2018 NHK Trophy: Thoughts, Analysis & Reviews

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Take a look at our coverage features, photos and more

Now that the competition is over, what were your favorite highlights of the event? Feel free to talk about costumes, elements, scores, etc. Everything goes!


We'd love to see a paragraph of each discipline highlighting the top three along with your thoughts. The staff will be watching and someone may win a free season pass to the competition forums if you haven't already got one Get those creative and technical juices flowing and show us your journalistic abilities!

Can i say how everything about Rika Kihira's FS was perfect? The choreo, the jumps, the interpretation. It was THE highlight of the event. She went from ranking 5 in the SP to winning the FS. What a damn comeback.

and her dress was soooo beautiful, its like shed taken a part of the galaxy and sewn it into her dress.

Yes! Alexa and Chris podium! So happy! :yes2: I noticed their GOEs (on everything they didn't screw up) seemed very high. With a clean short and long, I would think they would threaten almost any podium. Especially if they added their quad twist back in (which I understand they aren't doing this year, but who knows).
Yes! Hawayek and Baker win the gold! Even more happy! :hap36: I did not get to see much of the ice dance yet, forgot it was on and only saw the last 2 skaters, have not even seen Parson and Parson yet. But Kaitlin and Jean Luc were almost flawless and VERY fast. I was so mesmerized I did not even watch the corner box until the end (I have a love/hate relationship with that box because I have a tendency to obsess over it and not see the actual skating).
Haven't watched the men's long yet. Too early for me and I had to get up to watch football today.
I really liked Mariah Bell's long. She always looks so happy when she's introduced and is so cute.
I didn't know Taylor Swift was so popular in Japan. I seemed to hear a lot of Taylor Swift.

This is the first GP of the season that I mostly got to watch. Highlights:

1. The ladies!! That was so good! Between Rika hitting all her tech, Liza soaring, and Satoko taking her tango to another level I was shook! Not to mention those who were off the podium like Mariah and Alena who also killed it. Thoroughly enjoyable.

2. Hawayek/Baker winning!! This was everything for me. I am biased because I've loved them for year. Jean Luc's skating and Kaitlin's acting was a joy to watch today.

3. Dmitri Aliev. This is bias X10. Dima made several mistakes and was nowhere near to the podium. Yet I still love his programs and I love that he sells them even when he is off. He is such a talent! I hope he can get it together as the season continues

GGFan said:

This is the first GP of the season that I mostly got to watch. Highlights:


Hawayek/Baker winning!! This was everything for me. I am biased because I've loved them for year. Jean Luc's skating and Kaitlin's acting was a joy to watch today.

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OMG yes. Maybe some other people will take note of them now. I should have played prediction game.

The time difference between Charlottetown and Hiroshima meant that everything but the dance events took place in the dead of night or the very early morning, so I only watched the full dance events and caught up with the highlights (or lowlights) of the other disciplines afterward.

Men
- Shoma wins, like everybody expected him to, but he really needs to get it together before the Grand Prix Final when he'll be going up against Hanyu and Chen rather than a bunch of guys whose technical bases just aren't capable of matching him even with errors and -5 GOE.
- The reign of the elderly continues with Old Man Voronov's silver medal and presumptive GPF berth. Happy for him to find these successes, and I hope he gets a postseason this year. At the very least, the RusFed should pay attention that he's the one delivering the goods on the Grand Prix so far. Speaking of which...
- Aliev. At the end of last season I really thought he was poised to overtake Kolyada and rise up the men's ranks internationally, but he has just been a mess so far. Oh, and then there's...
- Deniss I'm not sure what was worse, the gaudy and tacky fashion choices or the program execution. But on the subject of people I pegged as ones to watch after last season...
- Matteo Rizzo didn't have his best skate here, but he got a Grand Prix medal for himself. The quad is still a work in progress, but keep working away at it. I really like that European men's skating feels more competitive this year so far.
- When the list of planned program contents showed that Vincent was reducing the quad content in his programs, I thought that was the smart move, but it's really not helping him here, as he's still underrotating the quads he is attempting and even with the bigger triples.
- Go home, Kevin, you're just embarrassing yourself at this point.

