A brief post about Yuri On Ice

I finished watching Yuri On Ice this week-end. I started on Jan 1 (after spending Dec 31 neckdeep in a horror comic, lmao), so it took me about a week to go through all twelve 22 minute episodes. I watched it with a mix of French and English subtitles.

I was told/knew about three things going in: that it's about iceskating, that it's very cute and that the animation's very good. Two out of three wasn't that bad.

It is indeed about iceskating! It is in fact very cute!

The animation is not very good. There are places where it is really good -- the scene with Viktor crying in the hotel, for example (tears are really hard to do well) -- and for the most part the non-skating parts are quite good. And Viktor is generally very pretty. The skating parts, however, are not.

I'm not just talking about the fact that they reuse the same animation for every routine. I'm talking about the fact that it isn't even good animation. Honestly, towards the end I was watching the titular Yuri On Ice routine going "yep, there goes Yuuri's giraffe neck again". It's like the animators forget and/or didn't have the budget for basic anatomy and proportions, which is a shame in a series that relies SO HEAVILY on iceskating routines. The pair skating at the end was gorgeous! That was the kind of quality I expected through out.

The animation in the opening is AWESOME. I especially enjoy the inkbrush effect in the Yuuri and Yuri duo. My favourite part is Viktor's backwards crouching slide with hand outstretched, about 35s and 1m10s in.

I also could have done without the focus on Yuuri's weight in the first few episodes and Yuri calling him pig-names (specific insult varied depending on subs).

I did enjoy Yuri's Dramatic Guitar Riffs.

So yeah. That's Yuri On Ice. A very cute show in need of better animation.