Filthy Casual for Life

I was trying to think of content to write when I suddenly realized. I have never officially done a write-up of Yuri on Ice!!! This show is near and dear to my heart, but I know a lot of my readers don’t want to invest the time to actually watch it. So, I’ll do my best to bring that magic through the written word.

Genre: Sports, Romance, Boys Love
Where to watch: Crunchyroll

EPISODE 1: Easy as Pirozhki!!! The Grand Prix Final of Tears

It’s the Sochi Grand Prix Final. Victor Nikiforov is 27 years old and has won his fifth consecutive Grand Prix Final. Yuri Katsuki is our protagonist and Victor is his idol. Only six men’s figure skaters make the Grand Prix Finals. Yuri has a poor performance and lands in sixth place. As we’re introduced to Yuri through a monologue, he introduces himself as “one of the dime-a-dozen top figure skaters certified by the JSF”. This is quickly followed up by an image of Japan’s top certified athletes with Yuri being the only top certified men’s athlete. This is important because it sets the tone for Yuri’s confidence issues.

We continue to learn that Yuri is 23 years old and moved to Detroit to train to achieve his goal of making it to the Grand Prix Finals. We learn that the night before competition, his dog died so he binge ate and was in the worst condition to compete.

After the competition, Yuri makes his way to the bathroom where he calls his parents and apologizes for doing so poorly. He starts to cry in the stall. Suddenly, the door to his stall is kicked by Yuri Plisetsky, Russia’s up and coming 15-year old ice skater and Junior Grand Prix Final gold medalist. He tells Yuri that he should retire because he’s incompetent and that there shouldn’t be two Yuri’s in the same bracket.

As our protagonist leaves the arena, Victor sees him and asks if he wants a commemorative photo. Embarrassed and heartbroken, Yuri turns his back to Victor and walks off. He finally gets to meet his idol and he doesn’t feel like his performance earned his the ability to be on the same ice as Victor.

One year later, Yuri finally makes his way back to Hasetsu, Japan. It’s been five years since he has been home. He arrives at the station oddly bundled up. His ballet teacher, Minako, greets him with a sign. The train station is decorated in posters dedicated to Yuri. People at the station recognize him and Minako forces him to shake hands and be nice to his fans. We learn that Yuri bombed the rest of the season after the Grand Prix Finals, ended things with his coach in Detroit, and is coming home to figure out what to do next.

Yuri arrives at Yu-topia Katsuki, his family’s onsen, and the last one standing in town. There, Minako addresses the elephant in the room. Yuri gained a lot of weight.

We learn that Yuri tends to overeat and gains weight easily. As Yuri is paying his respects to his deceased poodle, Victor, his sister Mari greets him. She asks him what his plans are and he admits he doesn’t quite know.

After soaking in the onsen, Yuri decides to head to the ice skating rink to practice for a bit. There, we meet, Yuko, his rinkmate who is running the ice skating rink. When they were young, Yuko introduced Victor to him. Immediately, Victor became his idol. Yuko and Yuri would recreate Victor’s programs together. He even got a poodle that looked like Victor’s and named it none other than Victor.

After warming up, Yuri tells Yuko he wants to skate something for her. There, he starts skating Victor’s long program. After he finishes the program, Yuko praises him only to be interrupted by her triplets, Axel, Lutz, and Loop.

While Yuri was skating, the trio recorded his performance. In a turn of events, the trio uploaded the video to the Internet where it received all the buzz in the skating world.

Turning off his phone, he immediately goes to sleep. The next day, even though it is April, it snows. His mother asks him to shovel the snow. When he gets back, he is tackled by a poodle that looks exactly like his deceased dog. Putting one and one together, he is beginning to realize that the dog belongs to someone near and dear to his heart. His father tells him that it belongs to a good-looking foreigner. Running through the onsen, Yuri confirms. The poodle belonged to none other than Victor Nikiforov.

Upon seeing Yuri, Victor stands up and announces that he is going to be Yuri’s coach.

THOUGHTS

Upon my first watch of this show, the first episode threw its hooks into me. I was enthralled with this main character that was broken. He failed to realize his dream and had no idea whether he could continue. Then we learn he doesn’t have a lot of confidence in himself referring to himself as a dime-a-dozen skater when he is literally Japan’s ace.

I enjoyed the backstory on how Victor became Yuri’s idol even naming his dog after him. It lays the foundation to how special Victor is to Yuri.

Yuri won my heart, and I hope he wins your heart, too!