| While I am enjoying the anime to a certain degree, there are some things that really bother me. The general feeling I get from watching it is that the creators only read the rules of figure skating and maybe watched an exhibition and that's it. Though obviously at least some animators must have seen the jumps and other figures repetitively to be able to animate them nicely. It bothers me because they make mistakes a person who properly watched some figure skating would simply not do. I do not want to hate on the creators, the intentions of this post are to explain how things work to people who do not have experience with figure skating. Because figure skating is an amazing sport and athletes, coaches, designers, choreographers and all the order people deserve the respect. :) 1) Lighting during performance - During performances in Skate-Leading Stars (SLS) lights in the arena are switched off and for the rink they are using spotlights and colors. That is nonsense because such lighting is used only for exhibitions. Both judges and skaters need to see the rink properly during competitions, so lights are always switched on in the whole arena. 2) Performances - Considering the characters in SLS are supposed to be the best teams in Japan, their performances as they are portrayed in anime are boring. I understand that creators want to make it easier for themselves, but I think here we can make a easy comparison with Yuri on Ice. Even if we saw a very short part of the performance in YoI, we still felt some emotions from it. I completely miss that in SLS. The only exception could be St. Clavis' last performance (as of this point I have not seen the last episode yet). Usually we can only guess if the performance was good from what the commentators tell us and it is not right if the viewer cannot tell whether the performance was good. 3) Costume - Probably the worst part of this anime. They are dressed like idols in costumes which are completely impractical for figure skating. The basic design of costumes is very simple because the skaters need to be able to easily move in them. Definitely no capes or things hanging from the costumes or whatever the idol team was wearing on their back. All these unnecessary things would just throw them off balance during the performance. 4) Ice-skates - In one of the first episodes Maeshima puts on new skates since he does not have any at the moment and performs in them easily, even attempting complicated jumps. If you have new skates or different type of skates than what you are used to, it is very hard to skate in them even for experienced skaters. 5) Quadruple Axel - We can see this jump in the anime, but in reality not a single person has managed to jump it in a competition. Ever. Some debate whether it is physically possible. While in other quads the body does 3 and 3/4 rotations, for quad Axel they have to do 4 and a half rotations. It is likely that someone (like Hanyu Yuzuru) will make it eventually, but the points he will get for it aren't really worth the effort. The value is simply not high for something as risky. But Yuzuru will likely go for it anyway, because he is just that good. Since nothing about the jumps is explained to viewers, I think if they have no knowledge about figure skating, they cannot even appreciate and understand what it means to land a specific jump, so it feels pointless. 6) Triple-quad combination - No, just no. Nobody even does two quad combinations. It is dangerous, there is a high risk of mistakes and with the current rules the reward (points) is not worth it. Making triple quad combination their trump card (as is expected for the last episode) makes no sense. Ionodai would not win only thanks to that. 7) Getting back to skating after blank period - Figure skating is highly physically demanding. Training only on land without a coach would not get Maeshima to his current skill level. He would need years of actual practice before getting on the same level as the other guys on the team. 8) Idol team - Yeah, one year is not enough for people who have not skated before to get to a competition level skating while also having their idol duties and activities. And while people praised their performance for being entertaining as something completely new in figure skating, such type of performance (minus the "fireworks") is completely normal and common. 9) Jumps in performances - We saw in a lot of performances that there are three people on one side and two on other side and they jump towards each other. That seems very dangerous. They appear to be quite close to each other and one small mistake could lead to one of the skaters falling and I do not want to image what would happen if someone else landed on him. I could mention some other things, but this post is already quite long. :) To sum up, I do not think this anime is bad, but some things just feel disjointed. It is as if the creators partially put in proper effort and partially just completely ignored reality and logic just to get their desired final results. If you want to see some cool figure skating, check out the World Championship in Stockholm which starts on 22nd March. It will be epic! |
Bell_czMar 14, 2021 7:30 AM
☩☩☩ MALoween 2024 ☩☩☩              x15 |
