Medalist - Ch. 50 - Proof of Earnestness

[doomrider7]

Yep she missed out on the Junior worlds this time. But remember she is only 13 and will be eligible next year. It is not until she is 17 that she can compete in the Olympics so she still has a few years before she actually becomes a “Medalist”!

Agreed, but the issue is that a lot of her drive isn't just being an Olympic medalist(presumably gold), but also being the best in the world, like #1 in figure skating as she says. Add on not just Hikaru, but all of the other girls like Ema, Suzu, Yuna, etc., and it's clear she has her work cut out for her.

 

[Cotillion]

If her first win against Hikaru and Iruka had come under these circumstances I would have been pissed, really happy that wasn't the case. Personally I love the direction it took

 

[1idd0kun]

Yep she missed out on the Junior worlds this time. But remember she is only 13 and will be eligible next year. It is not until she is 17 that she can compete in the Olympics so she still has a few years before she actually becomes a “Medalist”!

It has been foreshadowed that minimum age limit for the Olympics is gonna be move from 17 to 15, like they did when Jun was competing. They're gonna do it to have Hikaru at the Olympics as soon as possible. Question is, is Inori gonna be ready on time? Will her achievements be enough to get her in?

At this point it looks like Hikaru is the Medalist from the series' title and Inori is just the POV character we see Hikaru's rise to greatness from.

 

[goldfish1016]

I've never felt the need to comment before, but I saw some WILD takes on this thread so I finally feel the need to put in my two cents.

I used to be a competitive athlete many years ago. Nothing like figure skating, but even so, Medalist hooked me with the nostalgia and memories (both good and bad) that it brings back to me of my own days. The difference the right coach can make (Inori and Tsukasa, Miketa and Nacchi), hitting a performance wall and overcoming it (Inori's jumps in vol 5), unexpectedly finding you are particularly good at an aspect of your sport and exploiting it (Inori's salchow talent leading to her opting for a quad S over the more difficult, for her, triples), these and more have left me pointing at the manga going "I know that feeling!"

And hey! I get to say "I know this!" once again for Inori's worst performance of her career (that we've seen, anyway). It's the "Bad Day" event. Yes, we've seen Inori fall and/or make a mistake, but this is the first full-on "she completely blew it" performance for her. Some people in this thread seem to think that athletes produces consistent results with consistent work, but oh man, it does not. I had several Bad Days in my "career" where I was objectively terrible. Some, for seemingly no reason. And those are the hardest to overcome. You do one or two things bad in an event, it's easy to post-mortem them once it over and address it in training. It's nothing personal. You do many or all things bad in event? It's a lot harder to not get overwhelmed with what went wrong and you start to think, "Wow, maybe I suck now?" And whoo boy does Inori go down that path hard here when Hikaru finally catches up with her here. I'm excited to see where this leads, though, because being able to go "Wow, that day sucked" instead of "Wow, I suck" will hopefully address Inori's self-confidence issues that have been present since (especially) the beginning and only really started to go down the path of resolving them with getting close to Iruka during the recent GP chapters.

I'm also really excited about Hikaru! This event isn't actually so much about Inori, it's actually been a Hikaru arc this whole time! From the beginning she's been a follower of the Church of Jun, sacrificing everything and thinking that it is not only okay, but a requirement to get where she wants to be. But she's already learned when she switched clubs and moved town, the relationships she thought she was sacrificing at the moment (Rioh's family) or had been sacrificing the entire time (Yuna and clubmates) wasn't necessary or even going to happen. And I think she has just learned that she needs Inori as much as Inori has needed her, and nothing needs to be sacrificed here for one or both of them to get better. In many sports in the US, we have a saying that "Iron sharpens Iron", that athletes can make each other better through training and competing together, and oh man, if these two started to train together to help fill out each others gaps (Inori lacks Hikaru's confidence but still tops Hikaru in quads and possibly still ice dance-like expression), oh man, watch out world!

And finally, FINALLY, I feel I can write off her paralleling herself/Tsukasa and Inori/Jun from several chapters ago as definitely unreliable narration. I never understood that at all, I thought it was pretty clear that Inori and Tsukasa have WAY more paralells with each other than with either Hikaru or Jun, but only because I'm the reader and have backstory that Hikaru is obviously missing. "Inori isn't Jun" WELL FUCKING DUH HIKARU! Inori struggles and actually shows it!!!

