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Echoes of Life Tour
Official logo of the Echoes of Life Tour
Ice show typeTouring solo show
FormatOn-screen narration with live figure skating performances
ThemeMeaning of human life
Duration140 min
Start dateDecember 7, 2024
End dateFebruary 9, 2025
No. of shows7
CountryJapan
Venue
Attendance14,000 (after 1st show)
Cinema live viewingJapan, Hong Kong, Taiwan
StreamingBeyond Live
BroadcastCS TV Asahi
ProducerYuzuru Hanyu (performer)
DirectorMikiko
Organizer
Sponsor
Websiteechoesoflife.jp
Yuzuru Hanyu article series
Skating career
Other works
Solo ice shows
Ensemble ice shows

The Echoes of Life Tour (full title 'Yuzuru Hanyu Ice Story 3rd Echoes of Life Tour') is a solo ice show tour by Japanese figure skater and two-time Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu, organized by TV Asahi, CIC Co., Ltd., and Team Sirius. The tour is scheduled with three stops from December 2024 to February 2025 at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama City, at Hiroshima Green Arena in Hiroshima, and LaLa Arena Tokyo-Bay [ja] in Funabashi.

The Echoes of Life Tour is the third main chapter of the Yuzuru Hanyu Ice Story series, produced and directed by Yuzuru Hanyu in collaboration with Japanese choreographer Mikiko. The story of the show is spun around the meaning and value of human life in the presence of evolving technology and artificial intelligence. The tour is sponsored by Tōwa Pharmaceutical, Phiten, Kosé, and Telasa.

Background

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See also: Yuzuru Hanyu Ice Story

Yuzuru Hanyu is a Japanese figure skater and ice show producer who competed in the men's singles discipline and turned professional in 2022.[1][2] Regarded as one of the greatest skaters in the sport's history, he is the first two-time Olympic men's champion in 66 years with back-to-back gold medals at the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics,[1] and the first male single skater to complete the Super Slam, having won all major international senior and junior titles in the course of his career.[3] He scored 19 world records in the ISU Judging System and was the first skater to land a quadruple loop jump in international competition among other achievements.[1][3] On March 11, 2011, Hanyu experienced the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in his hometown of Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture, which fundamentally shaped his life and career.[4] It was the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan, which cost more than 19,000 people's lives.[5]

Hanyu's first major work as a professional skater is the ongoing Yuzuru Hanyu Ice Story, a series of solo ice shows produced and directed by himself in collaboration with renowned Japanese choreographer Mikiko, known for her involvement in the Tokyo handover segment at the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony among others.[6][7] The Ice Story series was launched in November 2022 with Prologue, the first solo ice show production in figure skating.[8] The second event and first main chapter of the Ice Story, titled Gift, was presented in February 2023 at Tokyo Dome in front of a record ice show audience of 35,000 spectators.[6] Both productions focused on Hanyu's transition from competitive to professional skating, telling the story of his life and future on ice.[8][9] The series continued with the Repray Tour, the first tour of solo ice shows,[note 1] held in four cities across Japan between November 2023 and April 2024.[11][12] The show revolved around the world of video games and the contrasts between the virtual world and real life.[11] On October 4, 2024, Hanyu announced his second solo tour titled Echoes of Life, with the first show being scheduled on his 30th birthday on December 7 in Saitama City.[13][14] The tour is organized by Hanyu's management company Team Sirius in partnership with TV Asahi and CIC Co., Ltd.[15][16]

Venues

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Echoes of Life Tour is located in Japan
Saitama
Saitama
Hiroshima
Hiroshima
Funabashi
Funabashi
class=notpageimage|
Locations of the Echoes of Life Tour

The Echoes of Life Tour was announced to consist of three tour stops across Japan between December 2024 and February 2025. The first stop is scheduled with three days on December 7, 9, and 11 at Saitama Super Arena in Saitama City,[13][14] one of the most prestigious venues in competitive figure skating, having hosted three World Championships in 2014, 2019, and 2023 among others.[17] For Hanyu, the venue is of particular meaning, having won his first World title there in 2014 as well as two national titles at the 2013–14 and 2021–22 Japan Championships.[18] The first stop of the Repray Tour was also held at the venue in November 2023.[6]

