On 5/30/2021 at 9:49 AM, hananistellata said:

After watching the movie and reading the book, my obsession with POTO in general became so big and I can safely say that the way Yuzu portrays the Erik is absolutely beautiful. 

 

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I wonder if Yuzu watched the movie to take extra notes heheh.

 

The same here. I only watched the movie because of Yuzuru! Now I love love love POTO!

On 5/30/2021 at 11:49 PM, hananistellata said:

 

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I wonder if Yuzu watched the movie to take extra notes heheh.

 

He watched the movie when he was in junior high school. He had wished to skate to POTO since then, and after Sochi, he finally had his wish granted. In an interview given to TV Asahi during that summer, he said, "I think the (public) image of Phantom, after all, is rather dark, or heavy, connected to dark things like grudge or hatred, but I am hoping to express something pure and beautiful in his heart hidden behind that dark things." He also compared Phantom's love for Christine and music to his love for figure skating.

54 minutes ago, hananistellata said:

So it's seems that Yuzuru had been a fan of POTO.  Do you perhaps have a link of this interview? I'd love to hear more about it!

Unfortunately, I don't have a link. The interview (part of the interview, I guess) was aired in TV Asahi's coverage of CoC2014, before the live broadcast of the men's FS. CoC wasn't a normal comp, so it's a bit difficult to find such fluff videos later...

Found a news clip that includes a part of the interview I mentioned above. It's a report on Media Day 2014. His comment is fragmented, so the wording is probably a bit different from what he actually said, but here is my translation: "I've always wanted to skate to this music since childhood, but what inspired me most strongly was... (edited) When I was in junior high school... (edited) I had an opportunity to watch Phantom of the Opera. That's when I thought, " I definitely want to skate to this music.""
This interview can be found in Aoi Honoo II too. In it, he specifically says that he watched the movie version of POTO in music class at junior high school. He had already learned the musical pieces through watching figure skating and had been wanting to skate to it himself, but the movie re-ignited the desire. He asked Brian and David to let him skate to it already in 2012, but David turned down because it had not been long after Patrick Chan did POTO. Here is the video of David's interview. (This one's new, so you might have already watched it)