/two cents

 

[doomrider7]

If her first win against Hikaru and Iruka had come under these circumstances I would have been pissed, really happy that wasn't the case. Personally I love the direction it took

While I don't disagree, this assumes that Inori ever actually WILL not only beat, but surpass them*.

* Beating them is one thing, but beating them whe they're at their lowest because of injury or even beating them in comp, but never beating the records they set is another thing entirely.

 

[doomrider7]

I've never felt the need to comment before, but I saw some WILD takes on this thread so I finally feel the need to put in my two cents.

I used to be a competitive athlete many years ago. Nothing like figure skating, but even so, Medalist hooked me with the nostalgia and memories (both good and bad) that it brings back to me of my own days. The difference the right coach can make (Inori and Tsukasa, Miketa and Nacchi), hitting a performance wall and overcoming it (Inori's jumps in vol 5), unexpectedly finding you are particularly good at an aspect of your sport and exploiting it (Inori's salchow talent leading to her opting for a quad S over the more difficult, for her, triples), these and more have left me pointing at the manga going "I know that feeling!"

And hey! I get to say "I know this!" once again for Inori's worst performance of her career (that we've seen, anyway). It's the "Bad Day" event. Yes, we've seen Inori fall and/or make a mistake, but this is the first full-on "she completely blew it" performance for her. Some people in this thread seem to think that athletes produces consistent results with consistent work, but oh man, it does not. I had several Bad Days in my "career" where I was objectively terrible. Some, for seemingly no reason. And those are the hardest to overcome. You do one or two things bad in an event, it's easy to post-mortem them once it over and address it in training. It's nothing personal. You do many or all things bad in event? It's a lot harder to not get overwhelmed with what went wrong and you start to think, "Wow, maybe I suck now?" And whoo boy does Inori go down that path hard here when Hikaru finally catches up with her here. I'm excited to see where this leads, though, because being able to go "Wow, that day sucked" instead of "Wow, I suck" will hopefully address Inori's self-confidence issues that have been present since (especially) the beginning and only really started to go down the path of resolving them with getting close to Iruka during the recent GP chapters.

I'm also really excited about Hikaru! This event isn't actually so much about Inori, it's actually been a Hikaru arc this whole time! From the beginning she's been a follower of the Church of Jun, sacrificing everything and thinking that it is not only okay, but a requirement to get where she wants to be. But she's already learned when she switched clubs and moved town, the relationships she thought she was sacrificing at the moment (Rioh's family) or had been sacrificing the entire time (Yuna and clubmates) wasn't necessary or even going to happen. And I think she has just learned that she needs Inori as much as Inori has needed her, and nothing needs to be sacrificed here for one or both of them to get better. In many sports in the US, we have a saying that "Iron sharpens Iron", that athletes can make each other better through training and competing together, and oh man, if these two started to train together to help fill out each others gaps (Inori lacks Hikaru's confidence but still tops Hikaru in quads and possibly still ice dance-like expression), oh man, watch out world!

And finally, FINALLY, I feel I can write off her paralleling herself/Tsukasa and Inori/Jun from several chapters ago as definitely unreliable narration. I never understood that at all, I thought it was pretty clear that Inori and Tsukasa have WAY more paralells with each other than with either Hikaru or Jun, but only because I'm the reader and have backstory that Hikaru is obviously missing. "Inori isn't Jun" WELL FUCKING DUH HIKARU! Inori struggles and actually shows it!!!

/two cents

What sport was this?

 

[1idd0kun]

but still tops Hikaru in quads

She doesn't top Hikaru in quads. Hikaru can do a quad salchow triple toe combination. She tops Inori, who can only do the vanilla quad salchow if I remember correctly.
Also, Hikaru doesn't need Inori. Having her is a plus, sure, but she was winning everything before Inori even started competing. Hikaru had already won two All Japan before Inori showed up if I remember correctly.

 

[Ryuseishun]

After thinking about it, my previous initial comment was too much on the reactive side (thanks Mangadex for not giving a function to delete our own comments 😓)

Inori’s setback does leave a bitter taste in the mouth, but it’s not like that’s the end of the road for her. How she’ll bounce back time after time is what really counts, if anything. I mean, she has managed to move Hikaru whose own character piece has been really blossoming in response to Inori’s earnest endeavors.

 

[goldfish1016]

What sport was this?

Eh, I don't to get into too specific details of my past on a website for Japanese manga, but it was an endurance sport where events were over an hour long. So, very different from the few minutes of a figure skating program. Can still find parallels in unusual places in this manga, though!

