Much like Welcome to Nightvale, I feel like a lot of people have forgotten just how big and influential Yuri on Ice was. It fully broke into the mainstream. It was everywhere. Evgenia Medvedeva, the top female figure skater in 2016 and 2017, had YOI plushies thrown to her on the ice and wore a Victuuri tshirt to an interview. Japanese pair skaters Miu Suzaki and Ryuichi Kihara skated to the YOI theme at the fucking Pyeongchang 2018 Olympics. The Olympics. Canadian ice dancer Joseph Johnson did the ‘J.J. Style’ hand symbol in the kiss and cry. Johnny Weir made me cry by talking about how he wished the homophobic world of figure skating he experienced could have been more like the kinder world of Yuri on Ice.
There were cameos and references to it everywhere. Everyone was talking about it. People who had never watched anime were watching it. It was so big it crashed Crunchyroll and Tumblr. Twice. And all that for what was at its core, a queer love story that helped pave the way for more queer stories to come.
It aired in Japan in a midnight/1 am timeslot. It was a 12 episode limited series. And it was still absolutely huge in Japan two, three, four years later.
Yūri’s hometown of Hasetsu was modelled on the real town of Karatsu in Saga Prefecture. I visited in 2019, and there was Yuri on Ice stuff ALL OVER the town. Everyone knew about it. There were standees in Karastsu-jō. The onsen that Yū-topia was modelled on was bursting with memoriabilia.
Mizuno, a Japanese sportswear brand that sponsors some of the country’s top skaters, made replicas of Yūri’s training gear. All of their flagship stores put out displays for Yūri’s canon birthday in November—even most recently in 2022.
I was fortunate enough to go to Yūri on Concert in 2018. Coincidentally, I went to the show that was livestreamed. Y'know, the one where they announced Adolenscent on Ice. The middle-aged lady sitting next to me had been to the show three times.
Over the winter of 2018/2019, the entire series was screened at major cinemas over a three-week period in January. Each screening I went to was packed.
I also went to the Yūri on Ice exhibition that was hosted by LOFT Umeda (and in other places around the country). They had full-life replicas of the costumes. Replicas of the medals. A gallery of animation cels and handdrawn frames. Photo ops. A pop-up shop where I spent so much they gave me a copy of all three free-with-purchase posters.
One of my students once saw the charm on my phone, and correctly identified it as Yūri Katsuki, even though she had never watched the show, even though it was the most generic looking black-haired anime boy charm ever (the outfit was his one from the ED theme, i.e., plain black sportswear. He didn’t even have his glasses).
Japan is not a country that, politically, is very welcoming or inclusive of queer people. I was nervous to live there, because I felt like I would have to put my queer identity on hold, that I would have to mute myself. But I met amazing queer people in Japan whom I still think of as family. And the whole-hearted embrace of Yūri on Ice, of an unashamedly queer love story based around one of the most popular sports in the country, made me feel like my heart was overflowing.
It aired on a middle-of-the-night timeslot. And everyone knew about it. In Japan.
My queer experience in Japan was astonishing, and not entirely predicated on Yūri on Ice. But it would be a bald-faced lie to say that Yūri on Ice wasn’t something that significantly contributed to my life there in an entirely positive way.
Many thanks to @thatshamelessyaoishipper for subbing the entire section.
This line of dialogue (spoken by Yurio) is genuinely so important to our understanding of Viktor’s character. It’s fair to say that a lot of us kind of view his character as lovable, childlike, and whimsical, and that isn’t wrong. But this proves it, he’s only like that around Yuuri, according to somebody who has known him for three years or so at an absolute minimum.
This is the Viktor Nikiforov without Yuuri, the one the majority of people know. This is the Viktor Nikiforov who sits alone in parks in the snow, with only his dog for comfort, as he contemplates how his life even turned up like that.
I know this is a particularly bad moment, to be fair, but just look how miserable he looks.
Even here, he just looks so bored and serious.
This is Viktor without Yuuri for what? Three days?
The actual effect Yuuri had on Viktor’s life is astounding. With Yuuri, Viktor learnt to let everything go and just be him, rather than his more restrained and serious self, morphing into the usual personality we see and love for the duration of the anime.
All I can picture is the first day Viktor and Yuuri start training again at the rink in St Petersburg, and are absolutely gobsmacked to witness Viktor smiling, laughing, with his arms draped around Yuuri like he’s a buoyancy aid. Quiet, serious Viktor Nikiforov actually looking like he’s enjoying his day. He’s the opposite of the kind of man who would tickle someone publicly, but there he is, chasing Yuuri Katsuki around the rink like a five year old. It’s like some kind of bizarre dream. Even Yakov would have to admit that Yuuri’s presence has transformed him.
And perhaps Yakov even asks him once, unable to help himself, where Viktor suddenly got so much inspiration from, after so many years of misery.
The only answer he gets, as Viktor starts to walk away, is “he gave me his love, Yakov.”
It’s glorious. I love it. I’ve missed our boys. Send your fic recs my way if it strikes your fancy. Yeah, I have only 11 tabs of fic open right now. (That’s a lot for me. I’m particular about my tabs.)
That episode where Yuri feels lonely after one (1) day without Victor and goes around hugging any person who stands still too long to try and feel a crumb of comfort.
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