Transcribed by Lynn, Becs, Maryam, and Gabb
Evie: You’re In the Loop! We’re here to discuss the ups, downs and side-ways of the sport of Figure Skating and maybe give you +5 GOE along the way. Let’s introduce this weeks hosts.
Becs: Hi, I'm Becs and I'm spending the week indulging in holiday debauchery to forget all my skating feelings. You can find me on Twitter @becsfer.
Evie: Hi, I'm Evie and I'm celebrating Christmas the only way I know how. Too much turkey, champagne, and of course, national skating championships. You can find me on Twitter at @doubleflutz.
Evie: So Becs, it's that time of the year again. We're in the Nationals part of the season. It's Christmas, It's Nationals time.
Becs: Oh!
Evie: And for once, Japanese and Russian Nationals aren't conflicting, they're not on the same week - which is very nice for my sleep schedule.
Becs: It actually is like the one blessing. Although I think the problem is since I don't have to juggle both at the same time now I'm like Japanese Nationals burnt me out so much maybe I can't even handle Russian Nationals at this point. [Laughs]
Evie: Honestly, it's a mood. Russian Nationals is my holiday period where I'm gonna just sleep through the whole thing. I've had my fill of skating for the last couple of months and I can take a week off. And Russian Nationals - I didn't watch it last year either. I guess it's kind of a yearly thing for me where I just wake up the next morning and check the results and I go "Ah yes, this event happened."
Becs: Yeah.
Evie: Whereas Japanese Nationals is just like, “Well it's in my timezone, so I might as well watch it.”
Becs: Can't relate to the timezone aspect. [Laughs]
Evie: It certainly was an event this year.
Becs: It was quite the affair.
Evie: And usually we would start off an episode talking about Pairs but because there is literally one Pair and only a handful of Ice Dance teams, we're saving that till the end. So we're gonna start off the episode by talking about the hot mess that was the Men's event here at Japanese Nationals. So our podium, in gold, we have Shoma Uno, in silver, we have Yuzuru Hanyu, and
in bronze, we have Yuma Kagiyama. For the assignments to the Championships, the placements for the Japanese national team: Shoma, Yuzu, and Yuma are all going to Four Continents. Shoma, Yuzu, and Keiji are going to Worlds and then for Junior Worlds it's Shun and Yuma. So woohoo, we have our teams. Stress! This whole event has just been a mess really.
Becs: Honestly, normally Japanese Nationals is my literal favourite event of the year because it'll guarantee a lot of heartbreak but you get to see so many good skaters and there are so many skaters who never get into national assignments. But this year, honestly, I was kind of like, I don't know. Maybe I'm going to revise my stance on what my favorite competition of the year is because this was too much emotional whiplash to bear.
Evie: Yeah, honestly. We had some of the most amazing skates and some of the lowest lows and you just get thrown back and forth. It was just the worst.
Becs: It was the worst, especially after how much of a mess Grand Prix Final was. But we had some really good high points. I think one of the things that was absolutely the nicest was seeing some of the Juniors do extremely, extremely well.
Evie: Yes, exactly. Seniors who? I only know Juniors. They are the only valid thing in figure skating right now.
Becs: Honestly, I love our second Junior Nationals. Why don't more countries have two Junior National competitions? This is clearly the way to live.
Evie: Just repeat the Junior Nationals. Don't worry about the Seniors. They're fine. They can do whatever.
Becs: They've got enough to do honestly.
Evie: Exactly. The juniors have nothing between Nationals and Junior Worlds. Give them another, just give them another.
Becs: But this year really felt kind of like a bit of a changing of the guard. The Japanese men hasn’t been the most exciting event in the last couple of years.
Evie: Especially in comparison to previous years when it's been just a hellfire of too many men.
Becs: We all remember 2011 to 2014. That was a time. In recent years it hasn't been quite as up in the air but this year we went to the Nationals and we're like we don't know what's gonna happen because the Juniors have done amazing at the Junior Nationals and the Junior Grand Prix final, Shun and Yuma, and then you had so many retirements. I looked at a list of skaters who said this was the nationals for the men and it was like 8 blokes.
Evie: Yeah, it was a lot.
Becs: It's been interesting. We had a lot of farewell skates, which ended with a really tragic jump error at the end.
Evie: Yeah. What was it with the men retiring and messing up their last jumping pass.
Becs: Yeah. I don't know, it was extremely relatable as a very very tired person this year who's just over everything. I'm really gonna miss some of them. Some of them had been such staples like Hiroaki Sato. He's such a lovely skater and he generally brings such an interesting character so it's gonna be a shame to see him move on. It feels like Ryuju has just been here forever. And then [Daisuke Takahashi’s] farewell skate - the crowd was extremely into them. I haven't heard that much chanting in a skating competition in a very long time.
Evie: He certainly has a lot of fans who made the trip for Nationals. It's not like it's gonna be the last time we see him considering he's probably gonna be switching into Ice Dance.
Becs: Yeah, we'll see how that goes. Hopefully, he can get us Ice Dance broadcasted, if nothing else, but we'll see. I hope he got kind of the closing he wanted on his Singles career because he seemed pretty happy at the end of his Free. He seemed like yeah, this is fine. He seemed to have fun performing for the crowd. His Short was very messy but...
Evie: He was a mess, but it seemed like a mess that he was having a good time throughout. I hope it was satisfying. But I think one of the most surprising things out of this whole Nationals is just how well Shoma did overall
Becs: Oh my God.
Evie: Honestly, is Stephane some sort of witch?
Becs: What coven does he run? Literally master of the arcane arts. What the hell happened in Switzerland?
Evie: You could tell how much good having a stable skating base and a coach, like a good environment, has really done for Shoma. He's not only doing well in his skating but he seems more visibly happy than he was in the Grand Prix, like during IDF and Rostelecom. I'm glad he's settled down a little bit.
Becs: Yeah, he looks so much more confident and happy. I think his Short Program, especially because “Great Spirit” is not an easy short program, I didn't actually expect that we would see it clean this entire season. This was the best he's skated since the Olympics so that was just... He came out and we were just like "What happened?" It was really incredible.
Evie: The jump in quality from the last couple of competitions - it's just been astounding. It's really really good considering how hard it was to watch him during the Grand Prix with all the errors he had, so just him having a clean competition is a relief, like a collective sigh. Like “Okay, he's fine, we can kind of stop worrying a bit.”
Becs: I'm very glad he seems to be on the right track. He won, he got gold, the fourth year running, which is really impressive. I don't think I've ever seen him actually so tangibly emotional on a podium. He's mentioned that winning over Yuzuru was basically his main goal ever since he started seniors and it was more important than the Olympics. In terms of confidence and in terms of what this meant to him, it really seemed to have an impact. I'm glad to see him back on track. That said, his jumps still terrify me like no one else. I don't think I can watch anything without just wincing and, his knees, man.
Evie: His knees! The way that he saved his jumps, especially in the Free, when he has the really close landings and the way he relies so heavily on his knees to take the shock of the landing. My knees hurt in response to that just watching him. It's the worst. I just watch him almost fall and try and put all that pressure in his extremely bendable knees and I'm just like “Ouch, my legs are hurting.”
Becs: Yes, all the sympathy pains. I mean, the tech panel was pretty lenient to him, especially in the Free.