Bell_cz said: 2) Performances - Considering the characters in SLS are supposed to be the best teams in Japan, their performances as they are portrayed in anime are boring. I understand that creators want to make it easier for themselves, but I think here we can make a easy comparison with Yuri on Ice. Even if we saw a very short part of the performance in YoI, we still felt some emotions from it. I completely miss that in SLS. The only exception could be St. Clavis' last performance (as of this point I have not seen the last episode yet). Usually we can only guess if the performance was good from what the commentators tell us and it is not right if the viewer cannot tell whether the performance was good. I don't think they were actually representative from all JPN as there were first few teams shown in the competitions, and the farthest we went out was like a afternoon length train ride to the countryside team Kiriyama went to. Further, the national team in the final episode at least, also suggests, there were way more teams. Also, the Yuri on Ice comparison doesn't really make sense (maybe if we were talking about singles here it would) especially considering Yuri on Ice featured people competing from around the world who already made names for themselves. Maybe if you were talking about Adachi or a Shinozaki solo performance it would make sense but to say Ionodai (who by the way the school is only 3 years old) and a few of the other teams were still building up teams/coaching then your criticism falls flat. Further, Yuri on Ice and Skate-Leading Stars creators were clearly telling different stories involving different worlds, it doesn't make sense to ding and compare these two creators like that when they weren't trying to do the same thing. Creative freedom and liberty allows both anime to exist without the need to be compared and dinged like you are doing. Some anime go for replicating reality and some don't and thats fine, people enjoy realistic Slam Dunk as well as fictional generation of miracles Kurobas, and no one dings one over the other for their attempts at telling a story. 5) Quadruple Axel - We can see this jump in the anime, but in reality not a single person has managed to jump it in a competition. Ever. Some debate whether it is physically possible. While in other quads the body does 3 and 3/4 rotations, for quad Axel they have to do 4 and a half rotations. It is likely that someone (like Hanyu Yuzuru) will make it eventually, but the points he will get for it aren't really worth the effort. The value is simply not high for something as risky. But Yuzuru will likely go for it anyway, because he is just that good. Since nothing about the jumps is explained to viewers, I think if they have no knowledge about figure skating, they cannot even appreciate and understand what it means to land a specific jump, so it feels pointless. Considering we are watching a fictional show and not a nonfiction retelling of Ionodai's rise to fame, this point doesn't make sense. Further with you saying "there is debate about it being possible" only implies that it isn't unforeseen to think that someone someday could do it. Also fiction makes attempts to make the not possible possible within limits, nothing here screams impossible, even if it did, it is still fiction. Same is true for most if not all your other points about skating (now if you mentioned Shinozaki throwing that sword up and catching it behind his back so close to the others then perhaps I can see something, but still.) It is as if the creators partially put in proper effort and partially just completely ignored reality and logic just to get their desired final results. And what's wrong with that? It's not like the anime was billed as a nonfictional retelling of a schools rise to fame, also we're not even dealing with a live action show where characters need to actually do the moves. Writing fiction allows you to create your own world with your own logic and reasoning. As long as the characters don't break the rules that the writer build their world with then it is fine. Without writers having the freedom to do so you are limiting creative freedom and boxing them into the rules that you want them to follow. Ultimately, I just see your post as the ones that some hard core sports enthusiasts use to say why they don't like watching sports shows, they just can't close off the critical part of their mind to disconnect it from the IRL competitions they like to watch. |
27CansOfTunaMar 14, 2021 8:07 AM
| <img src="http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx1a8gz3tu1qbxqfpo1_500.png" /> |
