Thursday, October 27, 2016

Yuri!!! On Ice is Actually Pretty Good


Being about a month into the fall season, enough episodes have aired for each show for us to have a good idea if they are worth watching or if they should just be dropped. Now I only watch one or two shows per season, one reason being that I don’t have enough time to watch as many as I would like, the other being that most new shows are garbage and are not worth what little time that I have. You already know that I’m watching Drifters, but the other show that I decided to give a shot has pleasantly surprised me, I’m referring to Yuri!!! On Ice. I decided to give this show a shot because everyone online was talking about how awesome the animation one, and they were right, but the show has more to offer than good animation. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention to current season anime, this show is about a low tier professional figure skater, Yuri Katsuki, who captures the fascination of his idol, Victor Nikiforov after viewing a leaked video of Yuri performing one of his routines. Victor decides to coach Yuri, but upon hearing this, another skater named Yuri Plisetsky, whom Victor previously promised to coach, decides to try and convince Victor to go back to Russia with him. The show follows these three characters and the result is a wonderfully entertaining anime, so far at least.


At first glance you would assume that Yuri!!! On Ice is a run of the mill sports anime but Yuri!!! manages to side step, but not completely avoid many of the pitfalls that plague sports anime. For one it doesn’t take place in high school, but the character tropes are still there, just with a fresh coat of paint. The senpai that’s graduating next year that shows the ropes to the new guys, generally the protagonists, is replaced by Victor, the accomplished senior professional skater towards the end of his career. The new kids however are replaced with a somewhat older skater who hasn't accomplished much and is a late bloomer. There is still the main rivalry between the two Yuri’s, however they don’t necessarily see themselves as enemies. The show manages to keep part of the time tested sports anime formula, but it does it in a way that feels refreshing and it even adds its own touch to make the viewing experience unique, which many sports anime fail to do.


Speaking of a fresh coat of paint, the show is gorgeously animated, and the skating choreography is a pleasure to watch. And what an opening, the music isn’t much to brag about however I will admit that it’s catchy, but the real star is the stylized animation. Usually when I watch a show I’ll watch the opening for the first few episodes and then just skip it, but I have consistently watched every opening thus far, keep in mind that at the time of this blog, only four episodes have aired. It’s animated by studio Mappa, a relatively new studio on the scene. They've produced a few anime that I have enjoyed like Terror in Resonance and Punchline, but my favorite show they produced was one of their first shows, Kids on the Slope. The style of animation is similar to their other works, all of which look really nice.


One of the major detractors of the show is the out of place fan service, there is a time and a place for fan service, and studio Mappa just has no sense for when it is, or how often to include it. But this is a problem that just about every show today has. Too many shows today use fan service as a selling point for the show, putting issues of objectification aside, excessive fan service just gets in the way of the show and detracts from the experience. Usually I expect this from the endless sea of garbage that is modern seasonal anime, but Yuri stands out to me, it’s too good to rely on such cheap trends. There’s probably about two minutes of fan service per episode, and they just feel like they were put there just so they could meet their quota for that episode. This could be said of most seasonal shows though.


            I’m not saying this show is the best thing ever, I’m just saying that it’s fun to watch, even after I watch an episode I think back and realize that it’s not that good of a show, but when I watch the next episode I’m completely immersed and I can’t help but watch, which is a sign of a good show. Overall I am thoroughly enjoying this show, I care about the characters, the story is engaging, it has a quick pace but doesn't feel rushed and the skating is looks amazing, I can't say enough good things about the skating scenes. I know part of why i enjoy this anime so much that is because I had low expectations going in, but I ended up with a really solid show, hopefully the rest of the series is as enjoyable as the first four episodes.

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