8 hours ago, Wyell said:

It made me laugh that they gave us 7 and a half minute of slo-mo footage and I wasn't about to let it go to waste!! So here:

 

 

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

OMG THIS IS ABSOLUTELY MESMERIZING!!! And dangerous, and should come with a warning label OH WOW OH WOW I AM SOOOOO DEAD 

Thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!

1 hour ago, LadyLou said:

... Certainly profit with all or mostly virtual tickets would have been slimmer than what they've got - selling so many tickets to live audience AND also selling virtual tickets - but it would have been a sensible thing to do, in current situation.

If SOI had it happened in a situation of low cases, empty ICU, fine. But rght now covid situation is very very bad, and non essential travel should be limited. In this situation, insisting on crowding like that an indoor arena, even if with fully masked people, is hard to understand.

If DOI, an ice show that certainly drew less interest than SOI (since no Yuzuru, iirc no Shoma nor Rika either) could be held with mostly virtual tickets and only a reduced audience in the arena, I don't see why SOI, with its bigger names and TV rights couldn't generate enough revenue even further reducing audience.

 

Ngl, I wish Yuzu had taken a different choice on SOI, but I know it must have been a difficult call to make. Certainly he delivered on the "making it worth" part as much as he could and beyond, but he must know that he is the reason why so many attended the show anyway.

I wish that his partecipation at least would make IMG stop nagging him that much, but then it's also entirely possible they've just now replenished the funds to keep doing their own PR games, so....

 

 

IMHO, I think if Yuzu had a choice to do whatever he wanted, he would be back in his cave practicing 4A. Similarly for Rika, I think she would skip the shows and focus on healing her injuries (unless her injuries are not that bad and it's not a problem for her to do the shows, which I hope is the case).

 

I do believe without knowing all the background details as to why they made their decisions, I cannot judge them as to whether their decision is the correct one or not.

 

In order to reduce the number of people attending, SOI offered refunds for those that bought tickets, BUT the deadline for the refunds was BEFORE they announced that Yuzu was participating. There were a lot of complaints on Twitter from Yuzu fans who had asked for the refund and then missed out on seeing him. So the people in the audience were there regardless of whether Yuzu participated.

 

Weren't the broadcast contracts already in place pre-pandemic, so they couldn't just switch to making everyone buy tickets to see the stream? It would be great if they did that for the overseas audience, but it seems like they never think about us. 

 

I agree that in the current situation, it's best not to hold large indoor events that are nonessential and to do everything to minimize the chances of COVID spread, but I also understand that the financial consequences of job lost for some people can be dire, so there has to be some balance.

 

If they had to do the shows, there is no reason why the skaters couldn't skate with masks on for the group numbers. Heck, give them floral masks to match their costumes or something if they didn't think the masks looked good. They could have done choreo with social distancing. Hopefully, everyone sanitized their hands before and after all that hand-holding, and they better have sanitized that mike before giving it to Yuzu. That was the most frustrating thing about watching SOI (besides the packed audience).

15 minutes ago, cereus said:

 

It's not as noticable as in the finale, but dance captain Yuzu also signals everyone to turn for their exit at the end of the opening.

 

I knew right away that he'd choreographed the opening (or, more of the opening than just his section) because all the skaters leave the ice just how he leaves the ice at competitions, with a few turns and a flourish  

43 minutes ago, IceWings said:

In order to reduce the number of people attending, SOI offered refunds for those that bought tickets, BUT the deadline for the refunds was BEFORE they announced that Yuzu was participating. There were a lot of complaints on Twitter from Yuzu fans who had asked for the refund and then missed out on seeing him. So the people in the audience were there regardless of whether Yuzu participated.

Unfortunately they put all the refunded tickets up for lottery right after. I saw a post on twitter with picture showing a line of people and explaining that they were lining up to buy SOI tickets...

Not to mention Hachinohe was cancelled last year, only Yokohama was postponed, so the tickets must have been sold again when they announced that SOI 2021 would happen. 

All in all people would be willing to risk it because Yuzu is skating. I can understand that desire because I'd be so torn too. So I'm just wishing everyone to stay safe and healthy all throughout and after the shows end...

1 hour ago, amylance1215 said:

Oooh at this year Super Bowl half-time show the Weeknd opened like this! So Yuzu must have watched and paid homage to that!!

 

I'm sorry but Yuzu's entrance is cooler, I don't' make the rules.

