Anime highlight is finally back after quite awhile and this time I am going to highlight a wonderful anime named Yuri on Ice.  Here are my thoughts on this anime.

I was never a huge fan of sports animes, and rarely watch them, but I have always loved watching ice skating when I watched the olympics.  And I do like to switch things up and watch a really good love story. I have heard so many rave about this anime as being a such a story so I decided to check it out, and what a treasure I found.

For those of you who have not seen this anime, Yuri on Ice is the story of Yuri Katsuki, a down and out ice skater from Japan, who is nearing the end of his prime years as a figure skater.  He goes back home with no coach and little to no prospects of returning to professional figure skating, but his love for figure skating, through his adoration of his idol Viktor Nikiforov, will not abide this.

He practices one of Victor’s latest routines which is known to be hard and shows his childhood friend in what he thinks is a private performance.  What he doesn’t know is that his childhood friend’s children have filmed his performance, and secretly uploaded it to youtube.  This video quickly goes viral in the ice skating community as he was relatively well known and he has just flawlessly reproduced one of the world renowned Victor Nikiforov’s harder routines.  The video reaches Victor’s eyes, and Victor is deeply moved by what he sees.

Having reached the pinnacle of his career and not knowing what to do next, Victor decides to take a year off from ice skating, and travels to Japan in order to become Yuri’s coach and get him to the Grand Prix finals.  From there, a beautiful and heartwarming love story begins to bloom between the down and out Yuri and Victor, the man who loves and believes in him.

I have to say that I absolutely loved this story especially the gradual development of their relationship.  For Yuri, he has always been a fan of Viktor, and for a long time he mistakes his love as only adoration.  I thought the characters were rich and wonderful including the secondary characters like Yuri Plisetsky, Yuri Katsuki’s arch rival.  What I especially liked about this love story was how real and human it was.  It had it’s share of ups and downs as there are times when Yuri and Victor do not see eye to eye.  Yet you find yourself so completely enamored of Victor and Yuri’s very realistic and genuine relationship.

And I loved watching the actual ice skating routines and learning all about the inner world of ice skating and all the different moves and routines.  What’s interesting about this is that Kenji Miyamoto, a retired Japanese figure skater, actually did the choreography for the routines seen in the anime.¹

I loved how we got to see Yuri’s progression, and how he gets better and better due to the moments he spends with Victor.  We see his confidence in himself grow into the man that Viktor had seen in him all along.  And all the secondary character like Yuri Plisetsky are all deftly handled and have nice character arcs.

And I absolutely adored the music used in this especially Yuri’s special theme aptly named Yuri on Ice.  Check out the song below.  A better and fuller version can be found on iTunes for the Yuri on Ice original soundtrack.

Music, in my opinion, can turn a decent story into a phenomenal one, and I think the music in this does this here especially in Yuri’s theme song.  The song is hopeful as it builds into a powerful crescendo that ends in a beautiful finale which is what we see in this show especially in the progression of Viktor and Yuri’s relationship.  And there are several other scores that are epic additions to the show like Yuri’s short program “In Regards to Love: Eros” and his duet exhibition song he does with Viktor called “Duet: Stay Close to Me.”  And how can anyone forget to mention the very catchy intro song called “History Makers”.  I would like to give major applause to Tarou Umebayashi and Taku Matsushiba with producer Keisuke Tominaga from Piano for making the soundtrack.  I also want to give applause to Dean Fujioka who performed “History Makers”.

And boy is it popular. I can not tell you how many cosplay I have seen of the two main characters as well as routines, ice skating and dance, that have been done as a tribute to this series.  In a short amount of time, it has captured the adoration of fans all over the world including professional figure skaters like Johnny Weir.

Overall, this is one of my favorite sport’s animes alongside Haikyuu.  If there was any criticism I would have of this is that it was not long enough and there was not enough Viktor and Yuri being together as a couple, but that shows how I just wanted to see more of this show.  It is definitely worth a watch.

1.) Kenji Miyamoto wikipedia page