Winter 2025 Medalist

[Guardian Enzo]

One of the first names on my predicted leak list seems to have hit.

https://twitter.com/Lem_201/status/1...172739584?s=20

[Frontier]

Loli skating ?

[shmaster]

I don't have much hope in this adaptation.
Not until a good studio and high budget are secured.
The paneling, and the powerful emotional delivery is not easy to translate into anime.
If they can't do a superb job, then mind as well leave this thing be.
This is one of those work of art that I don't need a poorly made anime as a distraction.

[Nachtwandler]

Heard a lot of this manga, so I will give it a try.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by shmaster

I don't have much hope in this adaptation.
Not until a good studio and high budget are secured.
The paneling, and the powerful emotional delivery is not easy to translate into anime.
If they can't do a superb job, then mind as well leave this thing be.
This is one of those work of art that I don't need a poorly made anime as a distraction.

Obviously we don’t have any idea who might be involved, but this is a pretty big commercial property in Japan. I would expect a decent budget and one of the more high-end studios.

[BWTraveller]

Didn't know that it was such a big thing in Japan, though I must admit it is very beautifully made.

[Marcus H.]

At the very worst, they would just hire 3DCGI staff for the skating parts.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

At the very worst, they would just hire 3DCGI staff for the skating parts.

I hope not, or at the least I hope they get people that are REALLY good at it. I've seen too many CG bits even in what seem to be popular and well-done series that look like amateurish MMDs at best.

[Nachtwandler]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

Didn't know that it was such a big thing in Japan, though I must admit it is very beautifully made.

I regularly see it at the top of different official manga nominations so it is popular at least between publishing staff.

[Xeiros]

Ice Skating anime are rough to say the least. It is incredibly difficult to animate the sport at a level that can rival the real thing. You need a strong staff and just as importantly a healthy schedule.

The most prominent ice skating anime, Yuri on Ice, had a disastrous production with a combination of poor and outright unfinished animation. In the broadcast version, performances were often riddled with regular cuts to the crowd to try to mask how terribly behind schedule the production was.

This may seem unrelated, but this seasons Tengoku Daimakyou had one of the best final not pre-animated PVs I’ve ever seen. It is a complete production meaning all 13 episodes are already done. Hence the quality of the cuts used and why the show has been arguably the best production of the season with no dips in quality. A strong staff and a healthy schedule.

Unless Medalist is treated the same way and given the tools and time a manga like that would need to shine as an anime, I have no confidence in an anime adaption.

[Guardian Enzo]

Official.

[Guardian Enzo]

And the studio is ENGI. Does not massively fill one with confidence (and I think you can assume the skating will be all or nearly all CGI).

Edit: Yasutaka Yamamoto/Hanada Jukki directing and writing. Pretty solid pair.

[Nachtwandler]

On one hand director and writer are good. On the other hand one of the worst possible studio choices. I will be moderately optimistic still because the manga is popular so Kadokawa may give it a priority.

[Marcus H.]

That sucks. Kadokawa just sent this to ENGI. At the very least, this would be like Blue Period, a great source adapted by a lackluster studio.

EDIT: Apparently Medalist is published by Kodansha. Well that's confusing. Why bring a series to a studio that's basically focused on Kadokawa projects?

[doomrider7]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

That sucks. Kadokawa just sent this to ENGI. At the very least, this would be like Blue Period, a great source adapted by a lackluster studio.

EDIT: Apparently Medalist is published by Kodansha. Well that's confusing. Why bring a series to a studio that's basically focused on Kadokawa projects?

Because they paid in to be part of the committee, possibly a primary.

[Stark700]

January 2025

[Guardian Enzo]

I guess considering the studio it could have been worse, preview-wise.

[Nachtwandler]

The preview is actually decent and a couple of scenes have a really good animation. Surprising.

[Ragashingo]

Yeah! That rail grind and the skating jump were both well done. If that's the level of quality the show will have, its animation won't be any reason to look down on it.