Medalist starts as your typical underdog story, in a sport that is extremely cruel with those who don't start early, someone with a surprising natural talent that didn't have the opportunity to start earlier.
Inori finds Tsukasa, a coach that doesn't believe in himself, who becomes passionate about helping Inori achieve her dream of becoming a gold medalist, being completely captivated by her.
Both Tsukasa and Inori lack confidence in their abilities, since they both started late, but it's because of this that Tsukasa with his new found passion for coaching, wants to make sure Inori will definitely achieve her dreams, and prove to her what took him too long to realize, due to not having anyone to help him with this, it's not too late to start pursuing your dreams and doing what you want to do, what you love. It doesn't matter what people say, you should just go for it.
Both of our characters start off with inner self-hatred for the people they were in the past, but they're able to push eachother to greater highs, as mentor and mentee, and finding a new happiness that wasn't there before, but happiness doesn't last forever
It's not all sunshine and rainbows, Inori struggles deeply with disappointing others, and with people thinking she's not putting her all into this, she's nothing outside of the ice rink, and Tsukasa really struggles whenever he fails in making Inori succeed, feeling inadequate.
Inori, as her own name "prayer" indicates, is a girl whose strength comes from carrying the prayers and hopes of others, only making it more crushing whenever she fails, specially considering her young age, aswell as all of her insecurities that come from having hated herself.
Never being good academically or having anything she excelled at, finally able to find her passion in skating, being good at something, and finding the strength to keep on going when things go south, thanks to Tsukasa as well as her rival, Hikaru, her shining light of hope.
Hikaru is a fairly complex character, a girl that looks down on skating, who only started ice skating because the adults around her wanted her to do so, a girl who is constantly playing the role people want to see, not who she really is, following in the steps of Jun Yodaka.
A girl who sees Inori as her salvation in this world, the two sharing mutual admiration, who eventually breaks through from this role she's playing and starts being her own person, breaking out from her miniature garden, and becoming the light (Hikaru) of hope that Inori needed.
Tsukasa couldn't succeed at any of his dreams, replacing one with another when things went south, but he's now found a new dream, becoming the coach of his ideal, someone he wishes had been there for him when he needed it. He wants nothing more than to help Inori succeed.
Tsukasa's and Inori's dynamic is one of the best you'll ever see, the side cast is also phenomenal, special mention to Iruka in particular, a girl who has lost all sense of normalcy due to her pain but refuses to get hurt any longer and wishes to become the coolest skater ever.
It's not just the writing that is phenomenal in Medalist, the art is absolutely gorgeous too, having a perfect choreography in which you can really feel the movement at any time, as you can see by looking at the past pictures, Tsurumaikada has nailed everything in this series.
There's a lot I could say about this series, and I didn't do it enough justice here but I'll make a longer review when it finishes, if you want a realistic story about hardworking people pursuing their dreams, pushing eachother and dealing with failure, please read Medalist!