She doesn't top Hikaru in quads. Hikaru can do a quad salchow triple toe combination. She tops Inori, who can only do the vanilla quad salchow if I remember correctly.

She can do the quad toe loop or quad loop, I forget which, but they're both below a quad salchow. Pretty sure she hasn't done a quad S yet, and Inori does them in combos, too.

Also, Hikaru doesn't need Inori. Having her is a plus, sure, but she was winning everything before Inori even started competing. Hikaru had already won two All Japan before Inori showed up if I remember correctly.

She needed someone in her life where her talents didn't cast a shadow over and demoralize them. It may have been all in her head to begin with (Yuna's goodbye when Hikaru left her club kind of alludes to that), but Inori's reaction to being overshadowed was obviously the opposite to Hikaru. I hereby submit that being necessary for a happy life, not figure skating podiums.

 

[1idd0kun]

She can do the quad toe loop or quad loop, I forget which, but they're both below a quad salchow.

She can do the quad salchow:
https://mangadex.org/chapter/772d4036-43d3-4592-94a0-989ed70ae8da/32

She needed someone in her life where her talents didn't cast a shadow over and demoralize them.

She was mistaken about Inori being like that though, because clearly Inori gets demoralized just like anyone else. She was just putting up a front. The idealized Inori in Hikaru's mind never existed.

It may have been all in her head to begin with (Yuna's goodbye when Hikaru left her club kind of alludes to that), but Inori's reaction to being overshadowed was obviously the opposite to Hikaru. I hereby submit that being necessary for a happy life, not figure skating podiums.

Not sure what you mean here, but I still think Hikaru doesn't need Inori. Neither for the podium nor for a happy life. Hikaru has already realized the value of her family and friends. That's all she needs to be happy.

 

[LordofAlI]

Inori everything really crashed down for her. Now Hikaru in response is going to bloom and shine even brighter leaving the garden she was in? Glad to see that Inori saw that there's still people supporting her though at least.

 

[J_the_Man]

I've never felt the need to comment before, but I saw some WILD takes on this thread so I finally feel the need to put in my two cents.

I used to be a competitive athlete many years ago. Nothing like figure skating, but even so, Medalist hooked me with the nostalgia and memories (both good and bad) that it brings back to me of my own days. The difference the right coach can make (Inori and Tsukasa, Miketa and Nacchi), hitting a performance wall and overcoming it (Inori's jumps in vol 5), unexpectedly finding you are particularly good at an aspect of your sport and exploiting it (Inori's salchow talent leading to her opting for a quad S over the more difficult, for her, triples), these and more have left me pointing at the manga going "I know that feeling!"

And hey! I get to say "I know this!" once again for Inori's worst performance of her career (that we've seen, anyway). It's the "Bad Day" event. Yes, we've seen Inori fall and/or make a mistake, but this is the first full-on "she completely blew it" performance for her. Some people in this thread seem to think that athletes produces consistent results with consistent work, but oh man, it does not. I had several Bad Days in my "career" where I was objectively terrible. Some, for seemingly no reason. And those are the hardest to overcome. You do one or two things bad in an event, it's easy to post-mortem them once it over and address it in training. It's nothing personal. You do many or all things bad in event? It's a lot harder to not get overwhelmed with what went wrong and you start to think, "Wow, maybe I suck now?" And whoo boy does Inori go down that path hard here when Hikaru finally catches up with her here. I'm excited to see where this leads, though, because being able to go "Wow, that day sucked" instead of "Wow, I suck" will hopefully address Inori's self-confidence issues that have been present since (especially) the beginning and only really started to go down the path of resolving them with getting close to Iruka during the recent GP chapters.

I'm also really excited about Hikaru! This event isn't actually so much about Inori, it's actually been a Hikaru arc this whole time! From the beginning she's been a follower of the Church of Jun, sacrificing everything and thinking that it is not only okay, but a requirement to get where she wants to be. But she's already learned when she switched clubs and moved town, the relationships she thought she was sacrificing at the moment (Rioh's family) or had been sacrificing the entire time (Yuna and clubmates) wasn't necessary or even going to happen. And I think she has just learned that she needs Inori as much as Inori has needed her, and nothing needs to be sacrificed here for one or both of them to get better. In many sports in the US, we have a saying that "Iron sharpens Iron", that athletes can make each other better through training and competing together, and oh man, if these two started to train together to help fill out each others gaps (Inori lacks Hikaru's confidence but still tops Hikaru in quads and possibly still ice dance-like expression), oh man, watch out world!

