Yuri on Ice

Plot

Yuri Katsuki, a 23-year-old Japanese figure skater, hits a rough patch after a tough loss at the Grand Prix Final and other competitions. Feeling unsure about his future in the sport, he puts his career on pause and heads back to his hometown, Hasetsu in Kyushu, after spending five years abroad. While visiting a childhood friend named Yuko at the local Ice Castle Hasetsu rink, he flawlessly copies a complex routine from his idol, Russian champion Victor Nikiforov.

Someone secretly films this and posts it online, grabbing Victor’s attention. Victor then shows up in Kyushu and offers to coach Yuri, hoping to jump-start his skating career. It turns out Victor already knew Yuri from a banquet where a drunk Yuri had asked him to be his coach. When 15-year-old Russian skating prodigy Yuri Plisetsky hears about Victor’s decision, he travels to Hasetsu to hold Victor to an earlier promise.

Before the series began, Victor had vowed to choreograph a routine for Yuri P. if he won the Junior World Championships. Victor, who had forgotten this promise, sets up a competition between the two Yuris to decide who he will coach. He picks two pieces with the same melody but different meanings: “Agape,” about unconditional love, goes to Yuri P., while “Eros,” about sexual love, goes to Yuri K. Yuri K.’s performance wins, so Victor becomes his coach.

Yuri P. heads back to Russia, and both Yuris promise to aim for the Grand Prix championship. Both skaters qualify for their countries in the Grand Prix series and eventually make it to the Grand Prix Final in Barcelona. As the season goes on, Yuri K. and Victor grow more and more infatuated with each other, culminating in a public kiss. Yuri K. buys them matching gold rings in Barcelona, prompting Victor to joke about being engaged.

The night before the final, Yuri K. decides to quit skating so Victor can return to competing and tells him this, but Victor tearfully refuses. They agree to figure out their paths after the tournament. In the end, Yuri P. takes the gold medal, and Yuri K. gets silver. This leads Yuri K. to keep skating and move to St. Petersburg, where he can stay with Victor and train alongside Yuri P.

Production

MAPPA handled the animation production, with Sayo Yamamoto serving as both director and writer, working from original scripts by Mitsurō Kubo under the supervision of Jun Shishido. Tadashi Hiramatsu designed the characters, Taro Umebayashi and Taku Matsushiba composed the music, and Kenji Miyamoto provided the figure-skating choreography. Each set came with bonus materials like booklets, production audio commentary, and videos on costume design and choreography.

The fictional town of Hasetsu, Kyushu, where Yuri Katsuki is from, was modeled after Karatsu in Saga Prefecture. Akinori Kawakami, president of the Association to Connect Hasetsu and Karatsu, reported that 20 to 30 people visited Karatsu each day on anime pilgrimages. In the early episodes, each character was assigned a different key animator, giving the characters distinct skating styles. For the skating sequences, sound effects were adjusted to fit each venue, based on the building’s capacity and crowd size.

Every skating sound was recorded separately, with no stock sounds used, because each part sounds distinct. No footage of professional skaters was used either, as the music in their programs typically muffles the sounds. Instead, series choreographer Kenji Miyamoto recorded and performed the sounds himself, ensuring that each skating sequence is unique to the program.

Related media

The singles for the opening theme "History Maker" by Dean Fujioka and the ending theme "You Only Live Once" by Wataru Hatano were each released separately. SkaTra!!! Yuri!!! on ICE hit shelves, featuring all 24 original songs from the anime; it climbed to the number one spot on Oricon's Weekly Digital Album Chart for the week of December 19 to 25. This track was the sole anime song included in that publication. Written and illustrated by co-creator Mitsurou Kubo, this manga follows Yuri P. and Otabek Altin the night after the Grand Prix Final. The same Blu-Ray also included an original video animation, also titled Welcome to The Madness, which shows Yuri P.'s skate during the Grand Prix Final exhibition event.

Reception

Critics and professional figure skaters alike responded positively to Yuri on Ice. Among figure skaters, the series earned praise from Johnny Weir, Evgenia Medvedeva, Denis Ten, Evgeni Plushenko, Masato Kimura, Ryuichi Kihara, Miu Suzaki, and Adam Rippon, and featured cameos from Nobunari Oda and Stéphane Lambiel. Weir admitted he broke his self-imposed rule of watching only one episode per day because he could not stop. Professional pole dancers also approved of the accuracy in the tenth episode's closing scene, where Yuri K. performs a drunken pole dance.

The show's direction drew acclaim, especially Sayo Yamamoto's handling of a wide range of characters. Crunchyroll's Brandon Teteruck noted that Yamamoto subtly builds a story that welcomes diversity and cultural acceptance, avoiding ethnic stereotypes by letting foreign skaters act as individuals. On the downside, some critics found the plot repetitive. Character reception was largely positive, with particular attention on the same-sex relationship between Yuri K. and Victor.

Yuri K. was praised as a realistic portrayal of someone with anxiety and as a textbook example of an unreliable narrator.