Kazuki Tomono | Page 198 | Golden Skate

Kazuki Tomono

It would be interesting if Kazuki ever did an in depth analysis on his take of American culture. From his photos he certainly loves the food. There is a rink Shoma trained at in the Midwest for a long time. If Kazuki ever went there for a bit to train, he might think “so this is where my friend was” and get inspiration.
 
Oh, you changed the avatar? 👀
Yup. It was time 😄

Some updates from yesterday:

- Kazuki's latest article on non-no was once again the top article of the week! I wonder when they'll publish Part 2.
- Meanwhile, Mainichi will publish a new article today (20 June)
- Kazuki also updated his NowVoice, 'Looking back on PIW Yokohama'
- Finally, non-no published a cool article about One Piece on Ice, which included an interview with Kazuki!

The interview isn't very big, so I'll post it here:

Q. How did you feel when you decided to appear?

A. "One Piece" is a big name content that everyone knows. "Alabasta" is one of my favorite episodes, and I was very happy to hear about it.
To be honest, I'm worried about what kind of show it will be, but I'm more excited about things I've never done before.
I've always wanted to try an ice show with this concept, so I'm honored to be able to participate in this first attempt.

Q. In addition to the overcrowded schedule in the off-season, it was the timing before the full-scale start of the season, but did you have any hesitation about appearing?

A. not at all. I didn't think about anything anymore, I just wanted to get out, so I didn't hesitate.
Rather than for my future after retirement, I want to do it simply. The desire to be on this show won out.

Q. What kind of person is Koza from Tomono-san's point of view?

A.
A passionate man who loves his country more than anyone else. He became the leader of the rebel army because he wanted to protect his beloved country and everyone. He's actually a kind-hearted character and I think he's a really nice guy.

Q. What do you have in common with yourself?
A.
It's something I say myself, but it's a hot place. It's the same with the strength of my feelings for what I like, and I think that the roots are quite similar. I feel like Koza was the one that made me fall into darkness (laughs).

Q. Is there a difference in your attitude from the usual ice shows?
A.
I don't think it's easy to play a character, so I think I need a different way of expressing myself. This time, there are a lot of people who like ONE PIECE, not just skating fans . And I would be very happy if this show sparked a new interest in skating. On the other hand, I hope that people who like skating will like ONE PIECE after watching it.

Q. What is your own point that you want people to see?

A. This time, I'm not going to put myself out there, but I'm going to be on stage as Koza, so the most important thing is to be in this role.
Even if you don't know me, it would be great if people who saw me would say "I'm glad you played Koza".
 
YASSSS WE HAVE A PROGRAMME ANNOUNCEMENT!


I listened to the song and it's a beautiful, slow piano piece. Which means that after a season in which he has two uptempo, fast music programmes, he now has two 'slow music' programmes 😂 I'm now very curious about the music cut and the composition of the programme since the musical accents are fairly subtle, so the choreo needs to be sharp. I think if done right, it has the potential to be insanely beautiful.

Meanwhile, Mainichi published their latest Kazuki article yesterday. It's the last article of the series about his views on figure skating, but the column will continue.
 
With holding my opinion..on Kazuki's programs until I see them..I never want to see the "Kazuki" taken out of "Kazuki"..
 
^ Yes, seconded. I've never heard of the song before, and I'll wait with listening to it until I see Kazuki's program to avoid any hasty conclusions. I'd normally say he's not the ideal type of skater for slow music, but then, I was mistaken about Roxanne which fit him very well in the end, so I'll just reserve any judgement and wait what Kazuki surprises me with. :)
 
With holding my opinion..on Kazuki's programs until I see them..I never want to see the "Kazuki" taken out of "Kazuki"..
I think there's no danger of that happening! Kazuki has a way of making any music his own.

I remember there was a lot of criticism when he announced Moulin Rouge as his free in 2019 for exactly this same reason (it wasn't 'Kazuki' enough), and it turned out to be one of his most iconic programmes.

Hell, we were even concerned about La La Land in the beginning because it's such a tired warhorse and it ended up being great!
 
Reading comments..Both MR and LLL had crescendos.. as I said..I will wait..
Halcion has a crescendo too, although more subtle. I think a lot will depend on the music cut and the composition of the programme, but I think it'll be a good challenge for him.

Although I LOVE Kazuki's uptempo programmes, I can see why he's trying to show a different side of him this season, with a more mature and sophisticated vibe. I think his 'Tsugumi' EX has showed that his skating has more depth and emotional maturity now, so I'm looking forward to it.
 
Halcion has a crescendo too, although more subtle. I think a lot will depend on the music cut and the composition of the programme, but I think it'll be a good challenge for him.

Although I LOVE Kazuki's uptempo programmes, I can see why he's trying to show a different side of him this season, with a more mature and sophisticated vibe. I think his 'Tsugumi' EX has showed that his skating has more depth and emotional maturity now, so I'm looking forward to it.
"Halston"? Do u have a link to Kazuki's Tsugumi ex?
 