The Echoes of Life Tour continues with stops at the renovated Hiroshima Green Arena in Hiroshima in the southwest of Japan's main island Honshu, scheduled for January 3 and 5, and the newly built LaLa Arena Tokyo-Bay [ja] in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, with two shows being presented on February 7 and 9.[14][19]

Chronological list of venues of the Echoes of Life Tour[14]
Venue Location Seat. capacity Max. capacity Image Ref.
Saitama Super Arena Saitama City TBA 22,500
(arena setting)
37,000
(stadium setting)
 Ourdoor view of Saitama Super Arena [20]
Hiroshima Green Arena Hiroshima City TBA 6,000 Outdoor view of Hiroshima Green Arena [19]
LaLa Arena Tokyo-Bay [ja] Funabashi TBA 10,000 Outdoor view of LaLa Arena [19]

Promotion and ticket sales

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The Echoes of Life Tour was announced through Hanyu's social media accounts on October 4, 2024, with the official website being launched the same day. Hanyu revealed that the show's lead theme is "life's journey and growth", telling a story about the meaning and value of human life in a rapidly changing world, including the raising number of natural disasters, which he had experienced himself back in 2011.[13][21] Hanyu further explained: "Now that artificial intelligence (AI) and technology are developing, things that only humans can do are starting to disappear more and more. However, I believe that if we work together with the production team and everyone who watches the performance, that moment will turn into something that only 'we [humans]' can do."[21]: 1 

Ticket sales are staggered into multiple rounds, starting with official pre-sales for the Saitama performance on October 12. Tickets are distributed via lottery, with prices ranging from ¥15,000 for stand B seats to ¥30,000 for premier seats (US$100–202 as of October 2024). Sales are handled by the show's official organizer TV Asahi.[15]

Athletic merit and records

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See also: List of career achievements by Yuzuru Hanyu § Professional skating

Each show of the Echoes of Life Tour has a total duration of 170 minutes, including a 30-minute intermission after the first show half. Compared to Gift and the Repray Tour, Hanyu increased the show's duration by 20 minutes and the number of performed programs from 12 to 15, seven of them being presented in the first half.[22][23] A new athletic challenge is the ten-minute long Piano Collection medley,[24][25] which consists of five skating segments. It features a quadruple toe loop and triple Axel jump, which are among the highest valued technical elements in competitive figure skating,[26] as well as multiple energy-consuming elements like an extended spin combination and a sequence of twizzle turns.[27][28] While the usual length of a competitive free skate program is about four minutes, the extension to ten minutes required special adjustments regarding choreography and athletic fitness.[24] The late placement of the medley in the set list, performed 40 minutes after the start of the show, further increases the difficulty of execution. It is immediately followed by Hanyu's short program Ballade No. 1, presented with the same technical layout that was used in his winning performance at the 2018 Winter Olympics. In the first show of the Echoes of Life Tour, he executed a clean quadruple Salchow and triple Axel in the program among others.[22][29]

Tourism and economic impact

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The first two days of the opening tour stop in Saitama were sold out with packed audiences of 14,000 spectators on each day. Prior to the event, fans were queuing and taking commemorative photos in front of a large advertisement poster of the tour, set up at the Marunouchi central exit of Tokyo Station. Companies like the tour's co-sponsor Phiten and a Sendai-based cheesecake manufacturer sold exclusive products near Saitama Super Arena, with customers lining up an hour before the stores' opening. Among the vistors were many tourists from China and other overseas countries. In the period of the upcoming tour stop in Hiroshima between December 28 and January 5, travel services reported that Hiroshima ranks first among Japanese prefectures in growth rate of hotel reservations compared to the previous year (1.68 times).[30]

Attendance and accessibility

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The first two shows of the Saitama tour stop were screened live at cinemas in Japan, broadcast live on the Japanese subscription channel CS TV Asahi, and streamed live . The opening show on December 7 is scheduled for live viewing at cinemas in Hong Kong and Taiwan as well.[31][32] The tour is sponsored by Tōwa Pharmaceutical, Phiten, Kosé, and Telasa.[15]

