Anime of the Season Is An Unexpected Hit, According to Oricon Charts

The Winter 2025 Anime Season features many strong series, but weeks ago, few people would imagine that this specific anime would turn into one of the season’s hit.

Many series were highly-anticipated sequels, like Solo Leveling and The Apothecary Diaries. Sakamoto Days was considered to be the strongest new series of the season – while fans are divided over this one, there is another new anime that emerged as one of the best newcomers.

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Winter 2025’s Offering to Fans of Yuri!!! On ICE Looks Promising

Winter 2025’s Medalist is a promising anime about a young ice skater that fans of Yuri on Ice might love for different reasons.

That’s The Medalist, which is streaming globally on Disney services simultaneously to the Japanese TV schedule. It is based on the same name manga series written by Tsurumaikada, and it seems to be getting more attention than expected.

Oricon Charts Suggest Potential Growth

The latest Oricon report on manga sales suggest that The Medalist is doing great in Japan – a good portion of its 12 volumes were featured among the 50th most sold manga volumes last week in Japan.

Compared to last week, the series had a 1% decrease in sales – which basically means staying the same, and it’s selling more than Sakamoto Days. Surpassing a Shonen Jump title that has been marketed as the next biggest anime hit is an impressive result for a niche series such as this one.

Sakamoto Days anime probably had a much higher investment compared to The Medalist, so despite basically keeping the same sales numbers from last week, the manga’s performance suggests that this series is becoming a hit in Japan.

The series has also recently topped Niconico’s Most Popular Winter 2025 Anime poll, anothe great sign that it is probably doing better than expected.

What Is The Appeal of The Medalist?

The Medalist is an ice skating series about a girl who wants to become one of the best figure skaters out there – she seems out of luck until a former skater decides to help her.

Despite using CGI in choreography sequences, fans have praised the animation’s quality. Sports anime tend to have a good reception among the public. After all, who doesn’t enjoy watching the journey of a cute girl overcoming the challenges to become one of the best ice skaters in the world?

But there is something else: as an ice-skating series, The Medalist also appeals to the solid Yuri on Ice fanbase, who are still sad about the canceled movie – and many have indeed commented that this anime reminds them of Yuri on Ice. Of course, it is a different series with a different plot, but fans might feel similar vibes.

Source: X (formerly Twitter), Oricon