Yuri!!! on Ice

Yuri!!! on Ice is a 2016 Japanese sports Twelve-Episode Anime television series about figure skating. The series was produced by MAPPA, directed by Sayo Yamamoto (of Michiko to Hatchin and Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine fame.) and written by Mitsurō Kubo (author of, among others, Moteki and Again!!).

After a crushing loss at the Grand Prix Final and several following competitions caused by a mix of personal tragedy and performance anxiety, 23-year-old Japanese figure skater Yuuri Katsuki becomes rather uncertain on what to do with his life and his career, and decides to temporary retire back to his hometown of Hasetsu in Kyushu until he can figures what to do. However, when a secretly-taped video of him duplicating a rather difficult routine of his longtime idol, famous Russian skater and living legend Victor Nikiforov, is upload to the internet and becomes viral, it begins a chain of events that culminates with Victor himself landing in the town and offering to be Yuuri's coach. This act also attracts the ire and attention of one Yuri Plisetsky, a 15-year-old Russian prodigy that is looking to debut in the Senior Category and was aiming to have Victor as his coach and/or choreographer; it doesn't help that both Yuris had a run-in at the Grand Prix, when the Russian Yuri caught the Japanese one in the middle of a breakdown and told him to just give up already.

Note that despite the name, this series has nothing to do with the Yuri Genre; if something, it's closer to the Boys Love Genre in themes (albeit not in tropes).

Tropes used in Yuri!!! on Ice include:

• Baby Got Back: the show definitively delights on showing the backside of its skater characters. In particular, the very infamous short program of Christophe Giacometti,where the camera focuses very intensely on his posterior and has a moment of Chris grabbing its own butt (with bounce effect!).
• Everything's Better with Sparkles: It's a series about artistic ice skating, so this is expected.
• Excited Show Title!: With three exclamation marks!
• Forgotten First Encounter: Yuuri thinks that Victor landed on his home from nowhere and for no real reason because on his perspective his previous interaction was a polite greeting at the last year Grand Prix. Their real first interaction was after that greeting, when Yuuri drunk himself to oblivion at that event's banquet and gained a Booze-Based Buff that let him become the life of the party, do pole dancing, win a dancing battle against Yuri, and flat out asking to Victor to become his coach. But because Yuuri forgot all of this at the next morning, he isn't aware of the impression he left in Victor, and only learns about his drunken antics almost a year later.
• The Four Loves: Discussed in the plot, mainly with the programs Victor design for the two Yuris.
  • Victor creates two programs, based in a musical piece titled "On Love" that has two versions, "Eros" and "Agape". "Eros" is a very sensuous piece, choreographed to exploit the skater's sexuality; meanwhile, "Agape" is a more ethereal song, choreographed to bring out an image of innocence. Then, he decides to give the very shy and repressed Yuuri Katsuki the Eros programs, and to the temperamental Yuri Plisetski the Agape one, on the logic that playing against their obvious type will be extremely interesting to watch.
  • Note that Victor has an (increasingly obvious) secret agenda when he gave Yuuri the Eros program. After all, he did see the "Eros" side of Yuuri in the Grand Prix Banquet of the previous year.
  • Within the story, Eros is a bit mixed with Storge (as the romantic love and the sexual vibe that goes on Yuuri's skating is being fed by his soulmate-like relationship with Victor), and Agape is a bit fused with Philia (Yuri only gets into the true meaning of "unconditional love" when connects it with the love and support he gets from and feels towards his grandpa)
• Same Sex Triplets: the Nishigori Triplets are all girls, only distinguishable by accent color and hairdo.
• Spell My Name with an "S": because of two main characters having the same given name, "Yuri", when transliterated in roman letters, most people in fandom romanize the name of the Japanese protagonist as "Yuuri" to differentiate between them. Many fans also prefer to writer Victor's name as "Viktor" as the latter is the most common Russian form of the name.
• Technician Versus Performer: Basically one of the conflicts between the main characters:
  • Yuuri Katsuki is a Performer, who skates with natural artistry (it's pointed that he himself can move as if he was creating music from his body), but due to his performing anxiety he tends to flub jumps and complicated combinations, leading to a situation where his artistic points are the only one who can save his scores after his abysmal technical ones. Most of his training with Victor focuses on him finally ironing out his technical failings and get free of his performance anxiety so he can finally medal above bronze in the international circuit.
  • Yuri Plisetski is a Technician, whose technical abilities are so good that he steamrolled his competition when he was in the Junior category in such a way he has decided to move to Seniors to get more of a challenge. However, he quickly discovers that, while still a very good skater, his technical proficiency is not enough to carry him in a category where not only everybody is just as good technically as him, but also has artistry on top of that. His character development during the series is about how he finally connects with his artistic side and becoming a worth watching skater instead of a merely very good one.
  • Victor on the ice has both Technician and Performer abilities, bringing performances that are both physically impressive and extremely moving, but his mentality is more in the Performer side, planning his programs on the stated goal of surprise the audience. But after years of constantly looking for new inspiration, he feels that he has lost his creativity and decides to temporarily retire from the ring despite being still very able.
  • The other skaters have this going too; the most extreme examples are Lee Seung-gil, so focused on his technical side that his internal monologue during skating is him counting his points, and Pitchit Chulanont, natural crowd pleaser whose main motivation isn't becoming a gold medalist but to make ice skating popular on his natal Thailand.
• Twelve-Episode Anime
• Wham! Episode:
  • The seventh episode. featuring a Big Damn Kiss between the protagonists and graduating them from Ship Tease to Official Couple.
  • Then the tenth episode, who begins as a breather episode before the two-part finale and ends with a revelation that put all the relationships between the characters under a new light, without actually retconning them.

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