questions about the treatment that has been meted out over years to this athlete."

 

Max is spot-on as always. He is one of the very few public figures (perhaps even the only one) who speaks the truth about this "sport" and says it as it is.

 

[NEWS]

[Anni]

Poster for the "Photo & Poster Exhibition" with various programs from Yuzu (spotted in Sendai Station East-West Underground Free Passage)

OP shared this (slightly enlarged) 
LMEY

Haru yo Koi

Hope & Legacy

Seimei

Source

 

[NEWS]

This post has been tagged by Yuzu_legend as [NEWS].

[Anni]

40 minutes ago, LaCarmi said:

I don't think you get notification for community posts I didn't, too...

 

Thanks for the info. I also didn't get any notification when a new video was uploaded 🤔

But Yuzu informs us about it also on twitter.  👏

[rockstaryuzu]

4 hours ago, Henni147 said:

Personally, I still hope that one day we get to see the full 10 minute versions of Ballade and Rondo

Yes but does Yuzu really want to skate a 10-minute program? Genuinely asking. I can't figure out if he does or not.

 

Everything you've described, except for your final

paragraphs, is just the details of how to convey the overall theme and story of a show. But where you start talking about Yuzu possibly exploring the philosophy or art, culture, and life, that's what I was trying to get at. If he's going to keep doing solo shows (and who knows if that something he will continue or not, it's a LOT of work and pressure), then he needs something to talk/skate about, to structure the show around, and it can't always be the history of his career. Sooner or later, he'll have to move on to other topics.