Medalist Season 2

Episode 1

We might be stuck in the bitter cold of January, but at least there's a new season of Medalist to help warm our hearts…or at least that's what I would have said if I wrote this five weeks ago. For some reason that I'm sure only Disney's lawyers understand, while every other region of the world has been able to watch the simulcast of season two on Disney+ when it started, those of us in the United States stuck with Hulu have been left wondering when it would finally start streaming. Now slight delays between Disney+ and Hulu sadly isn't new for anime simulcasts and had it been a couple of days, or even a couple of weeks, it probably wouldn't be anything worth screeching about, but a five week delay is more than a little ridiculous and the radio silence on it even more so. To make the situation even more baffling, not only did season two hit Hulu without the show's (very good) English dub despite it airing day and day in every other region, but it only launched with the first episode, and I'm honestly not sure whether to be aggravated that the US simulcast is apparently just going to be several weeks behind everywhere else, or relieved that I'm not currently cramming five episodes worth of discussion into a season premiere review. Between the amount of high profile sequels to compete with, and Disney's general refusal to promote their anime titles, this show was always going to be fighting an uphill battle for getting eyeballs on it this season, so it's sad that this has probably all but insured that it's destined to remain in relative obscurity despite its quality. Regardless, I'm happy to say that in spite of Michael Mouse's' best efforts to prevent people from watching it, Medalist remains as good as ever.

This episode picks up pretty much exactly from where the last season left off. Now that Inori has finally ranked up to the Novice A level, she needs to prepare for higher level competitions, and ultimately the All-Japan Cup that will decide who gets to go to the Olympics. Rather than focusing on any training, though, most of this episode just involves Inori's attempts to make a good impression on her new peers, which mainly results in her doing some very funny Tsukasa impersonations and confusing the other girls with her overenthusiasm. This gets a bit more dramatic when Inori gets to meet some of the older skaters and decides to ask them what it would take for her to get to the Olympics. While it's a fairly innocent question on the surface, Inori doesn't take into account just how competitive these girls have become in pursuit of that goal, and one of them comes down on her pretty hard for it. Thankfully a kindly shark-toothed girl named Riina comes to Inori's rescue and gives her a friendly warning that all eyes are on her and the other skaters her age. They're the ones who are going to be pushed the most to be molded into future Olympians, and making the cut for All-Japan is the most surefire way Inori has of getting on the world stage. With this season's lower episode count, I'm not exactly expecting to see her get that far, but it is at least nice to see Inori have a new goal to latch onto for the foreseeable future. Besides that, we also get to check in on Hikaru who seems to have opted out next competition in favor of doing some training in Russia, and while it looks like we'll have to wait a while longer before we can see her and Inori competing directly, we do at least learn a little more about her past before her talent was discovered by Jun, so it's possible that we might end up getting more of her backstory over the course of the season.

The strongest part of this episode, though, comes in the last few minutes where nearly slipping down a flight of stairs leads to Inori having a run in with Tsukasa's old friend Koichi and his daughter, Yo. With how long the wait between seasons has been, I actually forgot that Inori hadn't met the two of them before, so it was equally sweet and funny watching Inori mistake Koichi for Tsukasa's dad and start bragging unprompted about how cool it is being his student. We also learn that this is the first time Koichi's decided to view a skating competition, and he wants to use the opportunity to see for himself what Tsukasa does as a coach. After spending so much of the first season on how Koichi and his family helped Tsukasa during his career as an ice dancer, it's really touching to see them come out in support of him now that he's found a new path in life and it seems like a great way to cap off that part of his character arc. Of course we'll have to wait until Inori's performance in the next episode for them to see the fruits of Tsukasa's efforts for themselves, but it's a nice way to help kick off this new season, and the show has more than earned the right to start off on a victory lap. This might not have been the most thrilling way to start the second season, but it was really nice to spend time with these characters again, and with how strongly the first season swooped in to become one of my favorite shows of last year, I'm looking forward to seeing if Medalist can bring home the gold a second time.

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