Yuma Kagiyama upstaged two-time defending world figure skating champion and Japan compatriot Shoma Uno in Friday's NHK Trophy men's short program.
Kagiyama earned 105.51 points, the season's highest score, for his program as the sixth meet on the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating kicked off at Osaka's Towa Pharmaceutical RACTAB Dome.
Two-time world championships runner-up Kagiyama landed a pair of quad jumps with a triple axel as he threw down a marker in his bid to be one of the six men to compete at December's Grand Prix Final in Beijing.
"From start to finish, everything worked today, just as I practiced it, but it was even more powerful and energetic," said Kagiyama, who will need a good result here to go with his third-place finish in the Grand Prix de France.
Uno, who scored 100.20 points, said he was more or less happy with his performance despite under-rotating a triple toe loop.
"I think it was a good program," Uno said. "I think my score was high. Some people might be saying, 'Oh too bad for you,' but Yuma scoring 105 was just spectacular, while I was about where I expected to be."
Switzerland's Lukas Britschgi was third with a score of 86.42.
American Lindsay Thorngren won the women's short program with 68.93, with Belgium's Nina Pinzarrone second on 63.44. South Korea's Lee Hae In was third on 62.93 with Japan's Mai Mihara fourth, just 0.11 back of Lee.
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