Evie: They definitely gave him the benefit of the doubt in the Free with a lot of the jumps. Personally, I would have called the flip underrotated. The landing was really close and with most of the flips that he does, the pre-rotation was pretty excessive. It was borderline, especially considering the tech panel was pretty strict on everyone but Shoma in the Free, which is what annoyed me the most.
Becs: I think that's what made it very glaring. I am the ultimate- “I will advocate for a strict tech panel any day, all day, higher than for everything, love them to death.” But there is nothing more frustrating than an inconsistently strict tech panel, so that was kind of unfortunate. But overall, it was great to see him have really, two great back to back skates and get his confidence back and show that he's moving in the right direction regarding his coaching change. I think we probably forgot to mention but he is going to coached formally by Stephane in the coming years, and it seems to be working out well for him. So hopefully the rest of the season will continue to be much better than the first.
Evie: Yeah, I heard that -- Stephane's camp seems like a very positive environment so I'm really hoping that that will treat him well in the coming months because he's training with Koshiro, so he's got some friends there, so yes, a happy environment is good. And of course, here at JNats we also had the annual midseason costume change in both programs.
Becs: Never fails on that front, to keep the costume designers in pocket money.
Evie: I don't mind either of them, I think I prefer both the original costumes than these ones. In the short, the “Great Spirit,” maroon pants and top -- I don't know. I think I liked the bluey top and the black pants of the original little bit more. And then with the free, the extremely deep V-neck...
Becs: I don't know. The illusion mesh. I think for the simple aspects of the program, I think the costume he had before suited it better. I don't get how this particular new costume goes better with it but I don't hate it. I think after he changed costume designers to Mathieu Caron. I'm just a kind of solid, relatively neutral. At least he has proper costumes, but they don't really stun me in the kind of way his costumes did when he was with Satomi. But anyway, shall we talk about Yuzu?
Evie: Yeah, let's talk about Yuzu who's back at Nationals, after four years.
Becs: Literally, I remember the first time he withdrew from nationals because I went to that Nationals in 2016 and I was walking through Roppongi and got a text that Yuzu was out. Now he's back after four - it's been the length of an entire quad.
Evie: But he's back now, in arguably in a more shakier state than we've seen him in a while, but...
Becs: Literally from the moment he got off the plane and went to the draw, he looked absolutely bone-weary exhausted. He kept commenting to the press that he doesn't even what time zone he's in. He's been on five continents back and forth in four weeks. His schedule has been grueling and he's truly feeling the uncle vibes. He hasn't done this in years.
Evie: It's been a hot second since he's had to do that in a run from the Grand Prix events to the Final to Nationals and, obviously, he's a bit older than he was when the last time he did it. I'm not sure he was expecting it to take that kind of a toll, but it did.
Becs: I'm convinced if he does next season, if he does the Grand Prix series or competes next season, I'm convinced there's no way in hell he's going to let them assign him to the last Grand Prix. I think he's just going to be like, “I'm not doing that again.” That did not work out well. But despite that, his Short Program was great. [Evie: It was.] He made layout changes and they really seemed to work out well for him. He had a week to re-choreograph the new layout and the transitions, which he did all by himself. Moving the combo back to the second jumping pass worked out really well for him. That was the best quad toe-triple toe we've seen from him all season.
Evie: Yeah. It's really weird to see him give up the points for switching the combo to the triple Axel so he doesn't get the second half bonus. But honestly considering the score he got here, which, if it was in an actual international competition, would have been the new world record. I mean, can't really complain about that.
Becs: No. I'm curious to see how he's gonna continue to play with layouts because he's going to both Four Continents and Worlds this year and he strongly, strongly hinted that he's probably gonna mix up both the Short Program and the Free because he said the short program layout wasn't really the complete version of it. Hopefully, we'll continue whatever changes he makes will continue to work out for him cause that's kind of been haunting him.
Evie: And then the Free, [Becs: Oh my god] was...
Becs: To be fair, I rewatched this Free and it wasn't that bad. I think it was so jarring when we watched it live. Because I watched it again and I was like "Well you know what the first 90 seconds, apart from the step out on the quad loop, are really actually pretty solid." It's just we're not used to seeing Yuzu [so shaky]. Once he doubled the Lutz and had that insane nearly vertical, completely madman save..
Evie: Yeah, his upper body was parallel to his landing leg. It looked almost like he was doing a windmill.
Becs: Honestly it gave me traumatic flashbacks to when he nearly brained himself on the quad loop in “Let's Go Crazy,” not going to lie don't need to relive that. I'm actually surprised he only fell on the last jumping pass because he really was saving so many jumps.
Evie: They were very, very close!
Becs: He really fought to stay on his feet. His kiss & cry at the end, when he was sitting there with Brian and Ghislain and goes from giggling helplessly at the jump replays to literally just covering his eyes by the time he gets to the last jumping pass and just being "Nope! We don't need to see this, No one needs to relive this! It's fine."
Evie: I especially loved when they were showing the double Lutz and he was pointing himself with his body right next to his landing leg and going, "Oh it's a difficult exit!" Just like yes this should count as a difficult exit!
Becs: This is the innovation the ISU tried to instill with their new changes. I'm glad Yuzu gets it.
Evie: That's the one thing. He obviously had a really rough outing here but I'm glad that he can sit in the kiss & cry and find the humor I guess in it? Like he's not taking it all to heart in the way that it's like personally affecting his mood.
Becs: I think he was honestly just happy to survive. When he was slapping his legs at the end it was like "I had to check that they were still there". Yuzu... should we be worried about your
sensory nerves or something, if you're like "I don't even know if these are attached still ?" He seemed a little emotional in post interviews but honestly he is so tired. Basically, let him sleep for a week and then he can start up training for Four Continents and experiment with his ridiculous layouts.
Evie: I think that on the topic of his scoring here, I think the Free Skate score was fair. That's probably what I would've given him considering what he put out here. It's just like what we've said, in comparison to scores that we saw from Shoma, the calling especially because Yuzu got called three times and Shoma didn't get any calls, the gap in PCS, and just the overall margin between first and second was a little bit too high in my opinion.
Becs: Yeah no I would agree. I think basically my eternal gripe, especially this season and some of last season, is Yuzu is basically getting scored about how I would score him. Maybe a little lower on the GOE in some competitions but not so much this one. But because the scoring is not being nearly as strict, like the tech calls and the GOE not being nearly as strict to his competitors it just feels really frustrating seeing his results. Because yeah he is scored relatively fairly, in my opinion, it's just not everyone is scored relatively fairly so it comes out more unbalanced than one would wish. But he's got a lot of time to recover.
Evie: Yeah he's got a whole month before Four Continents so he's got time to rest up, get back into the normal swing of training, hopefully not be too jetlagged when he gets to Four Continents because it's in Seoul this year. I'll just be glad if he makes it to Four Continents this year, that's like the bar for me.
Becs: Yes honestly I know we were like "Oh he looks really tired and it's kind of concerning that he was so shaky because his schedule seemed really grueling,” but honestly he's still uninjured and we've still seen him at more competitions already than the last two seasons. If he goes to Four Continents and Worlds that will be the same amount of competitions as he did in two seasons in one season.