And finally, FINALLY, I feel I can write off her paralleling herself/Tsukasa and Inori/Jun from several chapters ago as definitely unreliable narration. I never understood that at all, I thought it was pretty clear that Inori and Tsukasa have WAY more paralells with each other than with either Hikaru or Jun, but only because I'm the reader and have backstory that Hikaru is obviously missing. "Inori isn't Jun" WELL FUCKING DUH HIKARU! Inori struggles and actually shows it!!!

/two cents

I don't think the "Inori is Jun" comparison is off base. As it stands now, the two are comparable in the sense that both right now have made all their worth based on Figure Skating. They can't exist without it. For Inori, though, she's young enough to course correct.

 

[1idd0kun]

I don't think the "Inori is Jun" comparison is off base. As it stands now, the two are comparable in the sense that both right now have made all their worth based on Figure Skating. They can't exist without it. For Inori, though, she's young enough to course correct.

The comparison is off base because Jun doesn't care about people so figure skating is truly all he has simply because that's who he is.
Inori, however, is just mistaken. She THINKS that all she has is skating because she mistakenly believes no one would care about her without it. Truth is, she has a lot of friends and family that would support her and love her even if she didn't do figure skating. She just hasn't realized that yet.

So, as you can see, they aren't similar at all. Jun is just doing what he likes while Inori is gaslighting herself.

 

[doomrider7]

The comparison is off base because Jun doesn't care about people so figure skating is truly all he has simply because than's how he is.
Inori, however, is just mistaken. She THINKS that all she has is skating because she mistakenly believes no one would care about her without it. Truth is, she has a lot of friends and family that would support her and love her even if she didn't do figure skating. She just hasn't realized that yet.

So, as you can see, they aren't similar at all. Jun is just doing what he likes while Inori is gaslighting herself.

I can definitely buy that.

 

[ReaLWorld123]

Thanks for the update!


Now that Hikaru no longer wants to try like Jun Yodaka, what will she do next? Will she stop tutoring with him? And maybe she will choose Tsukasa to be her coach instead? (Sounds funny, I know) But I personally kinda want to know how he will coach her

 

[KenshiroKosuke]

I don't follow irl figure skating competition but I've followed chess competition for a long time and this feels absoluely real to me. Chess players have up and down throughout their careers and sometimes we thought they were at their peaks, they hit a nosedive and couldn't win a single tournament. Some chess GMs are very open about their mental states and you can tell that they are struggling. Chess is one of the things, if not the only thing, they are good at. When they lose the sparks, it feels like the end of the world for them even if it doesn't involve career-threatening injury. That's why there're only few GMs who can consistently retain their ratings/rankings.

 

[Quality_Reads]

I've never felt the need to comment before, but I saw some WILD takes on this thread so I finally feel the need to put in my two cents.

I used to be a competitive athlete many years ago. Nothing like figure skating, but even so, Medalist hooked me with the nostalgia and memories (both good and bad) that it brings back to me of my own days. The difference the right coach can make (Inori and Tsukasa, Miketa and Nacchi), hitting a performance wall and overcoming it (Inori's jumps in vol 5), unexpectedly finding you are particularly good at an aspect of your sport and exploiting it (Inori's salchow talent leading to her opting for a quad S over the more difficult, for her, triples), these and more have left me pointing at the manga going "I know that feeling!"

And hey! I get to say "I know this!" once again for Inori's worst performance of her career (that we've seen, anyway). It's the "Bad Day" event. Yes, we've seen Inori fall and/or make a mistake, but this is the first full-on "she completely blew it" performance for her. Some people in this thread seem to think that athletes produces consistent results with consistent work, but oh man, it does not. I had several Bad Days in my "career" where I was objectively terrible. Some, for seemingly no reason. And those are the hardest to overcome. You do one or two things bad in an event, it's easy to post-mortem them once it over and address it in training. It's nothing personal. You do many or all things bad in event? It's a lot harder to not get overwhelmed with what went wrong and you start to think, "Wow, maybe I suck now?" And whoo boy does Inori go down that path hard here when Hikaru finally catches up with her here. I'm excited to see where this leads, though, because being able to go "Wow, that day sucked" instead of "Wow, I suck" will hopefully address Inori's self-confidence issues that have been present since (especially) the beginning and only really started to go down the path of resolving them with getting close to Iruka during the recent GP chapters.