Ladies
- RIKA! I thought that free program seemed to be a good one, obscured though it was by the bad, distant camera work at Nepela Trophy, so it was nice to see it properly this time. Work on that short program 3A, but everything else is coming together really nicely; she may just give Zagitova a run for her money (and the Worlds podium) if she can keep it together.
- Satoko, nice programs still, jumps maybe not as good here as at SkAm; also, bring back the previous costumes.
- Very strong skates from Elizaveta too.

Pairs
- Zabiyako and Enbert were stronger here than in Finland.
- The Knierims have been having a rocky time for a while, between the injuries, disappointing results, the coaching change mid-Grand Prix, etc., so it was nice to see them get some validation, even if there's clearly still work to do.
- After the strong upward trajectory from KMT and Marinaro between the really poor ACI showing and their SCI results (where I think they put together the best two programs of their career, in terms of delivery), too bad to see them have a rougher time here. But compared to some of their past rough skates, assorted smaller errors like they had here are a lot easier to work through than falls, aborted lifts, and so on, so I'm overall pleased with where they are now. A few months now to get ready for 4CC.

Ice dance
- Like I said, the only event I was able to watch live. I wonder if some teams (Guignard/Fabbri, Gilles/Poirier, Sinitsina/Katsalapov) were looking at the top scores here and cursing what assignments they ended up with.
- Zahorski and Guerreiro's free program is becoming one of my favourites of this season, but so far the delivery of it hasn't been as good as it could be. Not really surprising given the injury, but I hope they're ready to really impress at Europeans.
- Hawayek and Baker are one of the last notable teams we hadn't seen at all; I'm not immediately in love with the programs, but happy for the win, which must be nice validation after the concussion problems.
- Lilah Fear and Lewis Gibson are the bronze medalists in my heart. Work on that rhythm dance, guys, you could have had at least the actual bronze medal! Also, more up-and-coming teams aiming to stand out should be aiming for the sort of entertainment factor these two have. I didn’t know them from Adam last year.
- I recall around the time of the Quebec Championnats people were saying that Carolane and Shane had lost training time due to some sort of injury over the summer. I don't know whether that's the case or not, but they've been plagued with little issues (and one big issue, at SCI) in their programs so far this year. I (and they, I'm sure) was hoping after their strong 4CC/Worlds last year that they'd be poised to climb a bit more. But onward to nationals.
- Wang and Liu feel like they're headed in the right direction, though there's a bit of a leap they have to make to really get into the competitive scoring range.
- I'm glad that Komatsubara and Koleto didn't finish last, since they were the home team.

Wow! If Rika skates like that in France, which I doubt, but if she does, then Evgenia simply cannot beat her, even at her current best. Then Evgenia watches the finals from home. Wow!

Sam-Skwantch said:

It’s a big advantage to Rika that she is skating a style natural to her but even more is that her programs are designed to show her strengths.

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That applies to every skater, why would anyone design programs to show weaknesses, LOL?

I watched the ladies free and men´s sp & fs. They were streamed live at a very convenient time for me: around 9 a.m. and noon. The highlights for me were

- Rizzo winning the bronze medal, WOW
- Shoma´s beautiful fs choreography and music
- Miyahara´s extremely beautiful skating to fantastic choreography
- Kihira´s wonderful freeskate and those triple axels

Rika's FS was bananas. Her scoring potential is crazy, even this massive total is far from what she can get if she's completely clean. I can't wait for her to gain more consistency and PCS boost.

Mariah skating clean. The performance, choreo, music, and dress were beautiful. My favourite program this season.

I want to thank the ladies for my life! This event was even more thrilling than the ladies event at the Olympics. Satoko, Rika, liza, Alena, Mai, Mariah who delivered a beautiful free skate, Eunsoo's gorgeous SP. It was the GP event i was the most excited about and i was not disappointed. The GPF is going to be phenomenal.

Such a great ladies' FS here. Satoko's programs are the most beautiful ones for me and it's amazing that she once again skated cleanly in both programs. Rika's FS was just incredible. She is so good and still so young. So many ladies skating in a fantastic way on Saturday.
The men were a bit dissappointing when it comes to quality and skating clean
but I'm happy for Shoma winning and Matteo on the podium. I hope Matteo can land his quad later this season.
I'm so disappointed that Gabriella and Guillaume had to WD. It wasn't a memorable dance event for me. The best was maybe the FD of the British couple.
Zabiiako / Enbert skated a very good FS program. She seems to be much stronger in presentation this year and they have more difficult throws now.
Shoma was great at the Gala.