  • Attendance numbers do not include cinema live viewing events.
  • Broadcast dates refer to the premiere on the subscription channel CS TV Asahi.
  • Live streaming dates are identical to the live broadcasts on CS TV Asahi. Only exception is the second day of the Saitama tour stop, which was not distributed through Beyond Live.
Chronological list of tour dates, attendance, and broadcasting[32]
Date Venue Location Attendance Cinema Broadcast Ref.
Dec 7, 2024 Saitama Super Arena Saitama City 14,000 Live
Dec 14, 2024		 Live [33]
Dec 9, 2024 14,000 Live (Japan)
Dec 24, 2024		 Live
Dec 11, 2024 –
Jan 3, 2025 Hiroshima Green Arena Hiroshima City –
Jan 5, 2025 Live
Feb 7, 2025 LaLa Arena Tokyo-Bay [ja] Funabashi
Feb 9, 2025
Total 28,000

Set list

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For the program details, see List of figure skating programs of Yuzuru Hanyu.

First half [34]

  1. "First Pulse"
    (by Kenji Hiramatsu)
  2. "First Echo" and "Circulation"
  3. "Utai IV: Reawakening"
  4. "Mass Destruction: Reload"
  5. Piano Collection (performed by Shinya Kiyozuka [ja])
  1. No. 3 Ballade in G minor
  2. Prelude and Fugue in C minor, BWV 847
  3. Keyboard sonata in D minor, K. 141
  4. Étude Op. 25, No. 12 in C minor – Ocean
  5. Étude Op. 10, No. 4 in C-sharp minor – Torrent
    (by Frédéric Chopin)
  2. Ballade No. 1 in G minor
    (by Frédéric Chopin)
  3. "Goliath"
    (by MoppySound)

Second half [34]

  2. "Aqua no tabiji"
    (by MoppySound, piano version)
  3. "Eclipse/Blue"
  4. "Gate of Steiner – Aesthetics on Ice"
    (from Steins;Gate by Takeshi Abo, piano version)
  5. "Danny Boy"
  6. "Hymn of the Soul"
    (from Persona 3 by Haruko Komiya)
Ending credits
"Nova"
(by Masakatsu Takagi)

Encore [34]

  2. "Let Me Entertain You"
  3. "Ashura-chan"
    (by Ado; day 1)
    "Megalovania"
    (from Undertale by Toby Fox; day 2)
  4. Seimei

Notes and references

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  1. ^ A show or concert tour usually consists of a minimum of three stops in distinct cities or venues. For that reason, Hanyu's first solo show Prologue may not qualify as a "tour".[10]

