I must admit I’m quite satisfied with the ending for this series. I did find that the ending didn’t have as big an impact if it was a longer series. Over the course of 12 episodes we see Tazusa change quite a bit. Even after getting 4th place, thus no medal, she was still completely satisfied without any regret. Not having her win a medal was probably the best choice, things worked out well that way. I thought her performance was good though. It looked a lot more skillful than all of her previous performances. The best scene was probably the last scene between Tazusa and Pete. It was a pretty nice farewell scene. The epilogue was pretty decent too, but I wish it was a bit longer.

Overall the series isn’t something all that memorable. It did have its entertaining moments though. Hearing Kawasumi Ayako speak English has been fun. I thought the art was decent for the series. There were times when I felt they could have done a better job, but all in all it wasn’t too bad. This is definately not a series for everybody. There are better series that are somewhat similar. If you want to watch good performance along with countless other positive aspects take a look at “Kaleido Star”. If you want a premise similar to this series but with a lot more emotional impact, then you’re better off watching “Full Moon wo Sagashite”. In the end this is probably just an average series on my list.

This is the first episode of the Olympics. I’m sure the seiyuu’s tried their best to speak English, but I found it difficult to understand them. I ended up depending on the Japanese subtitles to figure out what they were saying. I thought it was kind of unfortunate we don’t really get to see the performance of the other top skaters. I guess with the little time they have left in the series they couldn’t afford to do that. Pete’s time is almost up, but we still have one episode to go.

Tazusa realizes the day of the Olympics is also Pete’s last day. She pretty much struggles with the idea that Pete won’t be around anymore for most of the episode. Since there are only two episodes left I guess it’s too late to develop the other skaters much. One problem I can see happening is the ending not being so great. They haven’t done enough character development for Tazusa and Pete for us to feel attached to either of them.

This episode revolves all around misunderstandings. It focused more on the comedy side of things. Some of the scenes were pretty hilarious. I personally thought Tazusa accidentally pointing her anger at Mika repeatedly was hilarious. Gotta love Tazusa’s coach. He’s a big comic relief character for the series. From the looks of it Pete’s feelings for Tazusa are starting to show. Tazusa may quite possibly feel something too, but then again Pete’s quite dead.

This week we get to see just how much the mass media dislikes Tazusa. But now that the scandal involving the mass media has been resolved it will probably be a while before we hear their disrespectful comments again. This was the first time we got to hear about Tazusa’s family. I’m not sure if it’ll be an issue that will come up again later on. For the time being Tazusa managed to secure her ticket as the Japanese representative for the Olympics.

So we get to see Tazusa’s new program in this episode. Honestly I can’t say I liked all the “extra” animation they put in. The scenes with the “waitressing as skating” ruined it for me. Anyways, Tazusa gets selected as an Olympic competitor so we’ll probably see the other top world skaters in the near future. They included a “skating tutorial” at the end of the episode. I think that was a good idea since it explains what a specific technique refers to.

Tazusa comes up with a whole new program with the help of Pete because of one of her rivals. It looks like her new act will be using an old jazz song. I’m interested in seeing what her new act will look like. Since I don’t have any knowledge on skating techniques I’ll just have to base the quality of the act on how flashy it is and how people react to it.

In the beginning of this episode we see a Russian figure skater who has the same act as Tazusa. I guess that’s another rival on her list. The rest of the episode was just filler. Towards the end of the episode we get to learn about Pete. We don’t really learn anything new per se. If you’ve seen the first episode then it’s quite likely you made the connection between the plane crash and Pete. I was hoping to get some other information we couldn’t have implied from the first episode.

This episode was pretty much the first episode where we get to see Tazusa actually make her jumps. Without actual knowledge about skating most of the technical terms they use are Greek to me. Nevertheless it’s still enjoyable because you can easily tell if something is supposed to be impressive or not. As much as I think it’s funny to hear Engrish, Pete should really stop trying to speak English all together. It ruins the high tension atmosphere to suddenly hear Pete’s Engrish. On a lighter note, Tazusa is starting to become curious as to who Pete is.

So Tazusa finds one good use out of Peet in this episode. At this point Peet is still pretty much just a “ghost that inhabits her body”. This is probably the turning point for Tazusa. At least from the way they put it she’s going to nail the triple flip next time. Things will probably get more interesting from now on. I hope they go on to showing more of the other top skaters. It would be nice to learn more about them, just so we get a better feel of what Tazusa is up against.