NHK VIEWING PARTY REACTIONS:
I joined my family's annual (ish) NHK viewing party and had a great time with fans of all levels of interest in figure skating.
Some at the party only watched because it was a party with sushi, cake, chips and booze and we hadn’t gotten together in a while.
Some watched NHK and Nationals and the Olympics sometimes
Some were RAVING FANS (yours truly)

We watched the Ladies’ and Mens free together in a casual way. people coming and going and snacking.
Towards the second group of Ladies people began to sit and really watch the competition.
Gasps all around when Eunsoo and Mai hit each other in the warm-up.
Those who had been following the GP Series had their favorites.
The fan break-down is roughly as follows:
Satoko: 3
Rika: 1 (my Mom, very loudly)

Mai: EVERYONE
Elizaveta: ME (defending her to all comers)
Eunsoo: No one had seen her before except me
Leonova: Everyone was surprised that she was still around

Eunsoo was first, but this group was the type that tuned out after the fall so there wasn’t much remarking on her performance other than that she was quite tall, and cute.
Since Rika skated early in the group we were not ready for the fire-power of her 3As
My mom: YEEESSSS! Did you see that? Amazing!
Satoko and Mai fans: Oh NOOOOO….Amazing!
After that we were speechless.
When the scores came out Satoko and Mai fans: We’re Doomed!

Alena’s program was well received, and everyone was impressed that she could still put out such strong performances despite being an alternate for the Russian Team. I told them all they’d seen her before many times, and kept saying the same thing each time they saw her.

Mai is the universal favorite. Everyone stopped eating to watch her.
“Look at her, she skates so well, so graceful!” “Give her all the points!” “Oh No! a Pop!”
By the end of her performance we had our eyes glued to the TES willing it to stay high. –But the judges obviously don’t see Mai the same way we do -lots of Booing and drinking when the scores came out.
“I knew it! Judges always do this to Mai” etc, etc.

Liza skated and everyone turned to me.
“This is YOUR favorite. You know, if she does well, Mai’s off the podium. You tweeted your sketch at her and wished her luck, you traitor” etc. (Jokingly)
Me: I love them BOTH OK?
I could not convince my family to get on board Liza Airways, but she was great.
“Too much theatricals,” “Posing, Not Skating” “Hey, look at her JUMPS! THEY ARE HUGE!”

The scores came up and we knew it was all up to Satoko now to take the lead or Rika would win and my mom would GLOAT.
We were pretty sure Satoko would be perfect, but how would her best be scored today?
When Satoko hit her ending pose we did a standing ovation and kept our eye on the score tracker.
Satoko fans:“It’s going to be close, but Satoko can still win”
“Um…the TES is going down”
“It’s going down some more!”
“AAAAAGH OH NOOOOOO”
Mom: OH YEEEES, I told you, I told you all she’d do it! (this whole time, my mom is getting Rika’s name wrong. I think she pronounced it 3 different ways) Why don’t you like her? She’s the Champion!
Satoko and Mai fans: We like her fine…but it takes time to get used to a skater. We like Satoko and Mai!
More Drinking

Between the Ladies and Men’s event, 5 more people joined the party. These are the only watch skating for the booze and food contingent. But among them were two guys that remembered and liked Liza the most. (Where were you when I needed back up?)
It’s too bad that the casual fans had to see the mens event. It was so poorly skated, they were not impressed, but we concentrated on food, drinking, commenting on interesting costumes and seeing if anyone’s TES could match Rikas’.
Kevin Reynolds:
“great hair!” “His features are so anime!” “This isn’t going well, is it?”

Hiroaki Sato:
Guy1: What country does he come from?
Me: OMG he’s from Iwate, he’s practically a neighbor!
Guy2: He looks different from the other skaters.
Me: He looks like what a local farmer would look like if they were a figure skater in their secret life, donning the spandex and sparkles by night and tilling the fields by day…in fact he looks like you (indicating GUY 2)
Guy 2: You know…he does. (Guy 2 is a farmer)
I then showed everyone Hiroaki’s famous Bolero EX after which everyone who hadn’t seen him before became a fan.
Hiroaki wowed his brand new fans with a magnificent 4T and a 3A and then fell 3 times. We all drank some more.