Citations

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  1. ^ a b c Macur, Juliet (July 20, 2022). "Oh, Pooh. We May Never See Another Skater Like This One". The New York Times. New York City. ISSN 1553-8095. Archived from the original on July 21, 2022.
  2. ^ Russell 2022, p. 23–24.
  3. ^ a b Russell 2022, p. 25.
  4. ^ "Hanyu Yuzuru to bring new ice show "notte stellata" to home prefecture Miyagi in March". International Olympic Committee. Lausanne. January 10, 2023. Archived from the original on January 10, 2023.
  5. ^ "29,000 Still Evacuated 13 Years after March 2011 Disaster". The Japan News. Chiyoda, Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbun. Jiji Press. March 10, 2024. Archived from the original on March 10, 2024.
  6. ^ a b c "Figure skating hero Hanyu Yuzuru to start gaming-inspired 'RE_PRAY' solo ice tour in Saitama". International Olympic Committee. Lausanne. September 4, 2023. Archived from the original on September 4, 2023.
  7. ^ St. Michel, Patrick (July 22, 2021). "The Olympic opening ceremony that wasn't". Japan Times. Chiyoda, Tokyo. ISSN 0447-5763. Archived from the original on July 22, 2021.
  8. ^ a b Matsubara, Takaomi (January 12, 2023). "Going Pro: Hanyū Yuzuru Reinvents What It Means to Be a Figure Skater". Nippon Communications Foundation. Minato, Tokyo. Archived from the original on January 12, 2023.
  9. ^ Mitsuoka, Maria-Laura (February 28, 2023). "Yuzuru Hanyu: 'Gift' to the figure skating world". Golden Skate. Cary, North Carolina. Archived from the original on February 28, 2023.
  10. ^ 羽生結弦さん – 2023年アイスショー出演予定 [Yuzuru Hanyu – 2023 ice show schedule]. International Olympic Committee (in Japanese). Lausanne. October 27, 2023. Archived from the original on November 5, 2023.
  11. ^ a b "Yuzuru Hanyu announces first tour of solo ice show". The Japan Times. Chiyoda, Tokyo. Kyodo News. September 1, 2023. ISSN 0447-5763. Archived from the original on September 1, 2023.
  12. ^ Tanaka, Mitsuru (October 19, 2023). 単独公演ツアー初開催へ プロ２年目、羽生結弦の進化 [First solo show tour – Yuzuru Hanyu's evolution in his second year as a professional]. Wedge (in Japanese). Chiyoda, Tokyo. pp. 1–4. Archived from the original on October 19, 2023.
  13. ^ a b c Kano, Shintaro (October 8, 2024). "Hanyu Yuzuru to unveil 'Echoes of Life' show on 30th birthday". International Olympic Committee. Lausanne. Archived from the original on October 9, 2024.
  14. ^ a b c d Kurasawa, Hitoshi (October 4, 2024). 羽生結弦さんが新たな全国ツアー実施へ 誕生日公演も [Yuzuru Hanyu to hold a new nationwide tour with a birthday performance]. Mainichi Shimbun (in Japanese). Chiyoda, Tokyo. Archived from the original on October 4, 2024.
  15. ^ a b c "Yuzuru Hanyu Ice Story 3rd Echoes of Life Tour 2024–25". Echoes of Life production committee (in Japanese). 2024. Archived from the original on November 21, 2024.
  16. ^ Hamada, Rio (January 21, 2023). 「羽生結弦さん公式」なりすましアカウントに認証バッジ – 羽生さん事務所「公式ではない」 [Authentication badge on "Yuzuru Hanyu Official" impersonation account – Hanyu's office: "It's not official"]. HuffPost (in Japanese). Shibuya, Tokyo: BuzzFeed Japan. Archived from the original on June 15, 2024.
  17. ^ "Figure skating fans' passion remains strong at Saitama-hosted worlds". The Japan Times. Chiyoda, Tokyo. March 24, 2023. ISSN 0447-5763. Archived from the original on May 22, 2023.
  18. ^ Russell 2022, p. 25–30.
  19. ^ a b c 広島ドラゴンフライズＢリーグ・プレミア参入を目指して！広島グリーンアリーナの改修に迫る [Hiroshima Dragonflies aim to enter the B Premier League! Approaching the renovation of the Hiroshima Green Arena]. Nippon TV (in Japanese). June 26, 2024. Archived from the original on June 27, 2024.
  20. ^ "Facility information". Saitama Arena Co., Ltd. Saitama. 2016. Archived from the original on February 22, 2024.