Thanks to @Wyell again, we have Day 4 highlights! And this includes Rika's program for anyone looking for that:

 

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

6 hours ago, Alpha_orionis said:

Haha I relate too! Haven't gotten such a bruise in a while, but I have a bad right ankle just like Yuzu (basically had the same injury as him, though obviously not due to a quad lutz attempt ) and nearly twisted it today by trying to teach myself a double flip off-ice...  I probably shouldn't be wilding new jumps without a coach but the frustration of not getting any ice time is too much these days

Good luck with your lutz!

haha thanks!

 

omg I know what you mean by the frustration about ice time. rinks are open here only for lessons, which I suppose is better than nothing at all, but learning stuff in the lesson and not being able to practice it suuucks. 

Just saw tidbits of the behind the scenes. So not only was Yuzu the lead skater, he also helped to produce (choreo, camera, etc.) the opening? 

 

PS: Good job, boy, but now please let the poor knee rest.

 

PPS: I do wonder if he worked with the camera crew in other show numbers as well.  

10 hours ago, shanshani said:

I also live in Hong Kong, I have to agree that it feels like the spread of the virus is controllable based on our experience. I mean, you guys should see some of the crowds I have to walk through to get back from work, but our cases are still very low and have been that way for almost the entire duration of the pandemic. It sometimes feels hard to reconcile my experience here with other people's elsewhere--I mean, HKers are very good about masking, but we can't be that much better than others at controlling the virus, especially now that people have gotten the memo about masks, can we? Maybe we have better contact tracing or something, or maybe other places don't disinfect surfaces as regularly, or I don't know. Because I see people playing basketball on crowded courts, thronging the streets in the shopping areas to the point where you have to fight your way through if you want to get to places, standing centimeters apart in long queues, squeezed up against each other on the MTR, but also less than 20 cases per day (we had like, 3 today)--so it's hard not to feel like it is perfectly possible to run an event like SOI without causing an uptick in cases. I mean, if people living in North America literally went back to living life exactly like they had pre-pandemic, they would still be much more socially distanced than us right now just because of density.

 

So I guess I feel more sympathetic to the idea that it's possible to run events safely. Now do I trust people to do that? No. I certainly think people should be masked at all times, and all things considered I would prefer that if these events run, they events run without an audience and for the skaters to wear masks in group numbers. But it's also hard for me to feel like the risk is so great that damage to people's livelihoods can just be dismissed out of hand. Now, I don't know what Japan's socioeconomic breakdown is, but I think it's important to remember in general that a lot of people live in precarious financial situations and might struggle to keep a roof over their head if they go a month without income--like, that's not a trivial amount of hardship, not at all. I could very well see why someone would rather go to their job and risk getting sick than stay at home and face the certainty of running out of money to feed their kids, and I don't think I'm in any position to be judgmental about someone in that kind of situation.

 

I suppose, all in all, I don't think the cost/benefit calculation is as clear as some people make it out to be, both because I think the economic hardship is more serious than some seem to suggest, and because it's hard for me to believe that the risks can't be significantly mitigated, based on my experience in Hong Kong. So I think this is something that reasonable, compassionate people could come to different assessments about, and I don't think people are stupid or heartless for holding a different opinion. 

 

I think you're right that the spread of the virus is controllable, Hong Kong and other countries have clearly had a good handle on this which allows for more freedom and events like this with audience to continue and more social events to happen with low impact on infection. A while back I skimmed an article a that speculated some countries response to COVID control have faired better because those countries have dealt with infectious diseases more recently, so maybe Hong Kong's experience with SARS made them better prepared.

 

I think the key difference here is the state of infection and hospitalization in these different countries. Somehow I doubt countries with better control on the virus would be allowing a 10k non-spaced audience event to happen in their countries when case positivity has continued to climb and hospital beds are reaching capacity (or surpassed it). I do agree with you there are ways to make being at the events safer for an audience to be present (i.e. masks, spacing, ventilation, testing, vaccination requirements, etc) but aside from masking the audience Stars on Ice neglects most of this and I don't even know if they are regularly testing their staff and the skaters. I think the bigger danger is what happens outside the show as an indirect result of coming to see Stars on Ice (socializing outside venue, eating in restaurants, etc) that are a lot harder to measure and that have no incentive for organizers to track.