27CansOfTuna said: I don't think they were actually representative from all JPN as there were first few teams shown in the competitions, and the farthest we went out was like a afternoon length train ride to the countryside team Kiriyama went to. Further, the national team in the final episode at least, also suggests, there were way more teams. I am not sure how much you know about Grand Prix in figure skating, but the point of that competition is to have the skaters with best results compete in several competitions. They did not give much space to those in this anime, so we never got to see all the other teams from the whole Japan, only the best ones. And it makes sense, since they do not have that much space in 12 episodes. National team is meant to compete at Four Continents and World Championship. Those competitions are separate. In the anime they basically suggested that the best members of any team can be picked for national team to represent Japan. I am assuming they leave their old team (probably after graduation) and train with the national team. 27CansOfTuna said: Also, the Yuri on Ice comparison doesn't really make sense (maybe if we were talking about singles here it would) especially considering Yuri on Ice featured people competing from around the world who already made names for themselves. I think you completely missed my point with the YoI comparison. I was only saying that even short performance in YoI were engaging, but in SLS I found barely any to be interesting. Should the creators not try to make them look good for the viewer? I think they should, no matter the form or style the use. 27CansOfTuna said: Considering we are watching a fictional show and not a nonfiction retelling of Ionodai's rise to fame, this point doesn't make sense. Further with you saying "there is debate about it being possible" only implies that it isn't unforeseen to think that someone someday could do it. Also fiction makes attempts to make the not possible possible within limits, nothing here screams impossible, even if it did, it is still fiction. Same is true for most if not all your other points about skating (now if you mentioned Shinozaki throwing that sword up and catching it behind his back so close to the others then perhaps I can see something, but still.) I was expecting someone to say this. :) I do not really have a problem with a skater doing something unusual unless it is completely unrealistic (like that sword catching). I even mentioned that someone will probably do the quad Axel in real life. But I do not understand the way this jump was represented in SLS. Himekawa jumped like it was nothing and nobody showed a special reaction to it. We could say that in this world quad Axels are a standard thing, but what is the point? The viewer does not understand that it is special and characters in the anime do not see it as something special either. So why include it at all? 27CansOfTuna said: And what's wrong with that? It's not like the anime was billed as a nonfictional retelling of a schools rise to fame, also we're not even dealing with a live action show where characters need to actually do the moves. Writing fiction allows you to create your own world with your own logic and reasoning. As long as the characters don't break the rules that the writer build their world with then it is fine. Without writers having the freedom to do so you are limiting creative freedom and boxing them into the rules that you want them to follow. Ultimately, I just see your post as the ones that some hard core sports enthusiasts use to say why they don't like watching sports shows, they just can't close off the critical part of their mind to disconnect it from the IRL competitions they like to watch. Nothing really. The creators obviously have freedom to do as they see fit. But if you put time and effort into something (like learning about a specific sport of some other theme), I think it is natural to want to get the best result from your effort. Especially the little details can help lift the story from okay to really good. That does not mean it has to be 100 % realistic. I just got the impression that they included or avoided in other cases the elements I mentioned in my comment not because they had a purpose for that, but because they did not care. And I think that is a shame. And I am actually not a sports fan, I watch real-life sport very rarely and when it comes to figure skating, I would describe myself only as a casual watcher. I cannot tell the jumps apart, I do not know which elements have best ratings or things like that. But even as someone without some deep knowledge and experience, I am able to pinpoint these things that look more like mistakes than intentions to me. |
| ☩☩☩ MALoween 2024 ☩☩☩x15 |
| Yeah, I can see that happening. XD But someone will surely make it someday and it will be epic. |
| ☩☩☩ MALoween 2024 ☩☩☩x15 |
| It's interesting to read the opinions of someone who knows figure skating, but I think... this is work of fiction, most of people like me, who don't know figure skating will think "well, is good and entertaining" and I think that was the intention this anime didn't try to be realistic like Yuri on Ice. Well... we know that something that is show in anime doesn't look like this in real life, but is cool to read about what is realistic and what is not :) |
| I guess what annoyed me the most was the part that the points weren’t given by actual judges but by a computer system and cameras that analyzed the jumps and combinations. At least that‘s how i understood it, correct me if i am wrong. I know it‘s fiction but i can‘t imagine an a.i. scoring a performance. Also everything else that has been said already. Especially that everyone skated to Canon in D!! To me who works in the movie production industry this smelled like „we didn‘t want to spend too much money on the music so let‘s just use the same song over and over again.“ |
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