Okay, but can we take a moment to realize how difficult it must have been for the creators of Yuri on Ice to even get an anime studio to work with them?
Because this was not a simple project at all.
Like, think about Kubo-sensei walking into an office to begin negotiations with an anime studio to get the project known as “Yuri on Ice” greenlit and approved for production (I mean, in real life it’s a bit more complicated than that, but let’s just imagine for the sake of brevity and clarity), and she begins pitching her product:
“We would like to make an original anime about male figure skating”
[Figure skating is one of the most niche sports you could think of, esp in Japan, which could make it really hard to sell]
“Featuring a serious emotional (romantic) relationship between two men”
[Anime is notorious for its poor presentation of homosexuality and is afraid to treat the topic seriously and respectfully because it might scare away potential viewers]
“As well as about 14 different skaters, all from different parts of the world and relevant to the story in some way”
[All of that requires extra character design and casting]
“Which would all need at least 1 figure skating program each, amounting in about 22 different skating programs total”
[That requires immense amounts of animation (and research, and references for its sake) which also means the animation team has to be sufficiently large and skilled to accommodate this need]
“And for this we would also need a professional figure skating choreographer, to actually design all the programs”
[Finding someone who could design 22 different programs, some of them particularly impactful and memorable is a difficult task in and of itself and finding someone who would want to work on an anime project is even harder]
“And of course, we would need someone to write about 22 different music pieces for all of the programs”
[All of which would need to be impactful and memorable, similarly to the choreography]
“And all of this would be contained within 12 episodes.”
[Meaning very little downtime between competitions, as we saw, which means that the animation team has no time to rest because they must complete all the frames for the next episode’s programs (and let me tell you that fluidly animating figure skating is not only difficult but also time consuming as all hell)]
I feel like I could still mention a few aspects, like for example the design of the different locations and the references that it would require, but I think this already gives you a picture of how difficult it was to not only make this anime, but how hard it must have been to actually get it approved (considering how difficult the production process would be, especially for something that originally looked like a risky project that may not even be popular enough to make a profit).
In case you needed more reasons to appreciate Yuri on Ice, let’s take a moment to appreciate how much work and effort went into the creation process for this anime.
Because the fact that it even exists is nothing short of a miracle and something we should never take for granted.
Tag: words cannot describe
episode 10 implies that Viktor must have been looking for an excuse to see Yuri again for months before the viral video showed up, meaning that it wasn’t just a spur of the moment decision like we thought but something he had mullet over for about 4 months by then
episode 10 implies that the reason Viktor is so clingy towards Yuri is that he had waited months to see him again and when Yuri took time off of skating he was sad about not having had the chance to do so until now
episode 10 implies that part of why Yurio was so pissed off that Viktor left is because he knew Viktor was leaving his career to see his crush
episode 10 implies that Yurio didn’t like Yuri at first cause he assumed that Yuuri had played with Viktor’s feelings that night
episode 10 implies that Yakov probably felt the same way and that it wasn’t until the Cup in Russia that he realized Yuri was a good person and good for Viktor
episode 10 implies that Viktor was sad, and not just shocked, that Yuri didn’t remember their first official meeting
episode 10 implies that when Viktor kissed Yuri back in China he had already spend between 10 – 11 months wanting to do so
episode 10 implies that when Viktor asked Yuri if he wanted him to be his boyfriend, he asked seriously even if it sounded casual
episode 10 implies that Viktor sees their rings as engagement rings and would gladly marry Yuri in a heartbeat
episode 10 implies that Viktor’s motivations were both, about finding fulfillment in his professional life again, as well as his personal one
episode 10 implies that they have been mutual pinning through out the whole anime but instead of rushing into things, got to know each other first, put their effort into both their personal and professional relationship, and that they have both grown stronger for it
thank you YOI staff, than you
HOLY SHIT IM DEAD
Nothing but My Aching Soul 