 

I'll give the example of the Super Bowl in Tampa, Florida this year which resulted in a total of 57 total COVID cases resulting from the actual game with thousands who traveled to watch. The Super Bowl had limited audience which was a small mix of vaccinated front line workers, and others. There were a total of 24k fans and 12k staff and members of the media at the game, they also had 240k people taking part in official Super Bowl events which they largely moved outdoors. They like to claim this wasn't a super spreader and I guess 57 out of thousands is small (still large number of infections if you ask me) but it's clear they didn't make a huge effort to contact trace beyond people directly at these events and didn't factor their movements and who else they came in contact with because of attending the Super Bowl.

poohzuruhanyu on Insta made a side-by-side of Yuzu's MJ-inpired moves and MJ's dancing. I hope Yuzu practice more of this to fully make those moves his own 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CODCSZ3oN-_/?igshid=1y0lwq98m4l7b

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

I feel so conflicted right now...

 

On the one hand it's really awesome to see Yuzu being so actively involved in the choreography and direction of the show. In any other year I would be over the moon to follow this development. But knowing that the leg-kick-laola-wave was his idea with all skaters standing arm in arm and no masks on in the middle of a pandemic... That news made my brain crack.

 

I have the feeling that putting a stage hog like Yuzu in a cage for a year with no shows and comps made him starve a bit for escalation and now everything poured out at once 

Don't get me wrong, I still love him and his skating more than anything, but if I criticized other skaters like Javi for his careless behavior in Russia, I just can't turn a blind eye on this 

It feels particularly bizarre and contradicting in Yuzu's case, because he is the number one skater who always reminds us of the risks of infection and being careful. He was the skater who wrote that heartfelt message to the healthcare workers, he was the skater who stressed multiple times that he can only continue to show us his skating, if he's healthy and safe. His actions and attitude at SOI feel like 180° opposite to his usual agenda. I hope that I interpret too much into this and that he's still very cautious and caring and everything's fine.

 

I also pray with all my toes and fingers that he won't get covid and can return safely to his cave in Sendai 

My personal (probably wrong) opinion is that he “might” think if the audience has risked it to go there personally and watch them, they might also risk a little and give their all for the show. Also isn’t this the first SOI show with no foreigner skaters? Maybe he wants to “prove” japan has it enough to hold a successful show so he is very eager to give his all for this. If I’m not wrong, there were close contacts during other group performances, so avoiding any touches in the finale might look a little ridiculous.

My another controversial opinion is that Yuzu withdrew from GPS to avoid any risks last year but after the WC, that decision was used to throw him under the bus. I feel even Brian in his latest interview in Aera was kinda against that decision. This might be another reason why he has stopped to be cautious more than anyone else. It seems to me that now he feels he should focus on his job as a skater and put down that heavy burden of being evaluated above everyone else a little.

I think/hope the skaters are regularly tested and we saw them wearing masks during practices/group photo. I’m very positive that apart from the performances, they are very careful and all of them will be hopefully safe. Although this doesn’t change the fact that this show could be managed a lot better.

30 minutes ago, Mary_kyo said:

My another controversial opinion is that Yuzu withdrew from GPS to avoid any risks last year but after the WC, that decision was used to throw him under the bus. I feel even Brian in his latest interview in Aera was kinda against that decision. This might be another reason why he has stopped to be cautious more than anyone else. It seems to me that now he feels he should focus on his job as a skater and put down that heavy burden of being evaluated above everyone else a little.

 

To be fair: People use EVERYTHING to attack, criticize and deminish Yuzu and his achievements. They also throw him under the bus, when he recycles a program, when he skates to Japanese music, when he takes the quad Axel as his main goal... Whatever he does, people always find something to bash him for.

 

But does that make Yuzu change his decisions or betray his own convictions? Inspite of everything he obviously wants to keep TenChi (which I'm really happy about), we wants to land that quad Axel, he doesn't want to give up on transitions, quality and many other things.

 

I don't see why he should change his mind about the most important issue: his own and other people's health. This is something that goes far beyond your own needs and interests. No one would have the right to say a single word, if the skaters insisted on masks and social distancing. It's the one and only natural thing to do in a pandemic and it would not have spoiled the show. There are dozens of other things you can do to entertain the crowd without being cozy and touchy with other skaters.

 

I'm sorry, if I sound harsh. But as a teacher myself, who has to keep groups of 20-25 students in positive mood and make sure that they all follow the rules, I have 0 understanding for careless actions like this. These skaters are examples for millions of people out there, especially younger people.

18 hours ago, yumeaki said:

Yuzu showed his bruise on his leg from his 4A practices. I think it's from the WTT ex rehearsal but I expect this is what he has on his legs MOST OF THE TIME.

 

 

 

 

Here is the tanslation of the conversation between Yuzu and Yuka Sato

[NEWS]

 

 

Yuzu, please take care of yourself.

 

Yuzuu