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The Spring 2021 Manga Guide
Medalist

What's It About? 

Tsukasa, whose dreams were crushed. Inori, left to fend for herself. These two share a dream...and their tenacity may be the only thing that sees them through. Their destination? The ice...on the world's stage!

Medalist is drawn and scripted by TSURUMAIKADA and Kodansha Comics has released its first volume on digital platforms for $10.99












Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Move over, Knight of the Ice. There's a new skating manga in town. Not that that's a particularly fair comparison – Medalist is as much about learning to skate and rising through the ranks as it is about competitive figure skating, and in large part focused on the mental health of its protagonist, Inori. Or rather, one of its two main protagonists, who are approaching the sport from two very different places. Inori is a fifth-grader desperate to get out on the ice and perform. Her older sister tried and ultimately gave up competitive figure skating, and now Inori's mother is very reluctant to allow her younger daughter to skate seriously. But that's not her only reason – Inori's also strongly implied to have some pretty serious (and undiagnosed) learning differences, which make her struggle in school. While I can't speak to how the Japanese school system handles issues like dyslexia, anxiety, and rote memory disorders, I am remarkably unimpressed by how the adults in Inori's life treat her because of them: as if she's a screw-up who will never be good at anything.

Understandably, that means that Inori's starting her career at a disadvantage in more ways than one. She's eleven, for starters, when most kids [whose parents are] looking towards a figure skating future get going at age five. But she's also got serious performance anxiety, because at virtually every other moment in her life when people have watched her do something, like read in class, she's come out humiliated. She's also very affected by the things adults, specifically, say about and around her. At this point, after a very packed first volume, exactly ONE grown-up has been encouraging: the other protagonist, Tsukasa. Otherwise, all that Inori's heard are her mother, teachers, and other parents at the rink complaining about how she's basically a failure and a waste of space. I seriously cannot wait for her to prove them all wrong, because this kid deserves so much better from the world than she's getting.

That's where Tsukasa really comes in. He's in a position to understand where Inori is right now, since he didn't start his skating career until he was fourteen and ultimately had to switch to ice dancing rather than his preferred solo work in order to compete. When the story starts, he's trying desperately to find work as a skater, preferably in an ice show. Instead he ends up being present at his old ice dance partner's skating club when Inori comes in, and he's blown away by her self-taught talent and the way that no one seems to believe in her. Tsukasa then becomes the one person who absolutely believes in Inori, even when she can't believe in herself, and while there may be a bit of vicarious living to his desire to coach her, he also genuinely likes working with her and wants to help her prove all the naysayers wrong.

Medalist is, unequivocally, a sports manga. It's about competitive figure skating, and everything revolves around the characters' relationship with the sport. The best part is when Inori is skating or thinking about skating. That's great news for fans of sports stories, but don't let it scare you off if that's not your thing, because this is also a story about learning to believe in yourself even when everyone else tells you you're not good enough. We end this volume wanting Inori to succeed because she's worth it – and desperately hoping that she'll be able to see that herself.


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