Medalist

Episode 5

Last week saw Inori gaining both a literal and emotional victory as she was finally able to prove to herself that she has what it takes to be a skater. There's still a tournament going on and the focus shifts to her rivals. While that doesn't result in too many surprises, it does at least allow us to get to know a little more about our resident cat child, Mittens, and demonstrates just how far Inori will need to climb if she wants to reach Hikaru's level.

Even after witnessing Inori's performance, Mittens still believes she can steal her first place so long as she can nail her usual routine. While she doesn't show it outright, it is clear that Inori's strong performance has shaken some of Mittens' usual confidence, and when Mittens fails to nail one of her critical jumps, her mind starts spiraling and her desire to do it over ends up costing her the win. It's then that we learn how Mittens' attitude has always been a source of conflict for her, as she's been the kind of kid who has trouble apologizing and only lashes out more when the adults around her refuse to take her side. It's certainly not unusual behavior for a kid her age. Trying too hard to force them into compliance can sometimes result in them doubling down on it. While you'd expect all this to result in Mittens learning a lesson about humility, the show takes a better angle than that. Although Nacchi uses the opportunity to have Mittens take more of her advice during practice, when Mittens breaks down and says that she'll do whatever Nacchi wants from now on, Nacchi doesn't hesitate to put a stop to it. She instead tries to reinforce Mittens' sense of defiance as a strength rather than a weakness, since it's part of what makes her unique and tells her that the best way to prove herself right is to get good enough that no one can talk back to her. It's certainly not the kind of advice most adults would give in this situation, but it's definitely what she needed. It's great to see how well this show reinforces that the best support adults can give to kids is pushing them towards being themselves rather than just trying to control them.

With the prelims out of the way, and Inori willing to bury the hatchet with Mittens in favor of restoring their friendship, the stage shifts over to the novice division as we see Hikaru take to the rink. Unsurprisingly, her performance drives home how big the skill gap between the two of them is, but I liked how well that was reflected in the animation of the performance itself. Where we saw Inori and Mittens making a few visible mistakes in their choreography, Hikaru's is much more polished and theatrical, and I was impressed with how well the show was able to visibly display those differences even with the heavier reliance on 3DCG for the skating sequences compared to what we had with the first couple of episodes. When Inori attempts to meet up with Hikaru to thank her for her previous encouragement, she instead runs into Hikaru's coach Jun, who up to now has seemed like a bit of a mystery.

At first, he seems like he's friendlier than he looks when he goes out of his way to save Inori from a bad fall. We get a funny couple of minutes where Inori thinks she might have done some murders as Tsukasa walks in on her trying to restore him to life by pouring tea on him only for Tsukasa to slip on it and become her next victim. Hilarious as this all is, the mood changes when Inori tries to get Jun to pass on her message, and Inori makes it clear that her goal is to someday skate with and defeat Hikaru. Upon hearing this, he tells Inori that she doesn't have what it takes to stack up against Hikaru, and since Tsukasa recognizes Jun as a former Olympic-level skater, those words carry a lot of weight. However, in Jun's mind, Inori proclaiming that she has what it takes to beat Hikaru is the same as saying she could defeat him. Given Tsukasa's hangups about his own skating career, there was a brief moment where I thought he'd let that get to him and fail to back up Inori here. Thankfully, Tsukasa quickly realizes that this is a moment where he needs to assert himself, and makes it clear to both Inori and Jun that he's ready to dedicate the rest of his life to ensuring that Inori will someday rise to Hikaru's level. It's a nice little declaration of war.

Rating:

---

Medalist is currently streaming on Hulu.

---

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.