Medalist Volume 8 Review
“I am walking around but nobody notices me.” Leonid Sorokin to Tsukasa. “Everyone in the arena is an uneducated fool.”
Inori Yuitsuka has recently mastered the quadruple salchow which she and coach Tsukasa Akeuraji fervently hope will give her an advantage as she competes in her first-ever national event, the All-Japan Novice tournament in Aomori. But news of her achievement precedes her and when she arrives, she and Tsukasa rapidly become aware that everyone, contestants, coaches and audience alike are sizing her up as the newcomer who can do a quadruple salchow. However, all that matters to Inori is that she’s going to get a chance to compete against her idol/rival Hikaru Kamisaki at last on the same rink.
The main opposition so far turns out to be Suzu Kamoto ‘cutest in the world’, watched over by her dour, impassive coach, Chokaku Kamegaya. Suzu might play on her cuteness but her technique is formidable and she has an inner steel that sees her pull off a triple axel (which Inori can’t yet execute) followed by a sequence of technically exacting jumps. The crowd love her – and so do the judges, awarding her 110.55, putting her in the lead. But she’s only the sixth to skate out of thirty-six and Hikaru is eleventh in the running order.
It soon becomes apparent that the standard of the other young contestants is incredibly high. Other friends and fellow skaters and their coaches are in the audience including Rioh and Ema (who’s not competing). No surprise, then, that Tsukasa wisely advises Inori not to watch Hikaru when she takes to the ice but as she’s been drawn to compete in the same group, to warm up instead backstage. Also, perhaps, no surprise that Inori can’t bear not to watch Hikaru and goes against his advice.
Prior to this, Tsukasa has encountered a fashionably dressed foreign visitor with little to no command of Japanese – but a lordly, self-important air. Using the translator app on his phone to communicate, Tsukasa discovers that the man is none other than Leonid Sorokin, Jun Yodaka’s choreographer, and he has Jun on the other end of the smartphone: the last person that Tsukasa wanted to be forced to interact with at this moment. It’s time for some plain-speaking on Tsukasa’s part…
With Volume 8, we get to see through Tsukasa and Inori’s eyes exactly how formidable Hikaru is on the ice – and we also learn a little more about how driven she is by Jun Yodaka. The fact that she chooses a piece of music that he originally made his own for her programme is highly significant and everyone at the rink recognizes what’s going on. It’s either the monarch handing their crown over to the next ruler-in-waiting – or it’s an outright coup d’etat. Hikaru’s programme dominates the last chapters of the book as we see her through different eyes: Tsukasa can’t help but see Jun Yodaka in her performance – yet Inori’s determination to beat Hikaru only grows more intense. So, in some ways very little happens in these chapters – but psychologically, Inori and Tsukasa are facing a major challenge by confronting the reality of what it means to go up against someone as driven and talented as Hikaru.
It’s not all high drama, though, as many of Tsurumaikada’s delightful comic touches still prevail, including Tsukasa looking very smart in a proper suit and Inori having her own plush mascot (readers and anime fans will be able to guess what that turns out to be!) which her older sister has bought for her. Yet it’s the dynamic drawing of the skating which draws the eye as Tsurumaikada gives us ever more eye-catching angles when Hikaru takes to the ice, overlaid with the audience reactions, all filtered through Tsukasa’s and Inori’s eyes.
Translation is still by Kevin Gifford who delivers us an effortless read, in spite of all the technical skating terminology – and all the effects of the ice rink are well conveyed by letterer Scott O’Brien for the print edition (reviewed here). Sadly, there are no more colour pages but there are six 4-koma strips at the end, as well as some detailed character profiles and sketches between chapters. The one-page character and plot summary at the start are very helpful too. Volume 9 will be out in July and in Japan, the striking cover art for Volume 13 has recently been released.
This volume is, in some ways, just build-up to Inori taking to the ice to compete, but it lays a lot of important groundwork for what’s still to come, while leaving us uncertain as to how Inori will react to Hikaru’s performance. The tension is palpable!
Our review copy from Kodansha was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
