I Just Finished Sk8 The Infinity

I just finished Sk8 the Infinity

first off "queer subtext" my ass, it is front and center you can't NOT see it.

second, oh my god the theme of love and having a passion for something is done in a way that scratches my brain in the best way. The three main relationships, Reki and Langa, Joe and Cherry, Tadashi and Adam, whether you think they are gay or not they totally are all highlight this dynamic of loving skating versus getting lost in the competition.

Reki and Langa are the clearest example of this. Reki loves skating, he may not be the best at it but he truly loves it. He understands the tricks and the skills, he knows it so well that he can make boards specifically to suit nuanced skills like Reki's because he loves it. He has the passion and the spirit for it which is the central thing he learns during his character arc in the show. But even outside his arc, Reki embodies the spirit of skating, that love of skating. That's what makes his race with Adam so important and that's present in why Langa feels the way he does when he's skating with Reki other than being gay. Langa falls in love with skating and Reki but then he starts to get lost in the competition of it all. Once he races with Adam (who is the antithesis of Reki's skating spirit), his love for skating is poisoned by Adam's "love" of skating. He starts focusing on skills, getting better, reaching Adam's level, he starts losing the spirit of skating. He loses Reki. Once Langa realizes what he's missing, he begins seeking it out again, looking for Reki. But Reki hasn't come back yet, the fun of skating is dead still until Reki has his own realization. Something that is brought back in part by the two other "Reki's" of these relationships: Joe and Tadashi.

Joe and Cherry's is the one that is in the background the most, but it's clear they're meant to parallel Reki and Langa's relationship. While the dynamic is not as extreme and the other two relationships it is still present. Joe loves skating, even if he wasn't the best at skating he'd still be doing it. That is made clear in his conversation with Reki when he gets him to come see Langa at the tournament. He understands that. His race against Adam isn't about proving his skill, he wants to beat Adam because he hates what Adam has become and what Adam is embodying. He wants to punch him in the face. Cherry however does want to prove his skill to Adam. He wants to beat Adam because he's better than him. In a sense, Adam's "love" tainted his enjoyment of skating too. Hence the AI board, the board giving him everything down to the millisecond, to the decimal so he could get the best time possible. I honestly believe part of Joe's worry during Cherry and Adam's race is because he knows Cherry is going to get lost in trying to surpass Adam and forget the fun of skating. Then Cherry gets slammed in the face quite literally by this, he's forced to face what's being going on through this injury. We don't see the resolution of this since it's regulated to the background, but it's still clear these two are meant to parallel Reki and Langa's dynamic towards skating. Also there's the whole thing where Adam is like Cherry's ex and Joe wants to fight the ex that hurt Cherry yadda yadda yes I ship Matchablossom what's new.

Tadashi and Adam are the most extreme of this dynamic going in a negative direction. Adam as I stated is the antithesis to the spirit of skating. He's completely forgotten what it meant to skate and is now tainting every other skater around him with this "love" he has. He's so lost in this darkness that it's seeping into the other skaters like Langa. All that matters is being the best, to crush everyone else below his level so he's completely alone. He's ruining skating for everyone else. Tadashi is the spirit of skating for him. Tadashi is the one that introduced him to skating and led him to fall in love with it as a comfort and an escape from the horrible environment he was being raised in. Skating with Tadashi was his escape. Tadashi was a comfort. But then Adam is found out by his father and Tadashi makes a mistake, but not the one he believes for most of the show. Instead of leading Adam back to the fun of skating, he lets Adam trample it. Rid of it. Put it completely in the background because he blames himself for what happened to Adam that day. And Adam doesn't rid of Tadashi because skating is still a comfort to him, though twisted and abused. He refuses to let it go. To let him go. Tadashi then tries to completely take away skating from Adam and then tries to get Reki to abandon it too. However, Tadashi's broken spirit only fuels Reki's back to life. Then, as he watches the race, Tadashi realizes where he went wrong with Adam. What the true love for skating was, not what Adam thinks it is.

This spirit of skating versus Adam is why Reki's race, Tadashi's presence in the tournament, and why Langa's race are so central. Tadashi including himself in the tournament is Adam being forced to see the dead spirit of skating that he's forgetting and it pisses him off. Reki's race is him directly being pitted against the living embodiment of that spirit of skating and while he does win the race, he still gets his ass beat. He's not stronger than it. Then his race with Langa is where he finally returns to it. Langa is like Adam, but he's fully back to the spirit of skating. He's had his character arc and now Langa helps Adam return to it as someone who experienced to a certain level what Adam is experiencing. Then Langa wins the race and the spirit of skating, the true love of skating, defeats Adam's "love." And Adam leaves the race changed, he remembers the real love of skating, he returns from that darkness he was in. The Adam of their childhood begins to return to Tadashi.

This main conflict in the show that's present in these three relationships is presented so brilliantly and it's what makes Sk8 the Infinity not just another sports anime with some possible queer subtext or baiting. It reminds me of Yuri on Ice and how the relationship to ice skating is reflected in Yuri and Victor's relationship, a show that I absolutely adore (and yes I wept profusely over it when the announcement came out). I desperately hope that Sk8 the Infinity does not receive the same fate because this show has something great that I want to see continued, it's almost a spiritual successor to Yuri on Ice to me.

Now I need the studio to let them lean into the very very very gay tones of these relationships like Yuri on Ice because holy shit all three of them have it. I thought Reki and Langa were going to kiss in the back of that van, Cherry and Joe kept acting like a couple and the english dub only emphasized that, and then that last scene with Adam and Tadashi hello????