Evie: Yeah!
Becs: So as long as he gets through it. Evie: We're just happy to see him.
Becs: Basically my favorite theme ever from this competition is the fact that we got Juniors as the bronze medalists on both singles disciplines. So we had Yuma [Kagiyama] who just came back and blew everyone out of the water here.
Evie: It's funny because at the Junior Grand Prix Final, we had surprise champion Shun Sato and now here at Japanese Nationals, we have surprise bronze medalist Yuma.
Becs: I know! I love it! I love it! And, oh my God, he landed his triple Axels. In the free! Oh my God, the one in the Short Program where he just did a waltz jump and I think the commentator's voice even just kind of broke and I was like "Yes..."
Evie: It's a mood! Yeah, I don't know if he's formed some kind of a mental block after the Junior Grand Prix Final because he messed up the Axel in the Short there as well, so I don't know what's going on with that.
Becs: I don't know if it's like a mental block or just maybe a transition or choreography issue? That would probably be my guess because I don't think it has been quite long enough to be quite a mental block. But maybe look into your transitions or how your set up is done for it and make sure that's not such an issue? Because he's getting to go to Four Continents so we would like to see a clean short!
Evie: Yay!
Becs: Yes so happy!
Evie: I'm so happy for him. Obviously, he's gone to the Junior Grand Prix Final now he's medaled at Senior Nationals and is going to Four Continents. I hope he takes the Tomoki Hiwatashi approach of doing things. Because the same thing kind of happened last season with Tomoki where he medaled at US Nationals, went to Four Continents, did reasonably well there and then won Junior Worlds. So I'm the same thing happens with Yuma where Yuma goes to Four Continents, does reasonably well, win Junior Worlds. That would be the best thing that could possibly happen to me honestly. I love Yuma so much. His skating skills are so nice. Especially with all the new Fuji TV ice stats that you get where you get to see his ice coverage and speed in those maps that they show. You can just see how fast he is and how much distance he covers, it's so good to see him go nyoom across the rink from one side to the other. Basically he can do two crossovers and get to the other side of the rink in a few seconds. It's insane.
Becs: I know. It's so beautiful. I feel like we just don't see enough Junior men who just have that kind of control over their blade, it's so refreshing. I'm not terribly sold on his programs, especially his Free Skate. It just feels very sort of elevator music. But he really sells it. He's so charming that I end up not minding even if I really don't care for the music.
Evie: I'm really happy that he didn't go for the quad loop or quad flip like he said he was going to.
Becs: Yeah I was worried.
Evie: Yeah I'm glad that he played it safe and just went for the stuff that he knew he could land well because that was really what made the difference at the end of the day. The fact that he skated a pretty much clean Free and landed everything so lovely, it really launched him up onto the podium. I'm so happy and excited for him.
Becs: He's gotten it together so well and his progress, both him and Shun have it so much more together, so much more leveled than they were last year on the Junior Grand Prix.
Evie: Yeah let’s talk about Shun. That Short Program though!
Becs: Oh my god! When he came out...he was one of the absolute first skaters and he just stayed in first for so long.
Evie: It was the kind of surprise twist that I love to see. Him staying in first for so long and then overall coming in third in the Short Program. This is the kind of stuff I like guys.
Becs: Yes! Yes!
Evie: And the fact that when we were watching the broadcast, during all the resurfacings Fuji always plays replays of before like "Here is Shun's Short Program three separate times" and I'm like "I'm not arguing about this! I don't mind watching this program three whole times.”
Becs: It's fine we can just keep seeing this on loop forever. But yeah, it was really great. I think I was barely awake when both he and Yuma skated and I was just like "Why... why are they quadding in the short?" I was so confused because I've been watching their junior skates so much and I was just like "Why! Is this allowed? What is going on?" [Laughs]
Evie: Same! I was just looking at it going "Wait was that a quad? Can you even put that in here? What's going on?"
Becs: Right! I was just like "Hang on! Spit take. That's not what's supposed to be in - oh it is Senior Nationals, I guess they're allowed to wild and show off.” I was just so confused, I was like "Am I just hallucinating? Was that a quad? What's going on?"
Evie: The Free was a little bit rougher than I think he would've liked. But I think that he did a really good job keeping it all together after the first fall on the quad Lutz. He managed to really save the program basically. The second half of the program was really really strong and I'm glad that he managed to keep it together.
Becs: I'm so happy because he fell on the opening jump and I was like "Oh dear" but then he pulled it together really well and just continued to deliver and didn't let go of the performance. That was fantastic to see, especially since he didn't fall apart and give up and keep derailing. But no he was like "No! Nope going to actually throw out my best. This is fine!"
Evie: And he got to be in the last group of the Free too and go to the practices with Yuzu - which he said was his goal. That just warmed my heart so much.
Becs: So wholesome!
Evie: I love two kids from Sendai!
Becs: These are the sorts of narratives and continuations of legacies that are just so lovely and you really just only get to see them at Nationals. So it was really fantastic.
Evie: Yeah I think that his PCS in the Free was quite surprising to me. I wasn't expecting it to be as long as it was considering it was like a 6 point from what he got at Junior Grand Prix Final. And I know that Japanese Nationals can be a little conservative with their marking at times. So I wasn't completely shocked. But the gap between his PCS and Yuma's PCS when they're both Juniors...I mean I know Shun had errors but it was pretty substantial so...
Becs: I wouldn't have made it nearly that stark or drastic. There definitely is a bit of a gap I think in some parts of their PCS, especially Yuma's skating skills and whatnot. But honestly, not to that degree. Shun didn't skate quite as clean as Yuma but he skated almost clean.
Evie: I would've put them at the same level of PCS for most categories except skating skills. For performance and composition, they would probably be at the same.
Becs: Yeah they're pretty much comparable. That was a little unfortunate but hopefully if he gets a few more assignments they'll stop being quite so harsh. At least they weren't super harsh to him on the international level so far.
Evie: Yeah!
Becs: Speaking of other fabulous kids who had great skates, can we talk about Kazuki and the fact that he completely threw down in the Free? We were all just screaming in shock. Which, no offense, he hasn't skated that well in 2 years.
Evie: I was over the moon for him. The last time I saw him skate a Free that good was Worlds 2018 probably. I literally screamed when he landed the [quad] Salchow because I've just been so used to him either popping it or falling on it. But he landed it here and I was just like "Yaaaaassss!!! This is all I needed!"
Becs: I know and then he kept going on and he kept landing his jumps. I was just like "Oh my god!"
Evie: He kind of a couple issues in the second half of the program but apart from that it was just like note-perfect.
Becs: It was really good and you can tell, like okay I do not like “Moulin Rouge.” I'm so tired of “Moulin Rouge.” I am practically a “Moulin Rouge” anti at this point. But you can tell that he gets really into that program and really enjoy getting to do all the over the top dramatic theatrics that Misha [Ge] has choreographed into it for him. It's fun and great to see him finally have a good skate and it's got to be so so good for his confidence.
Evie: I'm sad that he's not going to be going to any Championships this year though. I'm going to miss him in the second half of the season.
Becs: Same! Admittedly he kind of buried himself with his Short, that was such a great Free but the Short just kind of buried himself, unfortunately. We will miss him! Hopefully, he will go to a Senior B or something.
