Title: I Can’t Be That Cannon Fodder Vase in Figure Skating! (花滑之我不可能是那种炮灰花瓶!)
Author: 曲临青
Status: Ongoing (77 chapters at the time of this review)
Translation Status: No translation
Tags: Chinese, boy’s love, modern, transmigration, figure skating, sports.
Short summary:
A former figure skater transmigrated as a cannon fodder vase in the entertainment circle who was framed. After discovering the excellent flexibility of his new body that matched figure skating 100%, he abandoned the entertainment circle and embarked on the road of figure skating once again.
Review: This is a great novel that combines sports and boy’s love. What more could a fan of danmei ask for? Any fans of Yuri on Ice might be interested in reading this.
The main character is calm, composed and determined. As someone who always got second place in his previous life and always missing out on the gold medal, he is determined to make use of this second chance and his new body that is 100% suited for figure skating to achieve his goal of gaining the gold medal.
However, this also causes some psychological problems at the beginning, where he was so determined to win that he was overtraining his body, especially when he was only around 15 years old when he transmigrates. This eventually requires an extreme intervention from a coach of the national team, which is one of the criticisms from readers. They felt the method used by the coach was too extreme. It was one of the points I didn’t mind but I could see their point and it wasn’t one of my favorite parts of the novel.
Another point of criticism was the beginning, regarding the entertainment circle part of the novel. He was framed for doing something bad to the protagonist of the novel and didn’t bother to clarify it since people wouldn’t believe him. He just left the entertainment circle and started figure skating. This did affect his starting career as it caused a lot of prejudices against him. The readers felt this part wasn’t handled well and that it probably could’ve been removed, especially since the protagonists of the novel hardly ever show up again.
Putting aside these criticisms, the author excels at writing the description of the figure skating and causing the reader’s blood to boil, especially with each competition. Each chapter is extremely long and is like three normal length chapters in one. Even so, the author is extremely good at cliffhangers and almost always manages to end it on a cliffhanger. The fact that there is competition with other countries involved means that is some nationalism, which might not be for some readers if you dislike this. There are good and bad figure skaters from each country, but the nationalism can get a bit extreme at times.
The MC is adopted into a rich family and the main lead is his adopted brother. There is no romance at the moment since he is only 15 when he first transmigrates over and his brother is an adult, a business and retired from the military. So far, it is a supportive relationship with the ML supporting the MC at competitions and helping him when he has some mentality problems.
Overall, it is a good novel with some flaws but the figure skating and competition aspects make up for it for me. The romance is still too early/minimal to say whether it will be good or not. A long and engaging read. Don’t look at the chapter number since it is more like triple this number based on each chapter length.
