Let's Send the Power of Sports Throughout Japan! Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Figure Skating Championship
Hello!
I'm Katsuki Yuri, one of the top figure skaters certified by the JSF.
My first competition this season is the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship.
I hear I'm the oldest of the four skating in the senior men's single division.
Age 17
Age 18
Age 23
Anything but the first spot!
Not the first spot!
Skater Katsuki Yuri, you're up first.
Not again...
I have the most horrible luck of the draw.
Hey.
It was the same in the last Nationals...
Hm?
I got to see you draw the first spot in person again, Yuri-kun!
I love it!
Um...
What, you don't remember me?
What a shock!
Next up is skater Minami.
Right here! I'm Minami Kenjiro!
Who's he again?
Yay! I'm going fourth!
Fifth Skate Face Beet-Red!! It's the First Competition! The Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship
Face Beet-Red!! It's the First Competition!
The Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship.
We've timed him to peak at the Grand Prix Final, so this isn't a problem.
He can take it easy and earn a personal best score today!
I think I've told you this many times, but in last year's Nationals, I bombed everything.
They wondered if I was injured, but embarrassingly,
nothing was physically wrong with me.
I lost, despite being a top contender, because I was mentally weak.
Wow.
Okayama International Skate Rink
I haven't been in a single competition since last year's Nationals.
Maccachin's cheering for you, too!
I've been practicing with Victor this whole time,
Oh, yeah. Real cute.
Try to be happier.
but to be honest, I'm still not sure about myself.
I have to figure out if I'm in good enough shape for the Grand Prix series.
The other skaters don't matter.
Minami-kun, focus, okay? Focus!
I feel someone staring at me...
Remember how focused you were at the Nationals!
Don't get overwhelmed by the energy around you!
Focus! Focus!
Wow.
What a crowd.
It's been like this since the public practice this morning.
Is Yuri okay?
He tends to get nervous before competitions.
Have you seen Victor?
The competition's about to start.
Sorry to keep you waiting.
Why did you change clothes?
Today is my glorious debut as a coach, so I should be in formal dress.
You're exactly right...
That Russian coach stands out more than the skaters.
Ladies and gentlemen, this event is the senior men's short program.
As your coach, what should I say before sending you off to the program?
Will the competitors please take the ice for your warm-up?
What I'm thinking of right now is...
You have six minutes.
My goal is to reach the Grand Prix Final.
I can't get nervous already at this stage.
He's nervous...
Gentlemen, the warm-up has ended.
Please leave the ice.
Why is Victor getting all prickly?
Yuri, turn around.
Huh?
Turn around, okay?
Um, like this?
Seduce me with all you have.
If your performance can charm me,
you can enthrall the entire audience.
That's what I always say in practice, right?
R-Right.
Good luck, Yuri!
Good luck!
Remember...
Just skate like you do in practice.
I'm going to become a beautiful pork cutlet bowl!
Come on, guys! What's with this lukewarm response?
Back at Hot Springs on Ice, they were way more enthusiastic.
No, I bet Victor would like this step sequence.
Yuri!
Try to imagine entangling more of the egg.
Think of the pork cutlet bowl!
Right!
Yuri, dance more like you're trying to seduce me.
That's right.
I'm a pork cutlet bowl fatale that enthralls men.
First up is a spread eagle into a triple axel.
Great!
I'll continue the momentum with a quadruple Salchow!
Over-rotation!
I was drawn to you because of...
The way you skate like your body is creating music.
Great, Yuri!
It's perfect!
The last jump is a combination, so it's worth the most points.
A quad into a triple—
Crap, it turned into a double.
This is the last element...
On to the conclusion for the love-crazed couple...
Er, so how did it go?
That's right, the woman casts aside the man she seduced
and leaves for the next man!
That was so cool, Yuri-kun!
That was awesome!
Who's that?
I managed to finish somehow.
I wonder if I did okay.
What does Victor think?
The first half was great.
But you were too focused on jumps in the second, so your performance got sloppy.
Right.
I don't really like that kind of thing.
Right.
Why's he getting scolded?
He really got the audience fired up.
He may score a personal best...
The scores, please, for Katsuki Yuri-san.
His short program score: 94.36.
He is currently in first place.
He beat his previous best by almost ten points!
Amazing!
While this won't be an official record,
this would've been among the top ten scores in the world!
Hmm... Since you weren't under pressure,
I thought you'd score in the hundreds.
