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EP. REVIEW: Yuri!!! on Ice


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crosswithyou



Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Posts: 2895
Location: California
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 7:48 am Reply with quote
Wouldn't have been so much easier if this were based on a manga so we could just see which magazine it was published in to determine the author's intent? Anime hyper

While I am a BL fan, I'm not watching this series for its BL tones. I agree that a series doesn't have to be categorized as BL to feature a BL couple. I can't say with certainty which side of the fence YOI lies on, but really, who cares? The characters are charming and the story is excellent. Are people getting turned off because the main characters in the show they liked turned out to be gay or something? What's the reason for fussing over what genre the series is?

Btw, I just have to mention that the seiyuu of Georgi sings the ending theme song. Anime hyper Hatano <3
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wolf10



Joined: 23 Jan 2016
Posts: 914
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 8:06 am Reply with quote
I do believe the point is that all this is happening in a series not flagged as "BL" or "Yaoi" or "Homo/Gei/Bara/whatever weird niche you want to put it in."

- It's a sports series. There are tons of those.

- Where the protagonist gets his strength from the power of love. There are quite a lot of those, too.

- Said love happens to be a dude. Above two points are not invalidated by this third point.

Seriously, though, if Utena can be hailed as some great victory for lesbian representation, I don't see how Yuri!!! on Ice can possibly be disqualified.as gay male representation, considering it's already crossed lines with its central relationship that Utena didn't in its TV run.
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Beltane



Joined: 16 May 2015
Posts: 33
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 8:38 am Reply with quote
I don't particularly care about what kind of label Yuri on Ice gets slapped with. Aren't those labels supposed to be mainly for marketing purposes?

I enjoy the show a lot. I love the story, the skating scenes, the music, the characters and their potential to grow, the interactions between the characters and their relationships, and the depiction of the reality of being an athlete. That's all that matters to me.
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iamtooawesome



Joined: 02 Feb 2015
Posts: 351
Location: Thailand
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 10:43 am Reply with quote
(IMO) It's not queer baiting anymore, it's official they're canon and I love it. Episode 7 YOI broke Disqus in Kissanime and Gogoanime admins had to disable the comment section for 8 hours. The "Vikturi kissing" trend did became a trend in Twitter and specially in Tumblr lol

But as for the kiss SADLY it's not official yet unless someone from YOI confirms it next week, it's a market strategy the censoring+fan reactions -clearly a baiting "obviously that's a hug" but anyone can deny it since this is what the staffs are aiming for "let's just leave it to their wild imagination" the brilliant fujoshi-baiting.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11531
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 10:58 am Reply with quote
crosswithyou wrote:
Wouldn't have been so much easier if this were based on a manga so we could just see which magazine it was published in to determine the author's intent? Anime hyper

Oh thank god it's not! We'd be drowning in posts like, "Ooh, just wait till next week! It's going to be amazing! spoiler[Yuuri gets pregnant!!! Shocked] It's been so wonderful to have a discussion where we're all on the same page.

Quote:
Are people getting turned off because the main characters in the show they liked turned out to be gay or something?

Yes. I've read a number of "Whelp, I'm out now" posts around the internets, and I don't frequent a lot of different boards.
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crosswithyou



Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Posts: 2895
Location: California
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 11:34 am Reply with quote
Gina Szanboti wrote:
Oh thank god it's not! We'd be drowning in posts like, "Ooh, just wait till next week! It's going to be amazing! spoiler[Yuuri gets pregnant!!! Shocked] It's been so wonderful to have a discussion where we're all on the same page.

Sorry, I admit I've probably been guilty of something similar though I try to be better about it now. Sometimes it's hard to contain excitement of finally being able to see certain scenes animated. ^^;

Gina Szanboti wrote:
Quote:
Are people getting turned off because the main characters in the show they liked turned out to be gay or something?

Yes. I've read a number of "Whelp, I'm out now" posts around the internets, and I don't frequent a lot of different boards.

That's pretty sad. Why can't people just take a good story for what it is? Even without the most-likely-a-kiss scene from this week, the series had BL overtones from the beginning.
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Gina Szanboti



Joined: 03 Aug 2008
Posts: 11531
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 12:05 pm Reply with quote
crosswithyou wrote:
Sometimes it's hard to contain excitement of finally being able to see certain scenes animated. ^^;

I honestly do understand that. I've been guilty myself (see Monster on Sify), but I finally opened my eyes and reformed. Smile Since I almost never read manga though, I have fewer opportunities to relapse. That's why this is so nice - no one has to be containing themselves or guarding against giving or receiving spoilers.
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anddo



Joined: 07 Mar 2015
Posts: 670
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 12:11 pm Reply with quote
I LOVED IT!!