Evie: I hope so. Because otherwise, I'm just going to miss him. I don't want to wait until next season to see him again.
Becs: And finally we have Keiji [Tanaka]. Evie: Keiji!
Becs: Oh Keiji...if there is nothing else Keiji is so consistent on it's getting that Worlds spot out of pure seasoned energy and spite. He has perfected that game. Especially since he didn't have quite the best short and then his free was just really good. He just comes out and is like "No you're not taking this from me. I am going to make my case and get there no matter what."
Evie: I appreciate his grit and his work ethic in that respect.
Becs: Yes.
Evie: I also... he changed the shirt for the short program into a full-length long sleeve shirt.
Becs: I'm in love! I'm sorry that was the best costuming decision of the entire competition. Take something that's kind of terrible and make it utterly heinous and ah, that is the siren song to my soul. [Laughs]
Evie: I prefer the original but I'm not completely mad at this one. Like they're both not really my cup of tea so...
Becs: There's so much more bad fabric to photograph! I'm literally salty he didn't have it at Skate Canada. It's a piece of art. And the fact that the sleeves are kind of goofy. It's so good, Evie. Literally, I think when we saw practice photos of that shirt was probably one of the most excited moments I had all Nationals.
Evie: Trust you to get really excited about a really ugly shirt! [Laughs]
Becs: Listen, I have a brand! I was groomed and Stockholmed by years of Japanese entertainment. I will embrace all the terrible costumes and give them all the love.
-end segment-
START: Ladies
Evie: Alright, shall we go on to the Ladies?
Becs: Oh my god yes, talk about emotional whiplash.
Evie: Talk about emotional whiplash. So, our podium here at Ladies: in gold, we have Rika Kihira, in silver, we have Wakaba Higuchi, and in bronze, we have Tomoe Kawabata. And for the assignments for the season: Rika, Wakaba, and Kaori are going to Four Continents; Rika, Wakaba, and Satoko are going to Worlds, and then for Junior Worlds Tomoe and Mana are going. Oh boy, this Ladies' event though. It was a lot to process.
Becs: Yeah, I need a break from Ladies' events for the next three months. I'm not even going to go to Worlds at Ladies, I'm just still going to be recovering and detoxing.
Evie: This whole Ladies' event at Nats was kind of like the combination of what happened to all the Japanese Ladies at the Grand Prix with inconsistencies. The whole event was extremely nerve-wracking to watch because a lot of them weren't in their top form and some of the skates that we saw were quite heartbreaking, but then on the opposite end of the scale we had some truly amazing skates that I don't think a lot of us were expecting or results we were expecting to happen.
Becs: There were such jubilant moments, but it did feel kind of a sad reflection. Last year's Japanese Nats was so incredible. We had the top four who all scored over 220 total and just completely threw down, and this was like, we had so many happy comebacks by people who had struggled a lot like Tomoe and Wakaba, and then you had just...
Evie: Completely saddening and heartbreaking performances like Kaori and Satoko, yeah.
Becs: Oh, it was a time. But also, part of the reason why we probably didn't have such explosive scores this year was the tech panel and judging panel. I want to hire them for everything, they are my favourite thing, because they are so strict. I can't actually remember, it's been a while since I've seen such a strict panel. Literally, you go through the protocols, and basically no one did not have an under rotation or an edge call, if not multiple. So yeah that was great in terms of like, you can always count on Japanese Nationals to give extremely intense feedback, this even more so than usual. On the other hand, it was kind of a bit of a wild ride seeing Kaori would skate, and literally everything was under review.
Evie: Just watching this competition, it really makes me, the next Ladies' competition we have, [want] to strap a heart rate monitor on and just see the changes in heart rate throughout the competition because I'm sure it'll be a wild freaking rollercoaster of a scale. Let's talk about Rika, who won her first Senior National title.
Becs: Woohoo! Seriously, seeing her surviving the most grueling schedule with flying colours, she came out and destroyed this competition. And she was so tired, she's injured, she said she was super nervous and couldn't even sleep, and she put out the best performance of her Free that she's done.
Evie: I'm not surprised that she was feeling nervous. I mean, the pressure must've been immense going in, considering the facts that all of the titles she won last year, and then you have the fact that she was the only Japanese lady to make the Final this year.
Becs: Right, and she was coming off [of] not an ideal set of skates or placement at the Final, so she probably really was feeling the pressure to really still prove. She's clearly the top Japanese lady at the moment, but still, the media narrative around her and all the expectations are so overwhelming that the fact that she just went out, and she has so much grit. If there's anything else I will respect about her, it's that she has so much grit to just go out and just lay down like that, especially given how nervy she used to be when she was a Junior.
Evie: And considering the lead she had from the Short, I'm really glad she didn't push herself and go for the quad Sal, and instead focused on putting out a clean performance in the Free. Because at the end of the day, I didn't want her to push her injuries and risk further aggravating them, so I'm glad that she was able to pull out the skate she had in the Free and still come out. And the score she got was really great, it was like 155.
Becs: Yeah, no, it was fantastic, she didn't need to bother to push the quad Sal. Admittedly, I am really worried about her schedule and her injury, because she's been dealing with this injury all season, and I think she still has ice shows she's going to in early January. They gave her Four Continents, she has Worlds, and she wants to train the quad Sal for Worlds. I just don't know when she's actually going to ever have the chance to recover. It honestly concerns me quite a bit. Obviously, she definitely earned all the assignments she got, but I really wish that they'd given the Four Continents spot to Tomoe, and let her rest.
Evie: I really think that, especially with the Ladies' field, the way it is, it's going to be best for her if she takes as much time as possible to heal and train and just get into the best shape she can be and get ready for Worlds, because if she's in her top form at Worlds, she can easily vie for a podium finish. But, if she continues to push herself, and kind of run on fumes and hope that her injury doesn't get too aggravated by competing a lot or skating a lot in midseason ice shows, it's definitely pushing the envelope as to how much she can actually accomplish. So I really hope she recognizes this, and just takes some time to breathe, to rest out a little bit.
Becs: I hope so, I'm not too optimistic, because the fact that she's been scheduled in an ice show though, and the fact that she went to Autumn Classic when she was very noticeably injured and had admitted it, does not particularly give me confidence that her team or that she is very good at prioritizing her health in any degree, but fingers crossed, fingers crossed. I don't want to have a case where she gets to Worlds, crawls through it, and then spends all off-season horribly injured and unable to train or something because she's aggravated injuries so much. So, good vibes, hopefully she will do well.
Evie: We wish her all the best.
Becs: So, Evie. I feel like, I'm actually a little concerned that I might've jinxed some of the people, because I kept yelling that literally all I want from this Nationals is Wakaba to make the podium after how hard her last two seasons have been.
Evie: Well, you got it!
Becs: I did.
Evie: It's just literally like Wakaba and Tomoe podium'd, but at what cost?
Becs: I know, I know. Honestly though, I think she needed this so badly, and she skated so well. The moment she showed up in practice, and people were like, "Yeah, she's looking great in practices." Admittedly, she stressed me out so much by constantly doing triple Axels in practice, and then never doing them in her free, or her short. But, we were just constantly like, "Oh my god", every time she went for any sort of Axel, and then it was like, "Oh it's a double, okay, okay, we can relax."