Right, you've scored above a hundred points to break the world record multiple times.
Oh, right, Yuri.
About tomorrow's free skate...
Lower the difficulty of the jumps and focus on performance.
Huh?
You've never nailed them during practice, have you?
But...
It's not a bad idea to lower the difficulty early in the season, is it?
You should prioritize adjusting your programs to help you reach your peak
for the Grand Prix Final.
Representing Kure Higashi High School Skate Club, please welcome Fujiwara Hikaru-san.
Are you saying you can't listen to your coach?
That was amazing!
Yuri-kun's pure charms became a rich eros in the best form of betrayal possible!
Minami-kun, get ready.
It's almost time.
Kanako-sensei, you saw it, right?
You saw that triple axel?
For me, that was a GOE of 3,000,000 points!
Yeah, I hope you can land your Achilles heel, the triple axel, this time.
Yeah!
I'm gonna show Yuri-kun my skating!
How do you feel looking ahead to the free skate?
This concludes the men's singles short program.
Huh?
Tomorrow's free skate—
Of course you'll see Yuri be perfect.
And I managed to land the triple axel, too!
That was your best performance yet!
Oh!
Did you see my "Lohengrin" performance?
I was being interviewed, so I didn't. Sorry.
I even had a similar costume made to the one from your famous "Lohengrin" program.
That's a costume from my dark past...
You don't have a dark past!
Don't make fun of me for looking up to you for so long and trying to catch up to you!
I'm gonna give tomorrow's free skate everything I've got!
Please give it all you've got, too, Yuri-kun!
I won't forgive you if you slack off!
Wow!
Skater Minami's issued a challenge!
At last year's Nationals, skater Minami Kenjiro finished ahead of skater Katsuki.
He's the one whose total score was way higher than mine because I self-destructed...
His first senior division competition
will be a clash over a possible changing of the guard!
Minami-kun!
Here in Okayama, skater Katsuki will face him
Crap...
with the first public performance of his free skate program!
The Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Figure Skating Championship's
men's singles free skate is about to begin.
All eyes are on skater Katsuki Yuri and his coach Victor Nikiforov.
Hi!
Katsuki ended yesterday's short program in first place by a large margin,
Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship Okayama International Skate Rink (Okayama City) Senior Men's Singles Short Program Standings Name Affiliation 1) Katsuki Yuri Ice Castle Hasetsu
scoring a personal best of 94.36.
In his free skate, he will attempt three quads.
Victor and I decided to lower the difficulty and only do one quad, but...
I'm gonna try a quad, too!
Seriously?
You've never landed one, not even in practice!
I'll try one, too!
Okay, I'll try, too.
Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the senior men's singles free skate event.
Will the competitors please take the ice for your warm-up?
You have six minutes.
No, no.
I have to focus on myself!
Yuri...
How can someone who can't motivate others motivate himself?
I'm disappointed in you.
What about my own motivation that he just destroyed?
Representing Hakata Skate Club, please welcome Minami Kenjiro-san.
Hey, are you listening to me?
You're nervous, aren't you, Minami-kun?
Good luck, Minami-kun!
You don't have a dark past!
Don't make fun of me for looking up to you for so long and trying to catch up to you!
Good luck, Minami-kun!
Good luck!
Minami-kun's firing up the crowd right off!
I guess he's popular.
First, a triple axel.
Oh, he'll make the next one just fine!
Next up, a quadruple toe loop!
Wow.
Is he going to go on a roll?
Man, the way he's so inconsistent...
He reminds me of the skater I used to be.
I can't take my eyes off him.
He already has the necessary skill set to compete in figure skating.
I can tell by the cheers alone
that you're the star on the stage.
The scores, please, for Minami Kenjiro-san.
His free skate program score: 152.14.
His total score: 214.97.
Yeah!
My personal best score!
He is currently in first place.
Representing Kure Higashi High School Skate Club, please welcome Fujiwara Hikaru-san.
Go!
Yeah!
Representing Okayama Fine Arts University High School, please welcome Omiki Yuto-san.
Okay, me too!
Go!
Good luck!
Great! If he keeps it up, it'll be a personal best for sure!
Yeah, this costume's great.
You look beautiful in it.
Your lips are chapped.
I heard he's only doing one quad at the beginning this time, but...
He hates making compromises, yeah.
Good luck, Yuri-kun!
