Hot Passion | Medalist S2E8 Reaction

The question about the meaning of the episode title actually leads into an interesting quirk of the adaptation; originally "Hot Passion" was the title of the manga chapter featuring Inori and Tsukasa's car ride, and "The Frozen Lake" was the title of the chapter covering the events of this episode. We can only speculate on why the anime thought it was better the other way around.

From u/kkrko in r/anime S2E8 discussion (note: this was written March 2026 in reference to irl JP skating in the footnotes):

"Scoring: The show points out that the 9.7 base points of the Quad Sal(4S) is greater than Hikaru's Triple Axel(3A)'s 8 points. But that isn't the full story. One of the things that constrain a figure skater's program is the Zayak Rule, which, long story short, restricts a figure skater to 7 triple jumps (8 if they can do a 3A) in a program. But if you'll notice, a Novice A program has up to 9 jumps in 6 jumping passes. So even if you can do a 3A, you're still forced to do a double jump somewhere in there. But if you can do a Quad[*], that means you can replace a double jump, not a triple jump. Inori's last program had a 3S+Double Toeloop(2T) combo. If she upgrades that 2T into a 3T and does her 4S in the 3T slot, she's gaining a massive 8.6 points, more than canceling out Hikaru's 3A. What's more, Hikaru can't actually do this with her 3A. She has to replace the 2A (3.3 points) not a 2T because she can't put the 2A in the back half of a combo due to the specific ruleset Medalist is set in. Inori has to make up for lacking a 3Lz though, so Inori's advantage isn't that clear. But then again, she learned a quad in one hour. Who knows what she can do in a week?

Health and Sustainability: This is a big one. There's a big controversy in figure skating right about banning quads entirely from women's figure skating, saying that they're just inherently too unhealthy for skaters. Especially with Russian skaters who jump quads with bad technique, you get the "disposable champions" phenomenon, who after peaking and winning the Olympics at age 15 or 16, end up crippled for the rest of their lives. One skater can't even sit down without pain due to the stress her back got put into. Still, quads in women's skating are new enough that we don't know if these injuries are inherent to quads or that they're just down to bad technique. We just had the first couple of women over 17 to land quads in international competition last year, and the 3A, while still rare, is getting more common[**].

The question now is where Medalist stands in this controversy. Between Mika's broken leg, Inori's Shin splints, and Tsukasa's broken ribs, the show is obviously very aware of how injuries and health play a big factor in figure skating. Will Inori face consequences 3 years down the line? 5 years? How aware is she of this potential trade she's making? I'll also note that most female skaters lose their quads as they grow and their bodies change. Is Inori aware that she might lose this quad in the future? How will she react? There's a lot of drama there and I really want to know if Tsukasa let Inori know all of this.

Fame: Skaters with quads are rare, female ones even more so. Just jumping quads in practice is going to draw a lot of eyes towards Inori. People will still be skeptical, because there's plenty of skaters who post jumps in practice that they never end up doing in competition. But this being a story, you know Inori is going to use that quad in Nationals. And if she lands it, that's going to raise the expectations of people around her a lot. That's good, in that people will give her more support and possibly even get her a spot as a designated skater. But expectations also comes with pressure and what happened to IRL self-proclaimed "Quad God" Ilia Malinin last Olympics shows how that can go very wrong.

Also, on how realistic is this? Well obviously not at all. There are aspects that have happened irl. The first woman to land a quad, Miki Ando, did do it with the 4S and not the 4T. Mao Shimada landed a clean 4T enroute to setting the record for scores in Novice A (120.03) so a novice jumping a quad isn't completely unprecedented. And there's certainly skaters who can do quads but skipped triple axels. But what really makes it impossible is the speed. 1 hour is barely any time. But more than that, one thing I've read (though I've since lost the source) is that if you want to learn a quad, you have to start when you're learning your triples. Your triple technique needs to have 'room' to grow into a quad. So it's a bit crazy that Inori just 'stumbled' into a technique that can easily be grown into a quad." [***]

[*] and a triple jump on the back half of a combo but last episode implied that Inori can already do that

[**] 8 Triple Axels in Japan Nationals this year!

[***] Though if I had to steelman for Medalist, remember that it was actually Natchin who taught Inori to jump triples during their joint training camp. Natchin did jump quads in practice as a junior, so it's possible that her technique was always one that can be expanded to a quad

One of the things that I like about this development is how it validates Tsukasa's decision to put a risky and difficult combo at the end of Inori's Chubu block program aiming for gold. Most of the other coaches were aghast at the idea of risking her spot at Nationals just to win a block tournament, but that win is what induced Coach Uobuchi to work with Inori in the first place, which led to today's session and Inori learning the quad. Inori would have gone into Nationals with a much weaker program if she hadn't taken that gold.

As to whether Inori is attending school: yes, she definitely is. It actually comes up in a later manga chapter that Tsukasa made her promise not to cut school to practice more. Today is probably a special case though, as her dad being on a business trip and her mom working today (which was the explanation for why neither came along) would suggest that today is probably not on the weekend.