Evie: Yeah, I'm on the same boat with Wakaba's triple Axel that I am with Rika's quad Sal. I'm glad that she didn't do it here, and instead focused on putting out clean performances, because that really made the day, it really made the competition in general. It's just so good to see her come back after the struggle she's had, and put out two really nice skates, and I'm sure that must've been a big confidence booster for her as well.
Becs: Yeah, the fact that she said she had her confidence back was, honestly I was so sad that she missed the Grand Prix Final this year, but I feel like it might've been a blessing in disguise, because she was still recovering from an injury. She really had time to just focus on training, and getting her feet under her. The fact that, okay, as someone that's seen Waba live quite a bit recently, in the past two seasons, the fact that her triple-triples look this good, that triple Lutz triple Toe was literally the most massive divine thing I have ever seen, I want to marry and elope with it. Literally, I was like, "It's a casual 59 centimeters, no big deal." And like, okay, Evie, I have seen Wakaba about three times in the last year and a half, and every single time has just been staring in horror as she doesn't have a triple-triple, or can barely eek out a triple-triple, so this is great, we love it.
Evie: This is progress, we like progress.
Becs: Oh, it's so good to see. Yeah, I do think “Bird Set Free” is just the best Short Program for Ladies of the season, it's beautiful, it's stunning, it suits her to a tee. “Poeta” on the other hand though... needs some work.
Evie: I kind of have the same feelings about her ”Poeta” that I do about Haein [Lee]'s “Firedance,” where the first half is kind of pretty much focused on the jumps, but the second half completely makes up for that, because the step sequences in both of those programs are just so good.
Becs: So good. Honestly, I was almost confused when I watch “Poeta” here because I saw it at Skate America and I was so blown away by it, I think literally just because the step sequence at the end is so so good, and she delivers so hard on it that I completely forget whatever happened before, it was kind of a disengaged jump montage. That step sequence, Waka always completely sells a step sequence like almost no one else, but this one is so explosive, and she delivers it with such joy and abandon, that it completely goes off. I do hope that, now that she's gotten Four Continents and Worlds, I do hope that since she's no longer injured, maybe she can meet with Massimo Scali and maybe flesh it out a bit more, because it does seem pretty obvious that she got it choreographed when she was probably quite injured, and that they were just trying to get it in a shape she can get clean, and maybe she can flesh out the first half a little bit more. Anyway, really excited to see her back on track, she's had the most heart, and it's so so inspiring to watch, so I'm so glad we're going to see her back at championships this year.
Evie: Woohoo.
Becs: Okay, shall we talk about our favorite Junior ever?
Evie: Yes! Tomoe! Oh my god, back to back clean programs from her, this is all I've ever wanted.
Becs: I didn't even dare, you know how you have those pipe dreams but you don't even dare to hope? Tomoe was one of those.
Evie: Yeah.
Becs: I mean, she has had issues, she had issues on the JGP with really skating clean programs and stuff, and this she just back to back clean programs, no big deal, just causally outselling at really, probably the most important comp for her to outsell at.
Evie: Yeah, we have to stan, we have to stan. Tomoe is obviously my favorite Japanese Junior lady, by a mile. There's basically no competition. She has my heart completely. And she's just now grown into being one of my favourite Japanese Ladies overall, and just to see her put together these programs, when I've seen her struggle so much, not just in the Junior Grand Prix this season, but most of last season with inconsistency. The last thing I expected going into this event was her to get into the podium, considering the competitiveness of the Japanese Ladies' field. And while it was definitely on the back of some pretty awful skates and really heart-wrenching skates to watch others, I'm really glad that she has this, and I hope that it puts a little bit more confidence in her going into Junior Worlds.
Becs: Yes, no, I completely agree. Also, just casual shout out to her for having the best music choice of the season. “Yumeiji's Theme” is one of my favourite pieces of music, and I have literally been begging and trying to do witchcraft and black magic to get anyone that I care about to skate to it for the better part of a decade, and the fact that she came out and was just like, "Yeah, absolutely. I'll skate to ‘Yumeiji's Theme.’" It's like, I will love you forever, this is all it takes - I am a simple, simple woman.
Evie: "I am a simple woman, give me 'Yumeiji's Theme', and I will be happy."
Becs: You give me 'Yumeiji's Theme,' turn it into a warhorse. Literally my dream is for Yuzu to skate to it and turn it into a warhorse so we can just have it for eternity. But, you know what, I have faith in Tomoe, she can do it too.
Evie: Her Lutz is so big and beautiful and the edge and the height and the flow, and all throughout Junior Grand Prix, and last season, it's usually so big that she can't control the landing, and usually runs out of room at the end of the rink to get the combo.
Becs: It's very Karen Chen.
Evie: I'm very glad that she managed to combo both of them in both programs, and every time I see it, I'm just like, "Chef's kiss, best Lutz in the Ladies' field."
Becs: Keep landing it properly. I am a little bit sad that they didn't give her Four Continents, all things considered. I can see why they wanted to give Kaori a chance, and hope maybe if Rika decides to withdraw to focus on her health or something, she can still get to go, but really looking forward to seeing her at Junior Worlds because this was fantastic. Shall we talk about the third member of the Worlds' team, Satoko?
Evie: Well, do we have to, I mean? That Free...
Becs: She's going to Worlds, this is good.
Evie: I didn't think, going into this event, I would have had to be worried about Satoko not going to Worlds, but this is the world we live in now, I guess.
Becs: Yeah, it was kind of a bit heartbreaking to watch because Satoko, even if she struggles, she usually manages to pull through and really put a stellar performance at Nats. So, yeah, her jumps just...and she said that it wasn't even mistaken she was making in practices. You could see she, especially in the Free, she was trying to capture sort of still not completely give up on the performance, but you could see her being like, "Oh my god." Once she doubled that first Loop and then her jumps just disintegrated after that basically.
Evie: The whole free kind of fell apart. But I'm really glad that she still managed to capture some of the performance aspects that she was showing off in earlier assignments. That didn't fall to the wayside just because she was having issues with her jumps.
Evie: I'm glad about that but the whole Free was really difficult to watch.
Becs: It was gutwrenching. Obviously, Kaori didn't hold up as well as we'd have hoped, unfortunately. After she performed I was like, "There's no way she's making the Worlds team". Ultimately, I do think they made the right call in giving her the Worlds sport just because she performed the best on the Grand Prix series. Apart from Rika, she was the only lady to medal. She has shown herself to be pretty strong and consistent. Tomoe; I think they want to give her a good shot at Junior Worlds and not do back-to-back Junior and Senior Worlds. It's just too much really.
Evie: I'm glad they didn't give Satoko Four Continents because having that extra month in her new training base and getting everything sorted will probably be the best for her right now. She needs a bit more stability, time to get settled and drill into what they're currently working on with her.
Becs: Yes. I think it will be best. The fact that she's reworking her jump technique at the same time as she's changing coaches is a lot.
Evie: She's got a lot on her plate right now.
Becs: She's got a lot. I think it was interesting how she has severed ties with Hamada it seems. Originally, in an interview after Cup of China, she said Lee was her coach for international events, and Hama will handle national events. Yet, we didn't see Hamada anywhere near her. That's interesting but I'm glad she's committing to her new coaching situation. Fingers crossed it will work out and she can get some of her jump issues sorted out prior to Worlds.
