Animated skating video (Endless Night)

Continuing with the skating theme, here is a beautifully animated video of a figure skater from the Japan Animator Expo series, Endless Night. (You should be able to press the button labeled "skip" to skip past the intro and go directly to the video.) It seems to be a fantasy sequence where a teenage boy skates fluidly and gracefully from one scene to the next: from his classroom, through a subway, and finally onto an ice rink with an older skater. His hero? His future self? (They do some lovely pair moves together.) I think the other skater is the boy's future self, or perhaps the boy is the memory of the older skater's past, because the two merge into one and the boy vanishes, leaving the older skater finishing his routine in a crowded arena as the crowd cheers and applauds.

It's just really beautiful, and it's obvious that the animator(s) must either have done some skating or did extensive research into how skaters move, because all of the skating looks absolutely realistic and authentic. (I'm not a skater myself, but a family member used to do some recreational skating, and I've been watching skating competitions on TV for years, enough to be able to identify specific jumps and moves.)