And now we have finally a new Japanese National Champion... Shoma is scheduled to interview Yuma as the new Champion tonight so will try to post when it's up somewhere.
Also isn't it fitting that at the first Nationals after Shoma's retirement, the 1-2 is Yuma and Rio, who both have expressed their admiration and look up to Shoma a lot. I think Shoma has always uphold the value of this competition throughout his career and it makes perfect sense that the skaters who looked up to him the most were able to deliver when it counted.
P.S. LOL Yuma said he is inspired by Shoma for the starfish:
"After his performance, he sprawled out on the ice and was showered with cheers. When asked about this performance, he said, "I saw (Uno) Shoma's performance once, and I thought I'd give it a try if I performed well in the final performance." However, in the performance just before Kagiyama, 16-year-old Nakata Rio (TOKIO Inkarami) performed a perfect performance and was the first to perform the sprawling out performance. "Rio did it first, but I wanted to try it, so I gave it a go," he said."