Hello yes, I’m crying over those snippets of Rika’s new programs. 😭
They’re amazing, HOLY HELL! She really is that skater. She has it all, and the music and choreographies are perfect and suit her to a T. Nothing else I’ve seen this season comes even remotely close to how good these programs look.
The SP: The Fire Within is seriously the perfect music for Rika. It’s beautiful, but also intense and fast, and she’s one of the few skaters with the skill to match that intensity. She’s on 🔥 and absolutely blew me away. And that cartwheel right on the beat of the music? Hell yes!
The FS: Baby, God Bless You is a gorgeous piece of music. Completely different from The Fire Within, but it suits Rika just as well. It reminds me a bit of the soundtrack from Spirited Away - soft, beautiful, melancholy and atmospheric. Stephane’s choreo to it is beautiful and Rika interprets the music perfectly. Just this one little snippet of seeing her skate to it brought tears to my eyes. And when the composer of the music, Shinya Kiyozuka, retweeted it with the comment “I feel like this music was made for her” - Yeah, it really looks like it was. (And what higher compliment can there be than having the composer say that?)
I’m glad IDF was cancelled because it would have been dangerous to have the competition, but I am really sad we won’t see these programs in full until Japanese Nationals. And if the rest of them is as good as these snippets make it look, then I really wouldn’t mind if Rika kept them for the Olympic season. They both have the potential to be as good as Beautiful Storm was.
