This season finally premiered the adaptation to the anime of “Medalist“, Based on the manga of Tsurumaikadaand it is already becoming one of the great successes of the moment. But carrying the spectacular artistic skating of paper to the screen was not easy. According to Shinpei Yamashita, a member of the production team, encouraging these movements fluently and realism required a very careful 2D and 3D animation mixture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3suaiwfyp0
The story follows Tsukasa Akeuraji, a former skater who trains Inori, an 11 -year -old girl with the dream of reaching the Olympic Games. But of course, in an artistic skating anime, ice movements are key. «No matter how exciting a story is, if you don't feel realistic, it loses impact”Yamashita said in an interview with Manta Web.
From the beginning, the team knew that it would not be easy to maintain the quality of the manga without compromising the quality of skating scenes. They looked for several studies to produce anime, but many told them that it was almost impossible to achieve it without lowering quality. In the end, they decided to work with the ENGI studies, a company with experience in 2D and 3D animationknown for participating in titles such as “Vinland Saga” and “Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury”.
In order for the “Medalist” skating scenes to feel authentic, the production was made in collaboration with the National Skating Federation of Japan and the TV Sports Department Asahi. In addition, they had the help of former professional skating Akiko Suzuki, who was responsible for choreographing the skating sequences.
The team also visited the Kouwa Minato Sports & Culture Center in Nagoya, where professional skating such as Yuhana Yokoi and Hinano Isoobe made live demonstrations. Although they used movement capture technology, there was a problem: «A skating track is too large for current Motion Capture teams, and although technology existed, it would be very expensive”Yamashita explained. So they used a combination of optical recordings and monitoring of key points in the body of the skaters.
Another challenge was to make the movements in the anime feel equally impressive as in the manga, without losing coherence. «A beginner skater does not jump so high, but in 3D we can move the camera and make it look more spectacular», Said Yamashita. Basically, they played with the perspective and angles so that even the most basic routines were exciting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YM7LSDJAA44
And it worked for them. Until now, “Medalist”He has six episodes issued and already positioned himself as the most popular winter-2025 anime (January-March) on platforms such as Niconico. Despite the obstacles in production, Yamashita is happy with the result: «We really managed to merge 3D and 2D. There were times when I hesitated if we would achieve it, but I think the effort was worth it».
Fountain: Web mantan
（C ）つるまいかだ・講談社／メダリスト製作委員会
(Tagstotranslate) Medalis