"Halston"? Do u have a link to Kazuki's Tsugumi ex?
Lol yeah Halston. I'm still getting used to writing the name of the song, sorry! 😂

There are no official links for Tsumugi but if you listen to the song, it's very mellow too. Yet the EX got high praise from everyone who watched it, and many commented he can really pull off any style!
 
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Thank you for the info and support 🥲 This is the original bit in Japanese:
「ショートも作り上げたばかりだから、まだぜんぜん出来ない(笑)。そもそも、今お話ししたように、ちょっとレベルが高いことにあえて挑戦したいなって思っているんで、テクニック的なことも含めて、よりスケーティング技術も何もかも難しくしてるんです。いや、これはやりがいがすごいなって(笑)」
Thank you very much for the original Japanese! I only just noticed this post yesterday, but here is my attempt at a translation:

"Because this short program has only just been created, I still can't do it yet, lol. As I was saying earlier in this story, there are some rather high-level elements on purpose so I will want to challenge them. Just about everything has been made more difficult than before, including technical aspects and skating skills. Uh, this'll totally be worth doing, lol."

Translation notes:
The "technical" here is a "technique" + "-al," (テクニック的) so it could be a matter of making the technique more difficult. But since everything is more difficult, this may be a moot point. 😅

I'm guessing that スケーティング技術 is synonymous with スケート技術 "skating skills," so that's how I translated it.

That last sentence includes the Japanese concept of yarigai (やりがい), which I hadn't known about before. It was translated here as "be worth doing," but yarigai appears to go beyond that scope of meaning. It refers to something (often work) that is challenging yet fulfilling (and is therefore worth doing). I think I also could've translated this as, "Well, this'll be a big challenge, lol." The sense of Kazuki trying to convince himself that it'll be worth it is strong in this sentence. 😂
 
I get what @kwanette means about not wanting "Kazuki" being taken away from "Kazuki" with this FS music choice. It really is different from anything Kazuki has ever done before (Not all instrumental music are the same). But I also think it's a good challenge for a skater of his caliber that is quite reasonable to pursue while he is still active.

Music like "Halston" has no obvious crescendo / climax, which is usually where Kazuki shines with his choreo sequence at the end, regardless of how his jumps went during the program. So that can be a disadvantage, or a chance to grow. I also think the meditative, calm, slow pace throughout will force Kazuki to show polish on every single aspect, both his technical content (jumps and spins specifically) and the skating skills too. It reminds me of the first season Kazuki skated Cinema Paradiso- it is very clear where his skating skills lack because it impacts the smoothness and completion of his movements, and the program became very clunky when he is not able to skate it to its standards- which did improve visibly in the later season when he skated the program again.

Kazuki is an amazing performer but I think the overall polish of his skating can always be worked on, so here comes a FS music that's perfect for that. Since judges like to shower PCS on skaters with better SS but lesser PE, I think this is a worthy endeavor to at least try, and I believe this will result in skill upgrade for him.
 
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Thank you very much for the original Japanese! I only just noticed this post yesterday, but here is my attempt at a translation:

"Because this short program has only just been created, I still can't do it yet, lol. As I was saying earlier in this story, there are some rather high-level elements on purpose so I will want to challenge them. Just about everything has been made more difficult than before, including technical aspects and skating skills. Uh, this'll totally be worth doing, lol."

Translation notes:
The "technical" here is a "technique" + "-al," (テクニック的) so it could be a matter of making the technique more difficult. But since everything is more difficult, this may be a moot point. 😅

I'm guessing that スケーティング技術 is synonymous with スケート技術 "skating skills," so that's how I translated it.

That last sentence includes the Japanese concept of yarigai (やりがい), which I hadn't known about before. It was translated here as "be worth doing," but yarigai appears to go beyond that scope of meaning. It refers to something (often work) that is challenging yet fulfilling (and is therefore worth doing). I think I also could've translated this as, "Well, this'll be a big challenge, lol." The sense of Kazuki trying to convince himself that it'll be worth it is strong in this sentence. 😂
Thank you so much for this! So it sounds like he's speaking about 'technical challenge' as a whole, not necessarily more difficult jumps 🤔
I'm honestly really curious!
I get what @kwanette means about not wanting "Kazuki" being taken away from "Kazuki" with this FS music choice. It really is different from anything Kazuki has ever done before (Not all instrumental music are the same). But I also think it's a good challenge for a skater of his caliber that is quite reasonable to pursue while he is still active.