Next guy to come to everyone’s attention was Alexander Johnson.
“He can’t jump, but he skates very well.” “Is this the first mesh of the night? What happened to the mesh everyone was wearing a few seasons back?”

Deniss Vasilijevs was up next
“Best costume so far!” “Is this supposed to be Japanese? Or Chinese?” “ If this was America would they call it appropriation? What does that even mean?” “It’s the Last Samurai so the theme is Japanese”
“If you do it with your whole heart, no one will care about appropriation-nonsense…he’s cute!” “Well, that says it all”
Everyone likes Deniss. The end.

Vincent’s costume was also examined and declared “Probably Chinese”
I warned everyone that Vincent’s Quads very often got under-rotations but everyone was just happy to see a slightly better program.

Everyone knew Sota and that it was his comeback, so we all watched in silence and were happy with his performance.
Mom: He’s like Hanyu…
Everyone else: NO HE’S NOT. He’s SOTA.

Demitri Aliev up next:
“Where’s the mesh?” “I need more Rhinestones.”
My dad rarely watches Figure skating and doesn’t care for sports much…but he’s noticed and commented on just two skaters that aren’t Japanese that I can remember and they are Gracie Gold and Dmitri Aliev.
He saw them both when they were totally bombing their programs and said of them both, “There’s something good about the way they skate. It’s better than others we’ve seen so far. They have got something special.” We know! If only they wouldn't bomb...

Shoma Uno
We were all expecting and really hoping for someone to do a good performance and since Shoma started off quad after quad we got very interested. Looking at his layout (like Yuzu and Nathan) looks like a joke because the difficulty is so high compared to others. Until the very end we were wondering whether he would get the combos in, but he couldn’t this time.
“He looks like he needs a nap”
“His left arm is the most tired”
“He’s going to the Final, exciting”

Voronov was the last skater and everyone was now cheering him on.
“I feel so betrayed. Where is the lace? Where is the mesh Voronov?”
“Well, at least this costume has got ventilation”
At this point we cheered everything. We cheered for all his jumps, his spins and his steps. When he finished we cheered with the crowd.

It was a very fun viewing party.
Last year, we couldn’t really enjoy it because Yuzu was injured and the Olympics dreams seemed to be so far away. This year was much more enjoyable. We also talked about GP Russia next week, the Return of DAI which everyone supports and the prospect of the GPF and who might go.

Please don’t judge these drunken reactions too harshly.

EDIT TO ADD: Matteo costume comments, "I'd totally wear that jacket."
June costume comments: "Is that a rip up the back??"

For me the highlights were definitely Rika and Liza and their triple axels 5 triple axels were attempted in the ladies competition :luv17: Hopefully now Rika can work on landing hers in the SP and Liza can add another one to her FS to make things even more interesting I would love them both to be on the GPF podium.
The entire ladies event was very enjoyable. Honourable mentions: Mariah B. and Alena L., who were so happy after their FSs

The men's event was frustrating and hard to enjoy because of the number of errors but I'm happy for Matteo and Sergei :agree:

Interspectator said:

NHK VIEWING PARTY REACTIONS:
Shoma Uno
We were all expecting and really hoping for someone to do a good performance and since Shoma started off quad after quad we got very interested. Looking at his layout (like Yuzu and Nathan) looks like a joke because the difficulty is so high compared to others. Until the very end we were wondering whether he would get the combos in, but he couldn’t this time.
“He looks like he needs a nap”
“His left arm is the most tired”
“He’s going to the Final, exciting”

Voronov was the last skater and everyone was now cheering him on.
“I feel so betrayed. Where is the lace? Where is the mesh Voronov?”
“Well, at least this costume has got ventilation”
At this point we cheered everything. We cheered for all his jumps, his spins and his steps. When he finished we cheered with the crowd.

