The Best Figure Skater Ever: Yuzuru Hanyū. 羽生 結弦

Hello! I just found out about hanyu yuzuru, so I guess that makes me a baby fanyu now haha, and I was wondering if you know any videos or sites of where to start to get to know about him more , thank you!!

Hi! I'm so happy you found out about Yuzu. It's unusual for skaters to gain new fans after they've gone pro. So, that's your first indication that Yuzu is a very unique skater and person.

(I strongly encourage people who see this post and have more resources to add, to either reblog or comment!)

Here's how I started to learn more about him:

1. Planet Hanyu - it's a forum that has a huge video archive (accessible if you sign up). There's a section called Yuzuru's journey with documentaries and interviews and competition footage + the new content after he retired. It's the most complete thing I can think of. There are also sections by year, competitions and ice shows.

However, the first step I took when learning about Yuzu was by reading this page from the forum: The Great Glittering Glossary. It's a comperehensive break down of lingo about Yuzu and it also helps you understand more about him.

I would also add Planet Hanyu's Twitter account - they make regular posts - and their #OnThisDay tag is very helpful to find vids and links with Yuzu content

2. The Yuzuru Hanyu wikipedia page. Yes. It's a very good, detailed resource, constantly updated, and very reliable. His page has the status of Good Article (see here what it means)

3. For more recent stuff (starting with 2019), I highly recommend the Axel with Wings blog. It's a team which works on providing subtitles and they also have some articles translated.

4. Frankly, the most important part for me, it's watching his competition programs - I watched on YouTube all his competitive programs at all competitions he participated. And what I could not freely find on YT because of geo-blocking, I found in the video archive of Planet Hanyu. The best way to understand his excelence, also, is to watch full competitions (or at least the group he participated in competitions). He will definitely stand out. But you can't gather info about him like this, except about his skating and how he expressed himself through it.

5. Google a lot. You find something in the Glossary that's unclear or a reference about an interview or something not linked, look it up. Chances are Google will spit out a Tumblr link that has fan-translations of content not available on the Planet.

6. His various ice show performances. Different from competitive programs (sometimes) and they allow Yuzu the freedom to express his artistry much more than competitions did.

I hope this helps. Learning about Yuzu is an on-going process, it never really ends. I began learning about him in February (shortly before the Beijing Olympics). Up until March/April, I was still finding "new" info. Even now, from time to time, there's old stuff about him that I find out - like yesterday I learnt he sometimes ate at McDonald's.

Keep an eye out on these Twitter accounts for fast translations of Yuzu content - this is not an easy way to learn about Yuzu since Twitter is a pretty messy place for archiving. Nevertheless, if you plan on keeping up with current content about Yuzu/featuring Yuzu, these accounts are great.

1) Marika

2) Lae

3) LGeorgin

4) SweetYuzu

5) Tsukiyomi

6) Sarah

7) This one is a bit more organized and recent: YuzuruHanyu_Eng

(Also, curate your timeline very well - there are a lot of antis and sometimes drama that's better left out).

Of course, don't forget about Yuzu's YouTube Channel, opened on 7th August and also give him a follow on Twitter & Insta. News about his first self-produced solo ice show, Prologue, will be shared on those platforms (you can find the links on my pinned post).

I truly hope this helps and that you enjoy your journey as a Fanyu.