Tsukasa is a 26-year-old unemployed man, living with his brother’s family. Eh is good with kids and his brother’s daughter really likes him. He stared living with his brother after his dream of becoming a figure skating champion failed. Tsukasa loves the sport, and has been dedicated to it ever since he discovered it in his mid-teen. But the sad part is, eventho discovering something at such an age, in his case 14 years old, it was too late. Eventho he tried his absolute best, fully dedicated his life to his goal he didn’t manage to achieve it. As time passed, he started settling more and more, going from solo competitor to a doubles one, and lately anything he got were non competitive shows. He still dreams about competing, but twenties are the time when the careers of most figure skaters, even the best of the bet retire. Nobody beats father time, and for figure skaters it comes fast, really fast, in a period of life when others are yet to embark on their journey, the figure skaters have to figure out their second career. And Tsukasa is such a person, torn between the past , his dreams and his future.
All that will change one day, when he accidentally bumps into a little girl who borrows ice skates from the local rink, in exchange for worms.
Her name is Inori, and she is absolutely crazy about figure skating. Upon their first meeting, Tsukasa is a bit too direct with her, which leads to one of many of her episodes where the poor cute, little kid doubts herself. The thing about Inori is that she is both very shy, but also very forgetful, doesn’t do well in school and has a bigger sister who already did a lot of the things Inori wants to do. Figure skating is something her older sister tried, worked very hard at, but failed to make enough progress. Her mother doesn’t see a chance for Inori in the world of figure skating. In turn, Inori gets even more shy and deflated.
Once Tsukasa sees her skate for the very first time, he is completely blown away. Even if her age is not in her favor, he goes all in, promising to become her coach. He also tries again and again to convince her mother to let her try it, to dedicate a part of her childhood to her dream, a dream both Tsukasa and Inori share, or becoming a figure skating champion. Seeing Inori skate is a transformative experience, for both of them. Once she is on the ice, she is a completely different person. The shyness is replaced by confidence, the clumsiness goes away and becomes precise artistic movement at dazzling speed. Her transformation turns Tsukasa from a lost man in his mid-20s, to the most motivated, confident and enthusiastic coach the world has known. He even gets too loud and overzealous at time, a startling change from when we first meet him.
This latest addition to the cute child and lost man become friends genre of manga works particularly well because both Inori and Tsukasa are very genuine about who they are and what they want. Both experience various obstacles. The reader feels their pain and passion. Only someone completely devoid of empathy wouldn’t want to see them find success at something which they both hold so dear. The author did a wonderful job structuring the story this way. First we meet Tsuaksa, figure out his dreams and frustrations and later we see Inori, both with her own struggles but also with those same, desperate aspirations she shares with Tsukasa. The reader, together with Tsukasa, sees pieces of Tsukasa in Inori. We can’t let the dream of another child fall by the wayside, so we get invested in her, in them both for that matter.
The art is a mix bag. The author is very talented in drawing and expressing emotions, especially negative ones. Bit panels which feature Inori being sad, disappointed, angry or crying are all marvelously drawn. Theres no way you will mistake any of the emotions and those panels deliver quite the effective punch, lodging themselves in the readers memory. The manga is very text heavy, especially when explaining the intricacies of the sport. I wish there was more show than tell. One of the reasons for that is that the skating scenes are just ok. Apart from the ones later in the volume when Tsukasa first glides on the ice, wowing everyone including Inori and us the readers, the author struggles depicting and arranging dynamic motion into panels. The best example is the chase scene between Inori and Tsukasa in the first chapter of the volume, which is drawn haphazardly and blandly.
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