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The Shoma and Sergei comments ARE LITERALLY ME I wish I could watch comps with your family Thank you for sharing it with us


Only watched men and ladies so:
Men:
Shoma - boy I love you but get it together before you have to face Yuzuru and Nathan again. I'm in love with Shoma's SP this year, please give it to us clean again!
Sergei - yaaas uncle Sergei! I was hoping for a medal and WOW another silver for a Silver Fox (like Brezina in Fin I mean)
Dima Aliev - gosh Dima, why?! His feel for the music is incredible and the gap between the TES and PCS was just painful. I thought he might overtake Kolyada at some point but for now they are just both a hot mess and Voronov is grinning at them from the podium.
Matteo - not clean and yet hopped on the podium, speaks volume about his quality! Love Matteo, get that quad boy!
Deniss - now that's my biggest dissapointment I think. Such superb SS, spins, but without the jumps it's all just null. Is it because he works on that quad so much?
Zhou - well, Vincent is not my piece of cake so I'll only say you can see he's URs withous the slomo which is bad.
Kevin -

Ladies:
RIKA - wholy moly! Rika just destroyed the ladies! Imagine her score if she didn'l fall on that axel in SP... I just fell in love with her, her FS is one of the best things this season, I pray she'll keep this together and win IdF and GPF!
Satoko - just sublime skating, no hestitation whatsoever, just a pure pleasure to watch. Well deserved silver for Satton here, her programs are just superb and she delivers with quality every time.
Tuktik - Liza has the TES that's for sure, I'm just not a fan of either of her programs, I find them a little lacking. But it's great to see her on the podium again.
Mai Mihara - I was so surprised she didn't get the bronze, she was amazing but I guess she can't take clean Liza with her fairly clean 3As.
Eunsoo - oh dear such a beautiful skater but failed to deliver the FS. I still have high hopes for her though, I have a huge sentiment for her because you can obviously see Queen Yuna's influence on her.
Mariah Bell - one of my favorite FS's of the season finally delivered clean! I think Mariah is one of the best spinners at this point, just PERFECT spins.
Maria Sotskova - girl is all over the place right now, have to wait and see what happens next. Not a fan of her SP at this point.

I am so much in love with the Japanese ladies newfound love for spirals, this makes me even more of an Japan Uber Fan, arigato gozaimasu.
Also I'd like to take a minute of silence for my nonsense NHK predictions

Sam-Skwantch said:

Zhenya wasn’t here though so that’s a bit off topic but I do think Rika has positioned herself in a great position in the eyes of the judges.

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It’s perfectly on topic. This event set up a dramatic context for Grenoble.

- The highlight for me was definitely the Ladies. Olympic Games quality! Rika, Satoko and Liza, well done ladies!

- Fantastic performance by Mariah, both programs fit her to a T.

- Suprised even as I am writing this, but Sotskova's FS? She did not skate very well, but I do like the program.

- Men SP shall not be even mentioned

- Shoma's Moonlight Sonata was spectacular.

- Sergei's two clean skates, especially extremely emotional FS. Missing Denis terribly, and to think that he will not have a chance to work with Sergei on developing it.

- The first Gold for H/B and awesome FD by Disco Brits!

Thank you NHK Trophy from the bottom of my heart. Up until now I had not been really interested in this season. But then you happened and suddenly I am so excited!!!

Highlights for me:
*The great supportive crowd, as always!!
*The Parsons, the British, and Hawayek/Baker in ice dance. :luv17:
*The ladies! They may end up being as interesting as the men this year.
*Mariah Bell - if she can skate like that at Nationals she can challenge for the title.
*So happy for Matteo Rizzo! Hope he does well at Europeans. :cool14:
*The Knierims winning the bronze, wow!:yes2:

I forgot to mention, Rika is only the second instance I can think of where a host pick actually won the Grand Prix event they wouldn't have gotten otherwise (the first is Kaetlyn Osmond at 2012 SCI).

moonvine said:

I didn't know Taylor Swift was so popular in Japan. I seemed to hear a lot of Taylor Swift.

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Not related to the thread. Taylor will have a concert in Japan this November. That must be why.

The ladies event was EVERYTHING. Everyone did so well!

Rika made this entire grand prix more exciting. I was not invested in this season at all but everything changed when Rika Kihira attacked. XD

Satoko delivered two beautiful programs again. Her SP is my favorite of all programs this season. She did her jumps better at Skate America but still, her jumps are improving. And her artistry is just like a fine wine, gets better and better. She's even more expressive now.

Liza!!! Great jumps and performance! But still I find her programs lacking in terms of variety and quality. Her jumps deserve higher GOEs tho. Her Lutz is awesome.

Eunsoo did so well in the short program. I'm super proud. I hope she comes back stronger next event.

Overall, NHK is the best event for me by a long mile. I look forward to IdF.