TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Japanese skaters Kaori Sakamoto and Yuma Kagiyama took the early leads at the ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating's NHK Trophy on Friday after the women's and men's short programs, respectively.

Sakamoto recorded the highest women's short program score of the season, 78.93 points, at Yoyogi National Stadium as the fourth event of the six-stop Grand Prix season got under way. The top three finishers among the men and women were all Japanese.

"From start to finish, I was calm and able to concentrate," Sakamoto said. "I think I was rewarded with a high score for the triple lutz I've worked hard on. I now want to set aside this joy, push the restart and execute my free skate right until the end."

Mone Chiba in second with 71.69 and Yuna Aoki in third with 69.78 both posted personal bests.

Kagiyama won the men's short skate with 105.7 points, while Kao Miura and Tatsuya Tsuboi were second and third, respectively, with personal bests of 102.96 and 85.02. American Andrew Torgashev finished fourth by a narrow margin with 84.36.

"I was able to skate in a way that drew the audience in," Kagiyama said. "I have been tackling every practice with the same intensity as competition."

Japan's Riku Miura and Ryuichi Kihara won the pairs short program with 71.9 points ahead of Georgia's Anastasia Metelkina and Luka Berulava with 70.28 and the United States' Ellie Kam and Danny O'Shea with 69.15.

"We made some mistakes but were able to recover quickly," Miura said.