Undoubtedly one of the most successful sports anime of all time, Yuri on Ice has received praise from fans as well as from critics. On MyAnimeList, Yuri on Ice is near the top of the sports anime list, second only to Haikyuu and Kuroko no Basket Season 1. With an arguably lower-than-expected score of 7.90, the anime still has over 818 thousand members, proving that its popularity is far from dwindling.
The lukewarm score given to Yuri on Ice by hardcore anime fans and its instant success when it came out in 2016 can perhaps both be ascribed to its unconventionality. In spite of its sports anime label, Yuri on Ice differs from other sports shows in many ways, not least its healthy and realistic depiction of characters, relationships and even the sport itself.
Yuri On Ice’s Characters Are Real Athletes Playing a Real Sport
Haikyuu’s main character, Hinata, is a first-year high school student when the show starts; so is Kuroko. Both have exceptional talents that border on the supernatural: Hinata his incredible high jumps, Kuroko an ability to stay completely unnoticed. Yuri on Ice immediately distances itself from this trope, choosing Yuri Katsuki as its protagonist: an average-looking 23-year-old skater whose career is almost over. Despite being talented, Yuri isn’t overpowered and he isn’t the best; he is simply an athlete “like many others” whose determination and hard work took him far.
Likewise, many of the characters in the show are professional athletes whose exceptionality comes from their efforts as well as their innate talent, but always inside the boundaries of real life. Even Yuri Plisetsky, the 15-year-old upcoming skater with incredible results, isn’t any better than real-life young champions such as Yuma Kagiyama or Isabeau Levito. Not only are the characters professionals, but they also realistically depict the different stages in a figure skating athlete’s career, which often starts at a very young age and ends before the skater turns 30.
The sport itself doesn’t become an overwhelming spectacle of secret moves and crazy techniques. Instead, Yuri on Ice chooses to portray figure skating as accurately as possible, even featuring routines inspired by real-life skaters or their signature jumps and combinations. The result is a visually striking animated version of realistic competitions, which speaks to the anime fan and the sports enthusiast at the same time.
Winning Isn’t Everything and Tough Choices Must Be Made
While still exploiting the greatest weapon in the sports anime’s arsenal — a series of competitions leading to a final face-off — Yuri on Ice never stakes everything on victory. It’s clear from the very beginning — Yuri’s defeat in Episode 1 — that the show isn’t chasing a shocking final win for its protagonist. In fact, the ending is quite different from what the audience might expect. As the series progresses, it’s clear that the show advocates for a healthy approach to sports: great results must be celebrated, but winning isn’t always within reach.
Yuri’s choice to retire at the beginning of the series isn’t only due to his defeat in the Grand Prix final but also his awareness of his own limitations — he is neither the most talented skater nor the youngest. Even when he decides to go back to compete, he knows that this could be his last season. Other factors are also taken into account: family, studies, passion and the future. The characters that populate Yuri on Ice always make choices that try to be as healthy as possible. The character that seems most inclined to make unhealthy decisions, Yuri Plisetsky, is scolded at the beginning of the show for attempting to land a quadruple jump when his body is still developing. This is incredibly refreshing to see, especially if one considers sports anime’s protagonists’ tendency to hurt themselves for victory’s sake.
The Characters’ Development Highlights Healthy Sportsmanship and Relationships
Finally, Yuri on Ice decided to subvert another common trope in sports anime: its taste for aggressive rivalries. This is true for Haikyuu and Kuroko no Basket as well as for the recently released Blue Lock, whose take on the matter goes as far as pitting high schoolers against one another in a sports version of Squid Game. In Yuri on Ice, rivalries exist to create drama, but they are always accompanied by collaboration and sportsmanship. Instead of damaging one another, the competitors push one another to be better.
In the first episode, Yuri Plisetsky is depicted as a brash and arrogant young athlete with no respect for other skaters — or indeed for anyone at all. As the show progresses, however, his rivalry with Yuri Katsuki becomes a competition that involves helping each other land jumps and discover new ways to express themselves through their routines. The other skaters in the show also have rivalries and antipathies, but most of all, they admire one another. Toward the end of the show, they are shown eating dinner around a table like a big family.
As far as relationships go, Yuri on Ice disrupts another big trope of sports anime, whose treatment of romance is either poor or non-existent. Haikyuu’s most romantic relationship, for instance, isn’t a relationship at all — Hinata and Kageyama arguably have more chemistry with each other than with any other character in the show. Conversely, Yuri on Ice gave the audience one of the healthiest LGBTQ+ couples of all time, with Victor and Yuri slowly falling in love with each other over the course of the season.
Yuri and Victor grow closer by sharing time and by virtue of their coach-athlete relationship. While getting to know him in order to help him, Victor inevitably grows closer to Yuri, and Yuri learns to open up and trust him. What’s more, Victor and Yuri make each other better athletes as well as better people — with Yuri, Victor becomes the coach that he wanted to be and finds new inspiration; with Victor, Yuri learns to love himself as a person and trust himself as an athlete. It’s a beautiful path to growth that doesn’t fail to leave the audience moved.
What makes Yuri on Ice a healthy sports anime is its courage to bet on the audience’s willingness to engage with real characters who have real-life problems. Instead of presenting them via the usual high schoolers who inhabit a fantasy world where the sport is practically a superpower and life a faraway thought, Yuri on Ice offers a healthy portrayal of its sport with athletes who support each other and make the right decisions. It is no surprise, then, that when it came out, Yuri on Ice changed the world of sports anime — and perhaps even of anime in general — forever.