Music like "Halston" has no obvious crescendo / climax, which is usually where Kazuki shines with his choreo sequence at the end, regardless of how his jumps went during the program. So that can be a disadvantage, or a chance to grow. I also think the meditative, calm, slow pace throughout will force Kazuki to show polish on every single aspect, both his technical content (jumps and spins specifically) and the skating skills too. It reminds me of the first season Kazuki skated Cinema Paradiso- it is very clear where his skating skills lack because it impacts the smoothness and completion of his movements, and the program became very clunky when he is not able to skate it to its standards- which did improve visibly in the later season when he skated the program again.

Kazuki is an amazing performer but I think the overall polish of his skating can always be worked on, so here comes a FS music that's perfect for that. Since judges like to shower PCS on skaters with better SS but lesser PE, I think this is a worthy endeavor to at least try, and I believe this will result in skill upgrade for him.
Yeah I agree with you. One of the main themes of the Misha/Kazuki partnership throughout the years has been exactly expanding what 'Kazuki' means in terms of skating.

You mentioned Cinema Paradiso, that's actually a great example. When it was first announced, there was A LOT of scepticism because it was completely different from what he'd done before. I remember seeing convos on Twitter of people saying that Misha was 'ruining' Kazuki 🤦‍♀️ and yes, the first iteration was a bit clunky, but he loved the programme so much that he brought it back in the Olympic season and nailed it.

Then, came Moulin Rouge. It's easy to see now how it suits his skating, but it wasn't at the time. Again, there was a lot of scepticism etc. In fact, not only Moulin Rouge worked really well, but it also introduced the concept of Kazuki's choreo sequence as a 'thing' - he was seen as a good performer before, but it was Misha who elevated his choreo sequence as the highlight of the programme with Moulin Rouge.

So... yeah. I think at this point we have grounds to trust Misha's choices re: Kazuki. Last couple of seasons Kazuki mainly stayed in his lane with jazzy/upbeat music, and it was great. But now it's time to face a new challenge again. In some ways, this is like the two of them going back to the beginning of their partnership, when Kazuki went to Misha precisely because he wanted Misha to expand his horizons. I think Halston will do just that.
 
You mentioned Cinema Paradiso, that's actually a great example. When it was first announced, there was A LOT of scepticism because it was completely different from what he'd done before. I remember seeing convos on Twitter of people saying that Misha was 'ruining' Kazuki 🤦‍♀️ and yes, the first iteration was a bit clunky, but he loved the programme so much that he brought it back in the Olympic season and nailed it.
Cinema Paradiso was truly memorable for me because I actually can't finish Kazuki's first skate to it at Dreams on Ice 2018. It wasn't fully Kazuki's fault, it's just the dissonance between the music and his past level of skating was so jarring. He was thoroughly outclassed by it. So his vast improvement, not just with the program but also his skating, that I can see when the program came back in 2021-2022 is very meaningful. And he broke 100 with it too 😆 I love when skaters trusted the process and worked hard, despite what the "fans" say.

And I agree re: Misha's partnership with Kazuki. Even if it doesn't pay in dividends immediately, I can at least see the vision and I feel that Misha only wants the best for Kazuki, to continue to improve. For me, even if a new type of program/music doesn't work out, it will benefit the skater in some other way, which we will see somewhere in the future.
 
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Cinema Paradiso was truly memorable for me because I actually can't finish Kazuki's first skate to it at Dreams on Ice 2018. It wasn't fully Kazuki's fault, it's just the dissonance between the music and his past level of skating was so jarring. He was thoroughly outclassed by it. So his vast improvement, not just with the program but also his skating, that I can see when the program came back in 2021-2022 is very meaningful. And he broke 100 with it too 😆 I love when skaters trusted the process and worked hard, despite what the "fans" say.

And I agree re: Misha's partnership with Kazuki. Even if it doesn't pay in dividends immediately, I can at least see the vision and I feel that Misha only wants the best for Kazuki, to continue to improve. For me, even if a new type of program/music doesn't work out, it will benefit the skater in some other way, which we will see somewhere in the future.
Exactly! LOL Dreams on Ice 2018 brings back memories... I remember the shock when we first saw CinePara, and we could tell that Kazuki was doing his best but yeah, he didn't really have the skills to pull it off, bless him.

Later that same season he said CinePara was his favourite programme, and I couldn't really understand why. Then he brought it back for the Olympic season and when he finally broke 90 (and later 100) I finally understood. Like you said, it's about trusting the process 🥹
 
Kazuki updated his NowVoice, this time he talked about Ice Explosion Fukuoka

Also, Mainichi's latest 'Bluepost' podcast released yesterday had a Kazuki theme
 
Kazuki's key ONE PIECE on ice visual as Koza!!!!



I don't know if this is the costume they will use for the ice show or just for the key visual photoshoot (so far both him as Koza and Marin as Vivi looks like they're wearing normal clothes to me) but Kazuki looks great and very in-character!

(Also despite the key visual not 100% matching the anime, at least for me I think it's better, since I don't think pure cosplay will work for an ice show)
 
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