First Impressions: Yuri!!! on Ice

 Finally, a sports anime that I can watch and will not get bored of it.

In Japan, ice skating is one of the most popular sports. I’m surprised that there’s no anime about figure skating (with the exception of Ginban Keleidoscope). Now, we finally have a proper ice skating anime where the skating performances feels real, there’s Fujoshi drama, and great quality animation. I think this is the one!

The boys of ice skating…

Yuri Katsuki (Toshiyuki Toyonaga) is Japan’s top figure skater, but he has failed to reach the top 6 at the Grand Prix Finale. He has lost his confidence and believes that he will never be able to reach towards the World Championship. So, he retires from the competition. Five years later, he finishes college and goes back to his hometown in Kyushu to stay with his family who owns a bath house (onsen). He hasn’t decided what to do with his life after he graduated. But he still has a passion for ice skating. As a kid, he was a big fan of Russia’s top skater, Victor Nikiforov. He idolizes him and wants to become a great skater like him. I thought this was cute: Yuri gets a poodle, a similar dog to what Victor has. Unfortunately, his dog passed away. RIP Victor.  

Yuri Plisetsky (Koki Uchiyama) another Russian skater and a rival of Yuri K. He has a beef with him, since they both have the same name. I guess he won’t be joining the Yu-topia club. As of now, he’s a jerk because he is a jerk. I believe that these two will get along with each other just fine.

Victor Nikiforov (Junichi Suwabe) is the most popular skater and he’s a five-time World Championship winner. He saw a video of Yuri K’s skating routine, which has gone viral on the web. Yuri was able to perfectly mimic his skating performance that made him won his latest WC. He immediately flies over to Japan, just so he can tell him that he will be his coach. On a side note: this guy reminds me of Plushenko, who is a real life top Russian skater. Even his appearance and charm looks similar to the character. I bet he was the inspiration for this character.   

Why I don’t mind watching ice skating? Because, my mom is a big fan of the sport and I was mostly influenced by her. I do watch it sometimes when it’s on  TV. But my mom watches every single skating competition from Juniors to WC. So, she knows more about the sport than I do. We both watched the anime and my mom likes it, and I also enjoyed as well.

I definitely love the animation for the skating performances. It looks so smooth, fluid and very beautiful. It’s like I am watching a real ice skating performance. I can tell that the animators did they research and hired an ice skating choreographer to help them with these scenes. I also love the opening sequence, where it’s just the characters doing their ice skate dance. It’s both simple and elegant.   

 Stay FABULOUS

Already, I can tell that I will have lots of fun watching show. It has everything that I like, it has comedy, some serious drama, Fujoshi bait fan service and ice skating. I’m getting the vibe that most sports anime already has these themes in it, but it’s about time that we got one for figure skating. I’m looking forward to seeing other characters show up later on and also getting know more about the three main character. Hopefully, Yuri K will get his butt out of the bathroom stall and actually achieve his dream to reach his full potential as a skater.