Evie: Let's talk about another kind of extremely disheartening performance. Becs: This is literally the most heartbreaking part of this entire competition.
Evie: Kaori Sakamoto, our defending national champion, having a really rough outing here. Oh boy... Let's talk about the positives! How the hell did she save that combo in the Short!?
Becs: I saw her axis in the air and I thought “It's doomed, it's doomed, it's doomed...” and then she literally combo-d, and tacked on a triple toe.
Evie: I saw her land and thought she was going to double out or not combo but she reached back, pulled everything in, and got a triple toe out of that. What kind of witchcraft. Oh my God.
Becs: That was probably one of the most startling things like "Oh my God I'm awake now" moments. I was struggling because I woke up every day at 3 am or 2 am, and was up until 6-7 am. I was like "Nope! I'm awake! Kaori pulled that off so I can't be sleepy anymore".
Evie: I bet you wished you were asleep for the Free Skate though.
Becs: I mean, I barely woke up until the end of the third group and, honestly, I probably should have slept through that.
Evie: It was extremely hard to watch. You could tell in the warm-up, right before her performance, and even throughout the Free Skate that she was really nervous and was not as engaged with the performance of the Free as much as we've seen her do. Obviously, there was a huge amount of pressure for her going in. She was the defending National champion and she did have a bit of a rocky Grand Prix series as well. Everything is on the line at Japanese Nationals. Especially going into championship events and the field is so deep that the amount of pressure to be as clean as possible, in order to get on or as close to the podium, to get those assignments. I'm really upset that she took it so hard.
Becs: It was gutting to watch her because she looked so off from the start. Every single jump was either underrotated or had an issue. She's talked in interviews about how her rink mate Mai Mihara, who had to take the season off due to pretty severe health issues, and how that was a huge blow to her motivation because they're extremely close friends as well as rivals. She's sunshine and such a compelling skater. She was such a special quality to her skating that is so sincere and so genuine. I hope she can find that spark and bring it back to Four Continents so she can skate much more freely and more confidently.
Evie: I am glad they gave her Four Continents. I was so worried.
Becs: So glad. That was the only thing like please give her this chance. I really hope she can regroup and completely attack it. She doesn't have anything to lose this season and her programs are so good! She possibly has the best set of programs out of the Japanese Ladies. I prefer Wakaba Short but in terms of a set, I think they're some of the best. I'm excited we'll get to see them again.
Evie: I'm hoping we get to see her perform the Free really well at Four Continents. We haven't seen it 100% clean yet and I like “The Matrix.” I think it really suits her. Please, rest up Kaori. Take some time to find out what's going on and relax a bit. Maybe hang out with Mai? Go have some good friend time and come back to Four Continents stronger.
Becs: Can we quickly talk about a few of my favorite darlings? Particularly Marin.
Evie: Of course! Yes, let's talk about Marin.
Becs: I know. Eight place at Nationals, not the best showing but I am ecstatic. I really wanted her to hit the top ten.
Evie: After last year... I will take anything after last year.
Becs: If you didn't watch last year she was fifteenth and completely fell apart. It was really heartbreaking. If you're not familiar with Marin's skating; she was considered to be a potential shining star and it's been rough. I'm really glad to see her looking better. Her jumps are still a bit dicey, and it wasn't a terribly clean set of programs. She still has issues doubling her jumps and having shakey issues. What I noticed, which is kind of the defining and encouraging aspects compared to last year, is that she doesn't seem to get as frantic and drowned if she makes a mistake and completely loses focus. Especially with her Free, she's been performing throughout the program and not giving up on it. It is so good to see because she is one of the best performers.
Evie: I think with the free, last season's Free skate was more dramatic and classical. The performance side of things with “La La Land” is a bit easier for her to emote to it. It's happier.
Becs: It's so effervescent. It's just her.
Evie: It's very much her as opposed to last season where it was sad and soft. This season is exciting, sweet, and suits her personality more. Even if the jumps don't go the way she plans, she can still focus on the fact that she can emote to it easily.
Becs: Which is really cool. A lot of skaters, especially with juniors and not so experienced skaters, you see them getting heavy dramatic music so if they screw up their jumps they can get angry, glare down and stuff. It's refreshing that Marin can have some issues but she can still project nothing but sunshine and charm. It's so cathartic, other than the hoping she does okay and stuff, to watch her. I think it's charming that she can still project that sense despite issues. A quick shoutout to Rin Nitaya. This was her retirement. Her final nationals and she placed seventh which was really impressive. She had two beautiful back-to-back skates. I would especially recommend her free just to watch it.
Evie: Even me, who doesn't like “Exogenesis” programs, liked this program.
Becs: I was like "I can't believe I'm tearing up at ‘Exogenesis,’ like I hate this song". No offense but I'm just bored to death but here I am tearing up. She was so sublime and sincere. It was technically a pretty demanding program and she skated it so softly, sincerely, and beautifully.
Evie: It's the kind of send-off every athlete wants at the end of their career. Becs: I want this for everyone. Yes. Absolutely.
Evie: I want to talk about my daughter Yuhana Yokoi.
Becs: Yes! She did so well! She got fifth place!
Evie: I'm so happy for her. She is adorable and I love her so much. The fact that one, her cheeks are so squishy. I love that her coach before they send her off, they squish her cheeks, tap her on the forehead, and send her off. It's the cutest little rituals. After the free, she was nodding to herself like "Yes, I did fine".
Becs: "Yes, yes! I'll take that. That was solid". I want the world for her. She is fantastic. She's been doing so well because, earlier in the seasons, she tends to struggle and have a bit of an issue in skating a clean short program. She'll often falter then and come back with a solid free. NHK [Trophy] and here, she has done amazing.
Evie: Can we talk about how amazing the Short Program is for her?
Becs: Yes! It's so unique.
Evie: It's one of my favorite Ladies programs of the year. The music choice is unique. It's the soundtrack to a Japanese drama, I believe. You don't see a lot of interesting choices like that from a lot of skaters. The fact that she stays committed to the performance throughout the entire thing. She doesn't drop it for a second even going into the jumps. Her emoting, the way she playfully looks at the camera. It keeps you engaged throughout the whole thing.
Becs: It's so distinctive. I remember during Dreams On Ice when we got all the program announcements, I saw that one. I was like "Wait, what is she doing? What?" Then we watched and it was the perfect choice for her. We love interesting unique programs that have such personality because she has so much personality. Getting her to convey that is perfect.
Evie: Please give her a Senior B assignment in the second half of the season. I need to see the Short Program again. I need it!
-end segment-
START: Pairs and Ice Dance
Becs: Shall we move onto the other disciplines quickly?
Evie: “The other disciplines.” Just lump them all together!
Becs: We have Pairs.
Evie: Our singular Pairs team.
Becs: The most concise event in existence but we love them dearly.
Evie: Our gold medalist and only medalists are Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara. They've been assigned to Four Continents and Worlds because they are the only currently competing pairs team. For ice dance, we have in gold Misato Komatsubara and Tim Koleto, in silver Rikako Fukase and Eichu Cho, and in bronze, we have Kiria Hiriyama and Kenta Ishibashi. Team Koko has been sent to Four Continents and Worlds as well. [Utana Yoshida and Shingo Nishiyama have] been sent to Junior Worlds. Yay! We have the Pairs and the Ice Dance. The other disciplines that the Japanese federation have lumped together.
