As Inori gets prepared to start her first local tournament. Things can’t be too easy for her, as she forgot her luggage containing her skates on the train. Tsukasa showing once again the lengths he will go to to make Inori’s dream come true. Even putting that aside, the performance of the fellow Level Ones is very notable. It indicates that Inori is going to have lots of competition for years to come. Inori puts out a fantastic performance, netting herself 24.32 and netting herself first place. Though exhaustion starts to hit Inori, and we know how dedicated she was to ice skating before Tsukasa started coaching her. For the first time, Inori needs to take a step back. Not listening to your body and getting severely injured will cost much more time than making sure you take rest days, as those are just as important as training.
Though Inori only got a sliver, it was Ema that won gold in the tournament. Despite the impressive amount of Level Ones, it was Ema who put on a final shocking performance to wrap it up. As mentioned in her monologues, for her, nailing the moves that Inori might have been iffy on and for Ema those are guarantees for her now. It indicates that forget Hikaru; there are more that Inori needs to focus on beating first. It’s interesting to see Ema has been dealing with the injury problem for longer, and for a lot of it, had no one to guide her. Give credit to Yudai for seeing that potential and being willing to put Ema through a routine where she can overcome these nagging injuries. An underrated aspect was him helping Ema with the mental hurdle of being bigger and older than the others.
As Tsukasa talks to Yudai, their focus for now is moving up in ranks for Inori. Given what they saw from Ema that is a good decision. As we jump to a year later, we see a particular exchange between Rioh and Jun. Unlike the other coaches, Jun isn’t exactly a model of a coach, but his talent from being a pro speaks for itself. Though the fact that Jun doesn’t mince words to Rioh kind of shows why Rioh has concerns with him. In an interesting bit, we see that Rioh transferring to Lux. Granted, his father talks about him being in a slump, but it is clear from Rioh that for him the bigger issue is Jun. We don’t know what is happening behind the scenes between Shinichiro and Jun.
Though now Rioh having Tsukasa as his coach is interesting because this is his first student besides Inori. One thing we see as Rioh is skating is the differences from his father. As he mentions that to Rioh a spark lights up, and the fact that he mentions so much praise. It’s difficult to mention how it compares to his father, but compared to someone like Jun, his teaching style is entirely different. Though Jun shouldn’t be coaching Rioh, though? Still, for him to accept that Tsukasa’s comment is tough because he is someone whose two coaches he was around were his father and Jun, accomplished ice skaters. Meanwhile, we know Tsukasa never accomplished his dream. But I do love to see Inori speaking up for Tsukasa because she absolutely trusts him. This also brings up the point that the greatest athletes don’t always make the best coaches. Also, the mind of a coach can be different from that of an athlete.