Medalist

Episode 6

With Inori finally getting a win under her belt, and having a clearer vision of what she wants as a skater, I suppose now was as good a time as any to learn a little more about Tsukasa. We've gotten a rough idea about his late start in becoming a skater, and his failures in his ice dancing career, but this episode gives us a bit of a deeper dive into all that, as we get a few more details about his past connections. While none of what we learn changes too much of our understanding of Tsukasa as a person, it gives us a better idea of how his failures have shaped him and makes his current dynamic with Inori all the more interesting.

Now that Inori's won at the Prelim level, she and Tsukasa start talking about what's next for her once she gets her Level 1 badge. Since she still feels frustrated by all the things she can't do as a skater, Inori decides to enter another competition as soon as possible to catch up with her peers. However, rather than looking down on herself for what she lacks, she's instead choosing to use that as a motivator for getting better, and it's great to see that she's already starting to think about her future a little more positively. To that end, Tsukasa gives her an important reminder that while there are always going to be people who look down on her for having started late, her victory here proves that she's already a real athlete and that she can't let anyone get to her for it.

Seeing Tsukasa putting so much emphasis on this finally clues Inori in on him having a late start like she did, and she decides she wants to learn more about his past. At first, she assumes that Tsukasa is trying to hide it because he sees it as a source of shame. In reality, he didn't want to give Inori the impression that he was trying to live his failed dreams through her and was hesitant about letting her know how similar they were. We discover that Tsukasa got into skating after watching one of Jun's performances. He was already 14, couldn't find anyone willing to train him, and didn't want to burden his parents by making them pay for his lessons. Things changed for him when he had a chance encounter with a sickly woman named Meiko, and after coming to her aid, he ended up getting acquainted with her family and got a job through her husband, Koichi. This allowed Tsukasa to at least get his foot in the door by joining a hobbyist skating club, but while he wanted to pay them back by becoming a top-class skater, he couldn't quite hack it in actual competition. Eventually, he distanced himself from Meiko's family and tried to make a career in ice dancing, but he couldn't afford to keep paying for it and kept struggling until he had another run-in with Meiko, and she offered to let Tsukasa live with her family while he worked on his training. In the end, Tsukasa couldn't manage to get a top placement as an ice dancer, and when Meiko later died from her illness, Tsukasa cut himself off from her family altogether.

While it's certainly not a happy story, and all Tsukasa can see are the ways that he's let the people around him down, he's also done more for them than he realizes. Those same failures allowed him to take on Inori as his first student. With how badly she needed someone like him in her corner, she sees that as something for her to be proud of. We also see that he is important to Meiko's family. When Koichi recognizes Tsukasa at Inori's competition, he immediately tries to reconnect with him and let him move back in. At first, Tsukasa tries to hide that he's struggling financially. Not only because he doesn't want to be a burden on him and his daughter, but also because he felt like he took advantage of them when he failed to achieve anything. But when Koichi bluntly asks Tsukasa if he's trying to live his dreams through Inori, and Tsukasa responds that he just wanted to support her when he saw her struggling, Tsukasa learns that Meiko felt the same way about him. Seeing Tsukasa working so hard to achieve his goals was a source of strength for Meiko in her final days, and while those efforts never meant much for him, they meant a lot for her. It's only then that Tsukasa opens himself up to keep in contact with Koichi, and given that he's been about as down on himself as Inori up to this point, it's great to see he's starting to change a little. Given everything he's been through up to now, and how easy it would have been to make his intentions self-serving, I'm glad that the show has reinforced the idea that he's helping Inori because he wants to, rather than seeing her as his second chance. I hope he'll learn to forgive himself for his failures through teaching Inori.

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Medalist is currently streaming on Hulu.

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Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.