Thanks a lot for the information on I&B
Men
Oda's "Chaplin" LP will certainly become of the highlights of the season and might be a signature piece for him, but his SP left me puzzled. "Fast & Furious" is not exactly the style I associate with him and while he did the elements very well I could not get an "overall" picture. He clearly won the LP hands down, excellent quality of every single element + equally strong character interpretation, but overall impression is a bit juniorish for me. I don't know if it's the theme or his size or combination of both, but he just does not have the presence some other competitors do. I think even Rippon skates "bigger".
At the press conference Verner launched into some 5-minute long speech to explain the story behind his short program, which is quite an achievement considering how little choreography he actually has in it. Still he was in league of his own in the SP, even though at the moment he seems to falling off and back into the music. A new "somber" image in the LP was unexpected, but it seems to work for him. 4T3T was a thing of beauty, but I guess he just cannot avoid missing "easier" triples in the second half...
Rippon was a pleasure to watch, so smooth and fluid, but I cannot get rid of the feeling that if you take out two 3A attempts his LP would be a perfect program for Kim. I could almost picture her doing it... very distracting. "Double-tano" lutz was cool, but seemed to be underrotated. Kudos on landing 3A in SP.
Joubert's SP did not get any better with time and without jumps it was almost painful to watch. His LP, however, is pretty good by his standarts, it's powerful and not too challenging choreographically, but at the same time it does not look completely pointless and does create a certain image. I wonder what is wrong with him, his jumps simply do not work. He looked very thin, with much sharper facial features than I remember from the past, I wonder if he was ill...
Ponsero has grown on me in the past couple of season, but he does need to land those jumps to be competitive. Preaubert improved his posture somewhat, but his SP is just lame, not even remotely funny. LP is slightly better (at least it is not as uncomfortable to watch), but empty.
Voronov was challenging Yagudin in SP and left a lot to be desired. But 4T3T combination was great, I think it might have been the first time he landed it (he used to do 4-2 in the past). How disappointing it must be to have pretty much a skate of your life to be compeletely overlooked by both jugdes and audience. LP was disappoining.
China's Chao Yang has the most weird music arrangment in his LP, kind of "oops, my iPod got stuck of shuffle", three or four competely unrelated tunes. Nice jumps, though.
Chipeur's opening 3A in the long was great, but I do not think I remember anything else from either of his programs.
Bradley was obviously aiming for entertaining in both programs, but fell short.
and the japanese fans had lots of fun with us 
I felt like a rockstar surrounded by so many flashes 
(I think the rest of the arena hated us a looooot)
Her 3-3 lost wow factor for me just because I am so used to expecting such quality from her, but her salchow and double axel are better than ever despite difficult transitions in and out. 
and poor Tessa, she looks like a ghost in our pictures with her... Happy Halloween! 