Representing Ice Castle Hasetsu, please welcome Katsuki Yuri-san.
For this first public performance of his free program,
the music is an original composition expressing Katsuki's skating career,
titled "Yuri on Ice."
The program was choreographed by Victor Nikiforov.
This program starts off with the Yuri from back when he felt he was fighting alone.
The first jump is a quad-triple combination.
He's been landing it just fine during practice.
A quad-double!
He nailed it!
He changed the triple to a double?
He's changing the jump elements?
Is he going to add a triple in the second half?
Or is he going back to having three quads?
Do you remember how I told you to focus
more on refining the program than being distracted by jumps?
You look too stiff!
This is the part that expresses when I showed up as your coach, right?
You look like you didn't like it at all!
A triple Salchow?
No, a quadruple! He stepped out of the landing.
So he did revert the program to having three quads.
Shake it off...
Good!
A triple loop!
That was perfect.
Now, Yuri's realized something like love.
The second half's coming up, and he already looks tired.
An outside spread eagle,
then an Ina Bauer...
Skate like you're the most beautiful person on the ice right now.
A triple axel!
Good, he hung in there.
Next up, a triple flip!
Even though he's not nailing his jumps,
the audience is getting fired up...
It's because he's skating in time with the music.
So close!
Yuri's being too impatient today.
But that's why
you can't look away!
I told you to make the last jump a triple for the points...
I wonder who he takes after, to be so rebellious toward his coach...
Oh...
It's me!
If I were Yakov, it'd be an instant lecture.
And I've done that, too, but...
Yuri-kun!
He showed his pride as Japan's top skater!
Yuri!!!
Yuri!
Victor!
Oops, watch the nosebleed.
The scores, please, for Katsuki Yuri-san. His free skate program score: 165.20.
His total score: 259.56.
It's amazing you scored that high after a jump like that!
He is currently in first place.
Thanks for proving to me that you're able to get a lot of PCS points.
You can score even higher, so don't feel down, okay, Yuri?
Yuri-kun!
I totally lost to you.
I want to face you in the Grand Prix series someday!
Until then, please don't quit!
And another thing!
Please give me your autograph!
Me, too!
Can I take a photo with you?
Yuri! I was so impressed!
It was so obvious that you took the younger skaters seriously as rivals.
What if you'd gotten hurt, slamming into the wall like that at the end?!
S-Sorry.
At first, I was just desperate because I didn't want to lose,
but somehow, I started having a lot of fun in the middle.
I don't remember a lot about it.
Huh?
Yeah...
Anyway, that was the most fun I've ever had while skating in competition.
What're you doing, Yuri?
Oh, you saw the photo of Victor and the Japanese Yuri, didn't you?
Jealous?
Shut up, hag!
Next, we have the skater Katsuki Yuri,
who's thought to be the next leader of men's singles in Japan.
Please, show us.
Um... Please show your theme for this year.
Skater Katsuki?
Love Katsuki Yuri
My theme in this year's Grand Prix series is "love."
I've been helped by many people in my competitive skating career thus far,
but I've never thought about "love" until now.
Though I was blessed with support, I couldn't take full advantage of it.
I always felt like I was fighting alone.
But since Victor showed up to be my coach,
I've seen something totally different.
My "love" is not something clear-cut like romantic love,
but the more abstract feeling of my relationships
with Victor, family, and hometown...
I was finally able to realize that something like love exists all around me.
Victor is the first person I've ever wanted to hold on to.
I don't really have a name for that emotion,
but I have decided to call it "love."
Now that I know what love is and am stronger for it,
I'll prove it to myself with a Grand Prix Final gold medal!
So we...
...were abstract.
After all this time we've supported him...
When you come back, we'll burn that unfashionable necktie, Yuri.
Let's buy a new one before the Cup of China.
Victor...
Unfortunately for you, it won't be Yuri who wins the Cup of China.
It will be Phichit Chulanont.
Wasn't that jump great?
Did you get a good video of it?
Oh, sorry...
What?!
We have to post it online as soon as possible!
To Be Continued!!!
Dajia hao!
I want to eat Shanghai crab!
Victor, our event is in Beijing.
Crab, crab, shrimp, shrimp, xiao long bao!
Next time, Sixth Skate: China's On! The Grand Prix Series Opening Event!!
Sixth Skate China's On! The Grand Prix Series Opening Event!! The Cup of China Short Program
The Cup of China Short Program.