With the anticipated and dreaded episode 12 nearly upon us, I figure it’s time to make this post. I’ve been wanting to make it for a while : write something about why I love this thing so much, about the things it does.
I’ve always found it pretty jarring to see comparisons between Yuri on Ice and other sports anime like Haikyuu or Free, and that’s mostly because in my head, YoI comes from a very different place than most other sports series. Sports anime, for the most part, belongs in the shounen genre and comes with all the genre codifiers : passion, teamwork, diligence, friendship, the exhilaration of having dreams and realizing that you might be able to reach them for the first time, the exuberance and heady rushes and sweat and tears and uncertainties of shining youth. How much any given series exemplify this depends on the series. Some focus more on the human drama. Some focus more on the heartpounding rush of the competition. Still, most of the time, those ideas are what sports anime run on.
Yuri on Ice’s central concerns, on the other hand, are pretty seinen.
A++ agreed