This passage contrasts Russia and China, where authentic culture and spirit are argued to have been hollowed out and replaced by state-driven artificial athlete cultivation, with Japan, represented here by Rika Kihira.
It asserts that the Russia of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is gone, replaced by Putin’s Russia, just as China has become nothing more than Xi Jinping’s China.
Against that backdrop, the author argues that Japan remains a rare nation that has preserved the continuity of its 2,600-year history and culture, and that Rika Kihira is the very embodiment of its beauty, philosophy, and refined feminine tradition.

2019-03-05
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that not even a fragment remains of the Russia of Tolstoy, the Russia of Dostoevsky.
What exists is Putin’s Russia.
In China’s case, Xi Jinping’s China.

A few days ago, around 7 p.m., Sky PerfecTV was broadcasting the exhibition gala of the Russian Figure Skating Championships.
I was a little surprised when I learned the results of the championships.
Medvedeva.
It was charming that one could clearly see the influence of Rika Kihira in her exhibition performance, but she was seventh, and Zagitova was fifth.
First place was fourteen-year-old Anna Shcherbakova, and second was Trusova, of the same generation, spinning out quadruple jumps with ease.

While casually watching the performances of those fourteen-year-old acrobats, I became just a little worried and watched the recorded performance of Rika Kihira.
In one-party communist dictatorships, it is a well-known fact that athletes too are cultivated artificially like something out of a sovkhoz.
The Chinese table tennis players are a case in point.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that culture itself has all but vanished in China, and the same is true of Russia.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that not even a fragment remains of the Russia of Tolstoy, the Russia of Dostoevsky.
What exists is Putin’s Russia.
In China’s case, Xi Jinping’s China.

Japan is different.
Even though the entire land was reduced to scorched earth by indiscriminate carpet bombing, and atomic bombs were dropped on it.
Leaving aside Asahi, NHK, and the so-called scholars, the overwhelming majority of Japanese are still the Japanese of 2,600 years ago, and Japanese women are still the women of Murasaki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon.
For this, we must offer the highest gratitude to the politicians of Japan’s conservative party, who never allowed Japan to be communized and who fully understood the evil of communism.

Recently, a scene was broadcast in which a certain famous foreign coach said to Kihira, “I’m a huge fan of yours,” and asked for her autograph.
Figure-skating enthusiasts, reporters, coaches, and male skaters all over the world, Patrick Chan would be a representative example, are all fans of Rika Kihira.
That is because she is not a product of Russian artificial cultivation, nor merely a young acrobat spinning and leaping in circles.

Japan is a country where, to a degree that can hardly be matched anywhere else in the world, women have been cherished since ancient times.
And it is because she embodies all of that essence.
Just as Kyoto is the essence of Japan’s beauty.
Rika Kihira possesses the beauty of Japan’s 2,600 years.
That is why she is an absolute queen such as one rarely sees in recent times.
In physical ability, she surpasses Mao Asada, whom she once admired.
And the reason Mao Asada too was so deeply loved, not only in Japan but throughout the world, was that she too carried within her Japan’s 2,600 years.

To use a metaphor that only I could use.
Murasaki Shikibu.
Sei Shonagon.
They have appeared before us in the form of a skater.
That is why Rika Kihira is the absolute queen who captivates the world.
She is the foremost flower of Japan, embodying the height of Japanese culture and Japanese philosophy.

To be continued.