I'm also really excited about Hikaru! This event isn't actually so much about Inori, it's actually been a Hikaru arc this whole time! From the beginning she's been a follower of the Church of Jun, sacrificing everything and thinking that it is not only okay, but a requirement to get where she wants to be. But she's already learned when she switched clubs and moved town, the relationships she thought she was sacrificing at the moment (Rioh's family) or had been sacrificing the entire time (Yuna and clubmates) wasn't necessary or even going to happen. And I think she has just learned that she needs Inori as much as Inori has needed her, and nothing needs to be sacrificed here for one or both of them to get better. In many sports in the US, we have a saying that "Iron sharpens Iron", that athletes can make each other better through training and competing together, and oh man, if these two started to train together to help fill out each others gaps (Inori lacks Hikaru's confidence but still tops Hikaru in quads and possibly still ice dance-like expression), oh man, watch out world!

And finally, FINALLY, I feel I can write off her paralleling herself/Tsukasa and Inori/Jun from several chapters ago as definitely unreliable narration. I never understood that at all, I thought it was pretty clear that Inori and Tsukasa have WAY more paralells with each other than with either Hikaru or Jun, but only because I'm the reader and have backstory that Hikaru is obviously missing. "Inori isn't Jun" WELL FUCKING DUH HIKARU! Inori struggles and actually shows it!!!

/two cents

Great writeup.

I too never thought of Inori as Jun. The parallels imo aren't there. But I understand why Hikaru did and am so happy that the misconception is gone. Also excited to see Hikaru's skating and how she quits being in Jun's shadow.

 

[Quality_Reads]

Thanks for the update!


Now that Hikaru no longer wants to try like Jun Yodaka, what will she do next? Will she stop tutoring with him? And maybe she will choose Tsukasa to be her coach instead? (Sounds funny, I know) But I personally kinda want to know how he will coach her

I think it’s more like not devotly following everything Jun said about sacrifice. She will take coaching from him though.

 

[1idd0kun]

I think it’s more like not devotly following everything Jun said about sacrifice. She will take coaching from him though.

Jun never specifically asked her to sacrifice anything. That's just another one of Hikaru's misconceptions. Heck, when Hikaru asked him if she should have changed clubs earlier, like he did when he was competing, he said he doesn't care about that. All he cares is her results in competition. If she keeps winning, he will keep training her. If she loses, he won't train her anymore. Everything else is just Hikaru overthinking shit.

That's why Hikaru claiming she's getting outside the miniature garden is horse shit. Jun never imposed anything on her except to win. And she's gonna win, so she's still doing exacly what he wants.

 

[thecronosone]

No. She started to doubt herself because she bombed her performance. And at this point, doubting herself is a regression, not a positive development. It means going back to the begining of Inori's journey. It's a setback that will hurt Inori's growth as a skater because she doesn't have the time for this shit right now, as I explained about.

This is just not true, Inori has been a miracle maker since she started, she now got fans and people she has inspired since she started, she hasn't get over her inferiority complex since chapter 1, the main drive for inori to be the best is her inferiority complex, what she used to call the "chill", she was the underdog, she had the time to grow and each victory got her closer to what she wanted but she always fell short in some way, that gave her some mental fortitude as she could always blame her unfortunate circumstances for some of her shortcomings, but now that is gone, and she saw what she consider the best of the best just failing on stage, in the case of iruka a big scene as she had an accident, that shook inori and now, without her chill, she's just struggling a bit more.

I don't agree with the notion that she should be over it already, I've seen grown ass men break down and cry after losing in the big championships, that big pressure never goes away, and the bigger the tournament the bigger the stakes, now she is a "representative of japan" and that is a BIG pressure on her shoulders.

And I get the feeling Hikaru saving Inori with her performance is not the right move. Inori needs to stop depending so much on others. It feels like Inori's regressing to the beginning.

I disagree with this as well, one of the main issues of inori at the beginning was that she just had trouble speaking with others, she was always alone, she did most of the training by herself just because she couldn't bring herself to ask for it (yeah it was an issue with her mom but this went for years, it doesn't just go away), if you think about it the only person she has ever relied on was tsukasa, when he got injured it was a big shock for inori, she has selfsteem issues, that's why she doesn't rely on people, she sees herself as unworthy of help, this has changed a bit in the recent chapters with coach kouhei, and then with iruka, inori has started to open her heart for more people and when they get injured that is a big blow for someone like inori.