  21. ^ a b オリンピック2大会連続金メダルの羽生結弦氏、新たなアイスショー「Echoes of Life TOUR」の開催を発表 [Two-time Olympic gold medalist Yuzuru Hanyu announces new ice show "Echoes of Life Tour"]. International Olympic Committee (in Japanese). Lausanne. October 4, 2024. Archived from the original on October 4, 2024.
  22. ^ a b Kinoshita, Jun (December 8, 2024). 羽生結弦さん、ほぼ倍増170分の独演で30歳の進化証明「脂が乗ってくる」中国40万人超視聴 [Yuzuru Hanyu's 170-minute solo performance proves his evolution at the age of 30: 'It's getting fat' – watched by over 400,000 people in China]. Nikkan Sports (in Japanese). Chuo-ku, Tokyo. Archived from the original on December 8, 2024.
  23. ^ Kurosawa, Hitoshi (November 4, 2023). 羽生結弦さん、初の単独ツアー公演 – 新プログラム含む12演目 [Yuzuru Hanyu's first solo tour performance – 12 performances including new programs]. Mainichi Shimbun (in Japanese). Chiyoda, Tokyo. Archived from the original on November 4, 2023.
  24. ^ a b Haga, Tatsuya (December 8, 2024). 羽生結弦さん「生きる哲学すごく興味」エコーズ・オブ・ライフ初演 [Yuzuru Hanyu 'I'm really interested in the philosophy of living' Echoes of Life premiere]. Mainichi Shimbun (in Japanese). Chiyoda, Tokyo. Archived from the original on December 8, 2024.
  25. ^ 羽生結弦30歳の舞、単独公演第3弾!「エコーズオブライフ」開幕 [Yuzuru Hanyu's 30-year-old dance, third solo performance! 'Echoes of Life' opens]. TV Asahi (in Japanese). Minato, Tokyo. December 8, 2024. Archived from the original on December 8, 2024.
  26. ^ "Single and Pair Skating – Scale of Values season 2022/23". International Skating Union. Lausanne. May 4, 2022. Archived from the original on February 6, 2024.
  27. ^ Brandmann Mitsuoka, Maria-Laura (December 8, 2024). "Echoes Of Life – Wie Klänge die Welt verändern" [Echoes of Life – How sounds change the world]. Pirouette (in German). Creglingen: STS-Verlag. Archived from the original on December 8, 2024.
  28. ^ Suzuki, Keiko (December 8, 2024). 羽生結弦が「命」「生きる」を問う、壮大なストーリーのアイスショーが開幕! [Yuzuru Hanyu questions 'life' and 'living' in an ice show with a grand story!]. Ontomo (in Japanese). Shinjuku, Tokyo: Music no Yusha. Archived from the original on December 8, 2024.
  29. ^ Kinoshita, Jun (December 7, 2024). 羽生結弦さん30歳誕生日に全国ツアー開幕「産声～めぐり」など前半は63分ノンストップで７曲 [Yuzuru Hanyu opens nationwide tour on his 30th birthday with seven songs in the first half, 63 minutes non-stop, including 'First Echo – Circulation']. Nikkan Sports (in Japanese). Chuo-ku, Tokyo. Archived from the original on December 7, 2024.
  30. ^ Nakanishi, Kota (December 9, 2024). 羽生結弦の単独公演に1万4000人来場 会場外でも行列、限定商品完売、旅行予約も急伸 [Yuzuru Hanyu's solo performance visited by 14,000 people – Queues outside the venue, limited edition products sold out, travel reservations also rapidly increased]. Tokyo Sports (in Japanese). Minato, Tokyo. Archived from the original on December 9, 2024.
  31. ^ 羽生結弦さんのアイスストーリー第3弾 ツアー開幕となる埼玉公演をCSテレ朝チャンネル1で独占生中継 [Yuzuru Hanyu's Ice Story 3rd: The tour's opening performance in Saitama will be broadcast live on CS TV Asahi Channel 1]. Sports Nippon (in Japanese). Chiyoda, Tokyo. November 11, 2024. Archived from the original on November 11, 2024.
  32. ^ a b テレビ放送 [Television broadcast]. Echoes of Life production committee (in Japanese). 2024. Archived from the original on November 11, 2024.
  33. ^ Kano, Shintaro (December 7, 2024). "Hanyu Yuzuru celebrates turning 30 with 'Echoes of Life' opening". International Olympic Committee. Lausanne. Archived from the original on December 7, 2024.
  34. ^ a b c Takagi, Megumi (December 8, 2024). 「生まれてきて良かった」羽生結弦さん ツアー初日30歳誕生日を1万4000人が祝福 ['I'm glad I was born' Yuzuru Hanyu celebrates his 30th birthday on the first day of the tour with 14,000 people]. Sports Hochi (in Japanese). Minato, Tokyo. Archived from the original on December 8, 2024.

Works cited

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