Medalist Season 2

Episode 7

While I know Medalist comes from a seinen publication and isn't technically a shonen sports series, it engages in those tropes often enough that it might as well be. I came into this episode expecting an extensive training arc about Inori practicing the jumps she needs to work on. Imagine my shock, then, when after getting to practice with the help of a harness, she masters them within the first two minutes to the surprise of basically everyone, including herself. Sure the jumping coach brings up that this is all fairly normal, and that since he does this for a living, it would be bad if he couldn't produce these kinds of results in a day, but it goes so against the grain of the formula of how a sports series normally handles training that the show even actively pokes fun at this with a fake title card. It's a bizarre bit of realism that somehow feels like cheating from a narrative perspective, and if there's one big takeaway I got from this episode, it's that a harness is basically the ice skating equivalent of a speedy battle shonen power-up. Don't mistake any of this for a complaint, though. If the show's willing to make light of it, and it means not having to spend the last two episodes of the season just on Inori practicing, I'm perfectly willing to roll with this handwave. All that being said, just because the show doesn't spend most of its time here on training doesn't mean it isn't willing to find other ways to stir up some drama, and while I'm a bit mixed on the means, the results do yield some worthwhile bonding between Inori and Tsukasa.

With Inori managing to master her new jumps so quickly, all the other kids at the rink try using a harness to similar results, and before long, nearly everyone's made massive improvements. Seeing this kind of sudden growth inspires Tsukasa to get one for helping his students train, and while this seemingly goes well at first, thanks to how quickly Tsukasa picks up how to balance the kids on it, it doesn't take too long for this to backfire. During one of his practice sessions with Inori, she pulls on it just enough for Tsukasa to trip on a dent in the ice, and after he ends up cracking a few ribs, the shock from this incident leaves Inori unable to land any jumps at all. Although Tsukasa does rightly point out that there's probably a lesson to be learned here in what happens when someone tries to use this kind of equipment without the right training, considering how delicately this show normally tends to handle its drama, this is the first time where it's felt a little contrived, and this setback doesn't seem like it was particularly necessary.

Thankfully, it doesn't seem like it'll take too long for it to get resolved, as Tsukasa opts to take Inori to visit the jumping coach to check on her form, so for all intents and purposes, this scenario seems to have been an excuse for the two of them to go on a road trip. As Inori points out, the two of them never really spend time together outside of skating, so there is something adorable about Tsukasa getting a first-hand experience of what it's like to be a parent on a long car ride as Inori bombards him with questions the whole way there while refusing to go to sleep. Funny as all that is, I'm not quite sure that it would have made some of the forced drama here worth it on its own, so it's nice that the two of them get a moment near the end of the episode where Inori comments on how naturally warm Tsukasa's body is after giving her a piggyback ride, and that it must mean he was always born to be a skater.

Since Tsukasa spent so much of his life being told that he wouldn't have what it takes to be on the ice thanks to his late start, this ends up serving as the bit of affirmation he needed to feel as though he might have a talent for skating after all, and that he wants to use it so people might call Inori a natural born skater someday, too. Even when it gets a little heavy-handed in getting to those moments, seeing how Tsukasa and Inori continue to elevate each other is still one of this show's biggest strengths. With how much the last couple of episodes have highlighted Tsukasa's inability to accept his own talents as a skater, this is a good enough form of pay-off that I'd be content if this is where we leave his arc at for a while. Hopefully, the show can pull off a similar trick for Inori in the season finale, and while I know the All-Japan event being covered in the upcoming movie means we likely can't expect anything too spectacular for the last episode, I'd still love to see it stick a graceful landing.

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Medalist Season 2 is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.