Rinna SARUKAWA

Full name: Rinna Sarukawa

Affiliation: Meiko Wind Figure Skating Club (Meiko Wind FSC)

Age: 12 (at first appearance)

Birthday: September 14

Blood type: A

Gender: Female

First appearance: As a first-year middle school student in Medalist

Voice actor: Maon Ito

Rinna is a junior figure skater who frequently ends up skating first in regional competitions, a position with short preparation time and heavy pressure.

Although she is so shaken by drawing the first start that she sometimes cries, she still chooses daring, high-difficulty jump layouts to intimidate the skaters who follow her.

Her coach, Teruya Kijita, jokingly describes her as “a really interesting girl” because of this contrast between nerves and boldness.

Despite her apparent fragility, she repeatedly delivers strong performances that raise the bar for the rest of the field.

Rinna is characterized by her long hair, which is one of her most noticeable features.

When she skates, she ties it up into a ponytail, giving her a more athletic, streamlined look on the ice.

Rinna is serious and earnest, which makes her prone to discouragement when things go wrong.

Whenever she draws the first start order in a competition, she falls into despair and has even broken down crying over the phone from the shock.

At the same time, she has a strikingly bold side in competition.

She likes to open her program with a high-difficulty jump, essentially gambling from the very first element to put pressure on the skaters after her.

Assistant coach Teruya Kijita calls her “a really interesting girl” and even wonders if she is pretending to be cutesy while hiding nerves of steel.

He also believes that “she is probably the only one in this event who can skate first and still put up a massive score.”

Rinna has a fearful yet decisive attitude toward unpleasant things in daily life as well.

For example, if she sees an insect flying around, she is scared, but she still makes sure to eliminate it without fail.

Rinna has a cousin named Tsukasa Akeuraji.

At one point, teacher Tsukasa mistakenly thought people were calling out her own name when they were actually referring to Rinna’s cousin Tsukasa.

Teruya Kijita serves as an assistant coach and close observer of Rinna’s development.

He alternates between teasing her for her apparent weakness and praising her as having one of the strongest mental games among her peers.

Rinna has a strange knack for drawing the first start order in important competitions, especially in the Chubu Block regional event.

Each time this happens, she is visibly shocked and dismayed, to the point of tears, because the first skater has less time to prepare and faces strong psychological pressure.

Despite that, her program composition is anything but timid.

She often places a difficult jump right at the beginning of her routine, using it as a psychological weapon to raise the standard for all the skaters who follow.

In the Chubu Block competition, she executed this strategy brilliantly.

Skating first, she delivered such a strong performance and score that she significantly raised the hurdle for the rest of the field and successfully qualified for the All-Japan championships.

At the All-Japan Junior event, she experienced a rare change: she skated second instead of first.

However, the first skater was Hikaru Kamisaki, whose reputation made the “hurdle” for Rinna higher than usual.

Even though Hikaru made some mistakes, following a strong and famous skater can still be psychologically difficult.

Rinna responded by skating a clean, mistake-free program immediately after Hikaru, an unusually impressive feat for someone her age.

Watching this, Teruya Kijita concluded that, for all her tears and anxiety, Rinna might have one of the strongest mentalities among skaters of her generation.

Her blend of visible vulnerability and hidden competitive ferocity is a defining part of her charm within Medalist.