Inori, though petite for her age, is filled with potential, determination, and ambition. She is training intensively under her coach, Tsukasa, for the upcoming All-Japan Novice Championship. With only a month left to master the triple lutz and flip, Tsukasa enlists the help of Kakeru Uobuchi, a specialist in jumps. Uobuchi makes quite an impression at the skating club when he arrives with a device resembling a fishing rod with a harness. As soon as Inori dons the harness, she discovers it to be a fantastic tool. Under Uobuchi’s guidance, she can practice and refine her jump techniques mid-air.

The young skaters admire the harness so much that Tsukasa decides to purchase one for the club. However, during one session while supporting Inori, Tsukasa suddenly loses his balance. To prevent Inori from getting hurt mid-jump, he skillfully manages to fall, absorbing the impact himself and holding onto the pole. Although injured, he stands up, reassures everyone, including a worried Inori, that he’s okay. After a hospital visit, he learns he has a cracked rib, a painful condition that needs time to heal. Unable to assist Inori with the harness, he reaches out to Uobuchi, who is in Nagoya, arranging a six-hour drive for further coaching.

Back on the ice with Uobuchi, the jump expert offers Inori some unexpected advice. “Inori, I think you could perfect your triple lutz within an hour or so. However, if you’re willing to set that aside, I can train you to do a quadruple salchow.” With the championship fast approaching, Inori faces a tough decision. Successfully executing a quadruple salchow could significantly boost her competitiveness. Which path will she choose…?

The pace and pressure of competitive figure skating for young hopefuls are again brought to vivid life in the seventh volume of Medalist. We’ve seen Inori (coached and encouraged by Tsukasa) make remarkable progress over the last volumes but things are really starting to get very serious now as the All-Japan Novice Championship will bring her into competition with her inspiration, the prodigiously gifted Hikaru. We really feel the pressure on both Tsukasa and the young skater as the decisions that have to be made will directly affect everything Inori’s dreamed of achieving. If she makes the wrong decision, will she regret it when she takes to the ice to compete? A later chapter reminds us of the pressures of competing as it reintroduces us to Ema and her coach Yudai as well as some formidable contestants Inori hasn’t yet competed against. Quiet Ema is touchingly mature about how things go when she’s pitted against Suzu Kamoto in her block and things don’t quite work out on the ice for her as planned. “You don’t need to console me, okay?” she says to Yudai with a brave smile. “I’m used to bouncing back, so be there for me…” And this is a salutary reminder that for every three contestants that ascend the winners’ podium; there are so many more who try their best but don’t quite make it. Will this be the case for Inori too?

There are some nice moments for Tsukasa too in this volume. We see how stoical he is when he drives Inori all the way to Nagoya for more coaching while still healing from the broken rib. But we also see another side when he meets up with old friend and fellow ice dancer Kohei, now head coach at another skating club. The shadow of Jun Todaka still haunts Tsukasa, and Inori is excited and apprehensive about competing against Hikaru at last. Volume 8 is going to undoubtedly bring both coaches and students head-to-head again as we find out if Inori has nailed the quadruple salchow for her routine.

Tsurumaikada’s beautiful drawings of the skaters in action are still one of the pleasures of reading this series – but it’s the personal interactions, rivalries, triumphs and bitter disappointments of the competitors and their coaches that are the biggest draw. It’s a shame that there are no more of the mangaka’s attractive colour illustrations but there’s plenty of extras to compensate, especially six 4-koma panels and a character page for Kakeru Uobuchi (not forgetting the humorous little cartoons between chapters).

Kevin Gifford continues to provide an excellent translation for Kodansha (there are no translation notes) and lettering for the print edition is by Scott O’Brien. Volume 8 is due out in print in May but if you want to read ahead in digital, Volumes 8-11 are currently available.

Medalist © TSURUMAIKADA/Kodansha Ltd.

Our review copy from Kodansha was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.