Becs: I hate how the Japanese federation treats them mostly. Both you and me, all we did was text each other during Japanese Nationals asking where is our Ice Dance coverage? Where is our Pairs coverage?
Evie: I always know that they are not going to broadcast Pairs and Ice Dance live. They have the one combined broadcast which, this year, was at 2am JST.
Becs: Which did not even do their short programs. Only the Frees.
Evie: Just the Frees. That was it. Unfortunately, our commentary for this segment will only be about the Frees because that's all we've been able to watch. Let's talk about Riku and Ryuichi.
Becs: She is such a star. For a new team, the degree that they perform the hell out of everything I cannot believe it.
Evie: They scream potential. I absolutely love it. I just want them to stay injury-free in the next few months because that's definitely a concern over the last couple of seasons. They weren't quite as clean here as they were at NHK but they were pretty solid. In the Free, they had a few close calls and Riku doubled the Salchow. Apart from that, their show triple Lutz is so nice.
Becs: It's so massive and pretty. He chucks her into the air like that was not the level I would have expected it. It's so nice!
Evie: Some of their elements are a little bit rough like their twist. The catch that they get is scary at some points.
Becs: The twist scares me a lot but I think that's just going to take them quite a bit of time, honestly. This is what I get with them when watching their elements. Some of them clearly just need more time to work on it.
Evie: And they haven't been together long, so they're definitely going to have the time over the next couple of months to really work on solidifying how they work together as a partnership. Honestly, if they go as clean as they did at NHK, and if they have a little bit more reputation backing them up, I think they could probably vie for a Four Continents podium in the future. Maybe not this year, but maybe next year.
Becs: Probably yeah, maybe next year. I think it depends a lot on what Canadian and American teams go, because that can be so hit and miss. You know what, they can win Four Continents during the Olympic season. Let them have it.
Evie: I support this. Or at least get on the podium, like we had Ryom/Kim on the podium at the Olympic Four Continents last year, let's have Riku/Ryu on the podium next time. Please. I would like this. Let's talk about some dance now, we'll go to team KoKo. Oh, I'm so happy to see them here. Obviously, they withdrew from NHK, which, all things considered, was probably the right call, considering Misato's injuries in the off-season.
Becs: Yes, I'm glad they did Cup of China, and they evaluated. They decided not to push and force for NHK. I'm sure there was a lot of pressure, and they really wanted to skate because it's a home Grand Prix, but please always prioritize your health, that is all we want, especially since we love them so much.
Evie: Especially when it's concussions, those are serious, folks. I think the Free is still very much a work in progress, and I'm not going to blame them for that, considering everything that's happened.
Becs: Nope, nope. We're just happy they're there.
Evie: Yeah, exactly. And all things considered, they did really well. They almost broke a 100 in the Free, that's awesome.
Becs: It was great. It's very much work in progress, but I can see even from when we saw it at Cup of China, and they probably haven't had a lot of time to work on it, but it already looks better. They already look more comfortable with it, and more into it just in general. It feels more cohesive as a program in general than when we saw it on the first outing, so I'm really excited to see what it will look like in the second half of the season, because I do really enjoy this program. They seem to really like it.
Evie: I like some of the elements in it too. I really like the character steps. I think the fact that he gets so close up to the judges and just emotes right in the faces, I love it.
Becs: Yes! I screamed live when I saw them, I love it when skaters throw themselves straight into the judges' personal space and are like, "Look at me. Look at how fabulous I am."
Evie: I'm excited to see it at Four Continents, and see how much another month of training will help it. Go KoKo!
Becs: Stay healthy, guys. Can't wait to see you later. Alright, and we have some other cute Ice Dance teams. Basically, you know what? Please just go watch the recap upload of the Japanese Ice Dance, because there are only four teams; it will take very little of your time. They're all really darling. Rikako Fukase and Eichu Cho had a “Mulan” Free Dance, which is the only thing that matters in my opinion. All other Free Dances can go home.
Evie: I was really surprised by them. They're really, really promising. Just watching them, they've got a lot of talent that just needs to be polished. Some of their elements are a little bit shaky, especially their twizzles right now, but they train at Gadbois. If there's one thing that Gadbois knows how to teach, it's twizzles, so I have a little bit of faith in that.
Becs: I have hope. I opened it and was like, "Oh my god, they're skating to Mulan." But I haven't really watched them before, and I was really excited by them. They could welcome some speed into their twizzles, and a few of their other things, but their lifts I was pretty happy with. They were a lot smoother than I expected in a lot of ways. They had a lot of personalities, which I always love to see.
Evie: We also have Kiria and Kenta, who are just so fun to watch.
Becs: They are my new favorite hams, I love them. They are so spunky. Evie: Spunky little hams.
Becs: Yeah, I love that Kenta also has so much personality too. I was watching him, he was performing right along with her, and just completely jamming out. They did a “Maroon 5” Free Dance medley. It was really fun, and they have such fabulously terrible costumes that you know I fell in love.
Evie: Of course you did, why am I not surprised? Just watching all of these teams, I really want JSF to give them some more lower-level international assignments, just let them out on the circuit more. There's so much talent here, I want it to be shown off. And speaking of letting it be shown off, [cough noises] Fuji...
Becs: Fuji, we have a bone to pick.
Evie: Okay, let's rant about accessibility, bit ITL energy. Okay.
Becs: Alright, here we go. Seriously though, after the first day, I was like, "Oh okay, okay, whatever, you know, it's kind of unfortunate we can't see the Short Program live", but the more I watched the broadcast all night, every night, for four days in a row, and the fact that I have seen more ads in these last four days than I have seen in an entire year...
Evie: Yep, mood.
Becs: But I think what really drove me batty was Pairs, they have one team. Airing the Short, even if you want to be super brief and you decide to be an asshole and not actually show the Kiss and Cry or anything, will take you 3 or 4 minutes.
Evie: And you have those points in time where they were showing replays from earlier on in the segment, why not dedicate that time to showing off a pair or a dance team.
Becs: It was like how you said, we saw Shun's Short Program 3 times, we saw endless ads, there were so many times where, for Daisuke, we saw both his programs on the day he skated two or three times because they kept airing replays. I remember watching because they take so long with their ice resurfacing that they're like, "Oh the event starts at 5." We didn't actually get to see group 3 or 4 until 5:30 because they spent resurfacing the ice, showing four practice run-throughs of three of the singles people. They could have shown the entire ice dance competition as a recap in the time. They spent so much time being like, "Here is a montage of Dai, Yuzu, and Shoma to ‘Duel of Fates’ for 3 minutes." Could I just see your Ice Dance champions? Thanks, that would be great.
Evie: And it's not like they don't have the infrastructure in place to even just set up a live stream online - they have so many behind the scenes streams at Japanese Nationals. There's one in the [off-ice] warmup area, there's a dedicated warmup stream during the 6 min warmups, there’s a Kiss and Cry camera stream. Even if you make the argument that broadcasting Pairs and Dance isn't financially viable because there isn't much of an audience to actually watch it...
