Score: A

This episode was full of surprising turns, but was truly excellent. It just makes me sad that we’re so close to the season being over for it! I could watch the Inori and Tsukasa show all day! These two are one of the great duos of the season and probably will be for the whole year! There is something special to watching this coach and skater battle the difficulties in getting Inori where she wants to be. And it’s not simply her journey and he’s this amazing coach. It’s his journey too.

Hikaru…it’s time to duel!

Inori’s talent truly is absurd to the highest degree! It is a dicey line to walk since…you don’t want it to be TOO easy for your protagonist. But Inori wouldn’t be where she is right now if she frankly didn’t have insane levels of talent. To catch up to her peers required her to have it. All she needed was help in actually doing the jump in the first place and getting a feel for it. Even Inori was shocked by how fast it came thanks to the harness. Great move to have others have success too. It was just great seeing her and Tsukasa so shocked at her getting it that fast!

Truly an “oh crap” moment!

The show also backed itself up a bit by having the harness basically be a miracle device! It wasn’t only Inori having success, although she was nailing multiple hard jumps in succession. The harness was giving everyone that sense of “oh I get it now” after using it a few times. For a bit there it made the harness seem more important than the coach himself! But it just shows that having the right tools can make practice in many things more effective.

Beyond that though, it was smart to actually have Tsukasa get a harness and show that it’s not that easy! Different skaters have their own quirks. It’s not entirely easy to keep the distance exact with someone that’s jumping. And it can be a bit dangerous. Tsukasa hitting a dent in the ice was in some ways bad luck. But having to focus on Inori, the distance, timing to lift her up, and watching the ice surface…is a lot. Full marks to the jump coach who handled all of that and made it look easy!

No shock that this messed her up!

It’s a good point by the show that Inori and Tsukasa are the leads here. So it isn’t just Inori that can run into problems. Tsukasa prioritized Inori’s safety and that was right to do. But in doing so…he smacked his face into the face and landed so hard he cracked a rib! One decision can spiral into another issue. Tsukasa going down like that shook up Inori and of course it did! Tsukasa is a huge part of her life and that whole situation was scary. He was down for a while, not making a sound (while the wind was knocked out of him), and then he was a bloody mess. That’s tough to process and resulted in taking a step back. It’s tough to see, but…it’s also good in a way. Development and progression isn’t always positive.

The tricky thing is that I can’t say it was wrong to buy the harness and try. Because it did let Yuki nail a jump she’d really been struggling with. If he hadn’t then she would’ve beaten herself up for missing that chance the other day and might’ve quit skating entirely. It did of course give Tsukasa too much confidence. And clearly he should’ve just not done it with Inori and dropped the idea when it was clear he wasn’t ready to handle how far she jumps. But the overall idea wasn’t bad and did have some good to it.

I really love these two

The drive was honestly super sweet. These two are such an excellent duo. It’s a great friendship and bond that they share. Inori being so hyped over talking to Tsukasa about any random thing during the drive was adorable. That special bond is what threw off her jump in the first place. In some ways I’d say the drive was honestly what she needed more than anything. Not having to worry about Tsukasa’s injury, not thinking about jumps, but just enjoying the journey. Their bond is strong enough to overcome hiccups and stumbles along the way.

Obviously having a good time on the drive wasn’t enough to get Inori to completely forget her troubles. But it was still a good experience. And really all this led to some great moments. Inori had the time of her life on the drive, but also dropped some truly great lines herself. Inori is just that important that having her basically say he was born to skate meant a lot to him.

Please don’t let that happen again!

This was just another great episode! Things were looking so good early on. Inori was nailing her jumps, all the kids were getting it, and Tsukasa was so hyped up that he got a harness and wanted to help more kids jump! Then it went off the rails and Inori took a step back. The pressure ramping up since she suddenly went from looking set for what’s coming to desperately needing to get things figured out before she was out of time! No idea how quickly or easily Inori will be able to get her game back together, but I’m sure she will.