yuri on ice 1
Categories: episodic review
Tagged: yuri on ice
No Comments »
“We’ll make it happen / Watch me make history”
Before watching it, Yuri on Ice seemed like yet another boy’s love anime in the vein of that horrible, horrible wolf-child boy’s love show of recent memory with a twist that it has great animation. Well, the twist being is that it actually has a story. Yuri on Ice is a personal anime wrapped around a sports anime with boy’s love elements hugged by some stunning animation. Oh, the most important thing about Yuri on Ice? It feels like a 2016 anime. Anime sometimes gets stuck in its own tropes– hey, I found some ecchi hon under the bed!– that if fails to keep up with the times. No, watching Yuri on Ice, it feels like a story meant and designed for 2016.
Have I mentioned how impressive the animation is? It’s not only that the character moves well, but the camera is dynamic and also moves well too. There are also details like the stripes and seams of his pants that move correctly during the sequence. I wonder if this anime stars male characters because typically pretty boys have easier eyes and hair to draw than typical pretty girls. Comparing eyes in Hibike Euphonium and Brave Witches, they are huge and have shading than this show. In almost all the action sequences, the eyes are drawn as simple circles or dots.
We’re going to put two attractive Russian guys and a mousy Japanese guys together at a hot springs for the winter? That’s all the plot this anime needs. But for people who might want different plot than that, the characters feel like they have a story to tell. Obviously, there is whole sports anime trapping of Yuri trying to aim for the top again, but there’s also his own story of sacrifice and growth. I also do like how Yuri “surprised” us at the end with his routine. He has fighting spirit. We don’t have to see him start off the anime down in the dumps both physically and emotionally like a lot of other sports anime might do.
(The only mitigating factor is the Russian Yuri. Bad boy types with fangs in boy’s love and otome shows always come off as one note. They rarely develop into more interesting characters.)
Oharuhi-sama bless Hideki Anno. Maybe one day he can shove the rest of Evangelion out the door, but his greatest recent accomplishment is the Japan Animator Exposition. Getting a bunch of up-and-coming animators and directors and have them showcase themselves? Fantastic idea. Sayo Yamamoto turned her short, Endless Night (#28), into Yuri on Ice. Even if this show and Machspeed‘s cameo in Luluco are the only things that come out of the expo, it’s a success. Ghibli should have done it. And I guess this shows why Miyazaki wanted Anno to replace him so badly. Anno knows what he is doing, except when it comes to the final act of giant robot anime.
Back to Sayo Yamamoto, she directed A Women Named Mine Fujiko (2012) and Michiko to Hatchin (2008). I enjoyed both of those shows quite a bit, as they were both well-directed and stylish. What is interesting is that she had full creative control of Michiko and was given full creative control to make a story in the Lupin universe. Yuri on Ice is also her original work. How many anime TV directors get that kind of opportunities? With three different studios? That is impressive. Also, I remember old Gainax talking about how it takes about four years to bring an original anime to life. That seems to give Sayo’s timeline too, as she has had shows in 2008, 2012, and now 2016. That also means that her animator short was more or less a proving ground for her ice skating technique as she already had the show planned already. It wasn’t like Free! where the clip went viral and Kyoto bolted a story onto it. This show already had thought and effort behind it before it went to the expo.
I like how the art style can go from super serious pretty boy to Doraemon comedic. I always like it when shows can properly juggle two different art styles like Minami-ke and not like Amanchu.
(How many cameras does this family have? Does each of the triplets have a camera? Who would name their kids after skating moves? I don’t care how big of a skating otaku you are, just seems weird. Let’s say you were big into anime and spent over 13 years writing an anime blog, would you name your triplets “Kyrios,” “Kyon,” and “Kogarashi”? Huh… now that I actually type it out…)
Backgrounds and settings? Beautiful. I am looking forward to the Yuri on Ice vs. Hibike Euphonium art slugfest this season. It is the exact opposite of the Orange vs. Handa-kun race to the bottom competition last season.
I really like the composition of this bathroom shot. I wonder if this is what bathrooms at Sochi’s international airport really looks like.
Only thing about this show that is more 2015 than 2016? That’s not an iPhone 7. Also leave it to a boy’s love anime to give the main character a rose gold iPhone.
Nooooo! Vicchan! As the Fifth Modern Law of Anime, if we see a loved one in a framed photo in the first episode, that character is generally dead. I do like how Yuri spaces out for a bit at the airport because he saw a poodle. That’s a guy who loves his puppy.
(This must be the first time I’ve heard Detroit mentioned in an anime since Detroit Metal City.)
I like how the plot kicks into high gear because of a kid uploading a YouTube clip. A kid. And the kid justifies it because she is giving all the views to her mom. That sentence makes no sense in 2006. In 2016, it makes too much sense. I also really like his poodle iPhone case.
The ED? Fantastic. I like how they cop Instagram, and I wonder why other shows haven’t done it. Feels weird watching a show like Durura!! that pretends Facebook and Instagram doesn’t exist. I like all the extra touches like the emoji and the comments. You can see all of them here.
(And does every skater have his own dog?)
(I’m supposed to believe Thailand has trained a world-class genius ice skater? Is ice skating even popular in Thailand? The other skaters’ countries corresponds to the top countries at Sochi, but Thailand didn’t even send a skater to Sochi or Vancouver.)
I love this statue. I need to visit it next time I go to Japan.
Once more for Vicchan! It would be awkward for Viktor to find out that Yuri has been stalking him and imitating him. Or pleased. I don’t know.
Three MVPs…
1. Kyrios All the animators at MAPPA
2. Kyon Minako-sensei
3. Kogarashi Axel, Lutz, and Loop
Leave a Reply