Becs: At least let people see it.
Evie: You've already set up multiple streams, surely it wouldn't be that hard to just offer a free YouTube stream of those events Or even the fact that the earlier groups of the singles events aren't broadcasted on FujiTV proper, they were on one of the paid TV channels, BS Fuji, already the audience being able to watch that is smaller. Is it going to hurt that much to spend 10 or 15 minutes showing the Pairs or Dance teams? And they don't even have a resurfacing in between Pairs and Dance and then the first group of Singles all day. Surely, it wouldn't be that hard? I mean, obviously, it is that hard, because they didn't do it.
Becs: Also, I think what really frustrates me is it comes off as so disrespectful and disheartening because these are still their national champions and competitors in the field and the fact that, for instance, even just on the competitors' sake and their family side, the fact that they never even aired the Short Programs or Rhythm Dances at all, they don't even have that for reference. For some of those teams, it might be like, "I won Nationals! I can't even see my Short Program, because they didn't even bother to turn the cameras on! That's great." That is just really kind of heartbreaking honestly, especially since they're shooting themselves in the foot. It would be so easy to give it a tiny bit more coverage, if they're not going to make much money off the broadcasting rights, or draw that much attention, even just uploading it to YouTube. It's only really going to help them eventually if they can actually get attention for the event, increasing interest in it.
Evie: Yeah, especially with the context of both of the fields right now for Pairs and Dance. In Pairs, you have Riku and Ryuichi who are a brand new team, comprised of skaters that have competed with different partners in the past, and they're skating at their first nationals together, wouldn't it be good to see them and show them off to a wider national audience so they can be exposed to more of the general public and maybe get some fans? And show off the fact that, look! We have a really strong pairs team now, you should support them.
Becs: If you're a casual skating fan who isn't someone who gets tickets to the events, who's just flipping through channels, you probably don't even realize that Japan even has other disciplines that aren't singles, because they do such a good job at hiding them. It's just ridiculous. Kids are never even going to see, "Hey, Ice Dance! That's an option."
Evie: In Ice Dance, you have KoKo, who are coming off of Misato's concussions in the off season, and they're only at the third competition of the current season. Wouldn't it be really nice to give them a live show so they can have live support from the off-site audience, who could still support them even though they're not here, or showing support to the brand new ice dance teams there. Come on, show them off. This dance field deserves. In comparison, we have Russian Nationals, which is getting a full worldwide free stream commentated by Ted Barton. Meanwhile, Japanese Nationals is one of the most annoying competitions to watch each year because of the lack of accessibility to stream. You have to either watch in extremely low quality on a bootleg stream, or you have to watch something that's behind a paid wall.
Becs: Anyway, Japan stays extremely disappointing in all things Pairs and Dance. Not by the performances of the people at Nats, they were fantastic, but just in general in how their media and federation treats them. Fuji TV, number one nemesis of Ice Dance fans, I guess.
Evie: Please, next year, be nice to us, and perhaps stream the events live. Because I know that we, and a lot of other people, would appreciate that immensely.
Becs: Seriously, the one reason why I'm like, "Dai, actually survive your Ice Dance training so that they will be forced to suddenly have to feature the other teams in Ice Dance because they need to make the dramatic montages to hype their competitions.” They'll even have to show footage of the other teams, so it will be great.
Evie: Okay cool, now Dai, you need to go into Pairs as well, so we can get the same treatment.
Becs: Just be our sacrificial goat to the popularization of Pairs and Ice Dance, thank you very much.
-end segment-
START: Shout Out of the Week
Evie: Okay, so, our shout out of the week for this week is to I-Stats. We obviously just spent the whole last couple of minutes ragging on Fuji for not broadcasting stuff, but-
Becs: They do some things right.
Evie: They did do something right. Last season, they introduced Ice Scope, which is the tool they use to measure jumps and show it on the screen so you can see how high the jumps are, the speed going in and out, stuff like that. Really great for stats nerds. And this year they took it a step further, and now at the end of most skaters' performances, they show a map of the ice surfaces, and they draw lines as to how fast they were traveling. You could see their overall ice coverage in the programs.
Becs: It's so good, and they mark the jumps and spins on it too, so you could see the full context of how their speed and coverage interacts with every element of the program. I want to tuck myself away for a week and analyze all of them, and if the ISU could acquire it for Worlds, that would be fantastic. Because then we can all just die in stats bliss and not actually get grumpy about anything over off season because we're still too busy studying all the beautiful graphs that they've gifted us.
Evie: I think it would be a really really good tool for ice dance, because you'll be able you see ice coverage and speed in such a more tangible way. That's the thing, especially with Ice Dance, and also the other disciplines, it's really hard to gauge when you're watching on a stream, how fast skaters are. Having that kind of map, specifically telling you, "Oh, these skaters were going 30 km/h at this point," that's a tangible statistic that you can relate to, and you get more of a sense of, "Oh this skater is really fast, and covers ice really quickly," versus, "This skater doesn't do it as effectively." I think it's a really good step in the right direction for trying to get that feeling of being at a competition while still watching at home.
Becs: Yeah, I absolutely agree. It would be really, really invaluable. Especially since, I think, to the general public ice dance is, if you're not quite an enthusiastic, it's kind of hard to understand what are the differentiating characteristics between the levels of teams, and what sets apart some of the top teams, apart from preferences aesthetically. If they had that as a resource to evaluate and be like, "Okay, this team clearly has so much better ice coverage that doesn't translate well in speed across the ice," and some other stats, it would be pretty illuminating and really educational, so please make it happen.
Evie: ISU, please license it like you did Ice Scope.
Becs: We are asking for this in exchange for the absolute trainwreck that your awards event is going to be. You owe it to us to deliver on this one thing.
Evie: You owe us this. Thank you guys for listening, we hope to see you again for our next episode.
Becs: Thanks to our transcribing and quality control team. Thank you, Evie, for your future efforts for editing this.
Evie: Thanks, future Evie for editing.
Becs: Thanks for Gabb, forever being patient and saving us with her awesome graphic design.
Evie: If you want to get in touch with us, you can contact us via our website inthelopodcast.com or on our Twitter or Instagram. You can find our episodes on Youtube, iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, wherever podcasts are sold, you can probably find us there. If we're not there, tell us and we'll be on there.
Becs: If you enjoy the show, and want to help support us, please consider making a donation to us on our ko-fi page or you can buy our new merch if you want to deck out your life in ITL merch, which we'll try not to judge you for. We're also there, so we're all a tragic mess, but that is available on our Redbubble, which we'll have a link for in the show notes.
We would really like to give a massive thank you to everyone who has supported us throughout this entire year, whether that was just for feedback, or through more financial support, we really, really appreciate that. Thank you so much.
Evie: We have done so much crazy stuff this year, and we have so many crazy things planned for next year, so, get excited, woohoo. You can find all of the links to all our social media pages, our ko-fi, and our RedBubble on the website.
Becs: If you’re listening on iTunes, please consider leaving a rating and a review if you enjoyed the show. Thanks for listening, this has been Becs,
Evie: and Evie. Merry Christmas, happy holidays.
Becs: Happy New Year!
Evie: Happy New Year, all of the holidays!
Becs: We'll see you next year, bye.