I wish they'd just made the scene clearer, but at the very least the episode managed to completely obliterate any idea of mere queer subtext. It's truly beautiful and I hope by the end of the series we'll see something even more solid between these two!
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Songster01



Joined: 05 Nov 2016
Posts: 73
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 4:15 pm Reply with quote
The creator confirmed it! I'm a newbie here, but here's a link to a blog with MK's twitter: http://gotohellsenpai.tumblr.com/post/153343675199/kubo-confirmed-victor-and-yuri-kissed-and-yes-it

Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy

iamtooawesome wrote:
(IMO) It's not queer baiting anymore, it's official they're canon and I love it. Episode 7 YOI broke Disqus in Kissanime and Gogoanime admins had to disable the comment section for 8 hours. The "Vikturi kissing" trend did became a trend in Twitter and specially in Tumblr lol

But as for the kiss SADLY it's not official yet unless someone from YOI confirms it next week, it's a market strategy the censoring+fan reactions -clearly a baiting "obviously that's a hug" but anyone can deny it since this is what the staffs are aiming for "let's just leave it to their wild imagination" the brilliant fujoshi-baiting.
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Weazul-chan



Joined: 10 May 2005
Posts: 625
Location: Michigan
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 4:39 pm Reply with quote
Edited overquoting. --willag

taurussieben wrote:
As far as I understand:

Yaoi = Explicit interaction in forms af sexuality
Shounen Ai = The more gentle version, most of the bedroom interaction is implied, but not featured, or non of it at all, but the characters are clearly into each other, like holding hands, kissing, expressions of love... etc

Yuuri on Ice is (after this definitions) neither.
the way I've heard and had confirmed by anime/manga fans from Japan or who have spent several years in Japan, BL is the genre that started in the 90's focusing on romance between two main male characters and is aimed at female readers.

yaoi in regards to professionally released works started off as an informal way to refer to the very explicit stuff but moved on to be a more formal subgenre name. it's said that yaoi is an acranym for "YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi" meaning "no peak, no point, no meaning" making it roughly equivalent to the fanfic term PWP with that standing for "Plot? What Plot?" and just how PWP is also said to stand for the more descriptive "porn without plot" there's a joke that yaoi actually stand for "YAmete! Oshiri ga Itai!" which is "stop! my ass hurts!"

shonen-ai and tanbi are two genres that started in the 70's and went defunct after the 80's ended (the main exception being the tanbi title Ai no Kusabi). shonen-ai was more tame than tanbi, which focused more on eroticism and the aesthetics of beauty while shonen-ai was often somewhat melancholy and poetic and could focus on romantic OR platonic relationships between two prepubescent or pubescent boys. part of the reason shonen-ai as a genre died it is speculated as before that genre came about as well as during or after the term shonen-ai was a word having to do with real life pederasty (pedophilic men who like real life little boys).

(if you're curious the yuri genre started at the same time as shonen-ai and tanbi, but unlike those it evolved rather than become a dead genre that got replaced with a new one. there has also NEVER been a "shojo-ai" genre, that term in Japan has always been used in regards to real life pedophilia only.)

the point of the matter is, a series doesn't have to be any one of those genres in order to have canon or strongly implied canon same gender male pairings. there's a precedence for it, especially if you keep in mind how the genres are used in Japan. there is no grand law of genres that says something has to be BL to have a gay pairing in it. it's BL only when there is a canon gay pairing involving the main characters, that is the primary focus of the series, and the demographic it's aimed at is shojo or josei. a series can have some of those qualifications, but if it doesn't have them all then it's not BL. which is why stuff like No. 6 and Kyo Kara Mao aren't BL, they don't fit all the qualifications because even if there are canon male/male pairings the relationship between them isn't the main focus.
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chaccide



Joined: 16 Aug 2016
Posts: 295
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 7:21 pm Reply with quote
taurussieben wrote:


As far as I understand:

Yaoi = Explicit interaction in forms af sexuality
Shounen Ai = The more gentle version, most of the bedroom interaction is implied, but not featured, or non of it at all, but the characters are clearly into each other, like holding hands, kissing, expressions of love... etc

Yuuri on Ice is (after this definitions) neither.


This leaves out the main and important part of the definition, that BL is written by women for women. It's a woman's fantasy, not meant to be realistic, with the main part of the story a m/m romance. That's why this isn't BL. Well, that and the creator doesn't call it BL. Laughing

(Those subgenre definitions really are old.)
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chaccide



Joined: 16 Aug 2016
Posts: 295
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 7:31 pm Reply with quote
crosswithyou wrote:


While I am a BL fan, I'm not watching this series for its BL tones. I agree that a series doesn't have to be categorized as BL to feature a BL couple. I can't say with certainty which side of the fence YOI lies on, but really, who cares? The characters are charming and the story is excellent. Are people getting turned off because the main characters in the show they liked turned out to be gay or something? What's the reason for fussing over what genre the series is?


It's important because of the difference those two genres would make with what's going on here. If it's just another BL series, then it's simply another niche fetish story for women, nothing wrong with that, but it has little to do with actual gay people.

But if this is supposed to be a sports anime, then this is one of the first (if not the first) mainstream anime that ever had a gay romance between the main characters, and treated it as not comic or strange but just a normal romance. That is huge for LGBT anime fans who rarely get a normal representation in anime.
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Angel M Cazares



Joined: 23 Sep 2010
Posts: 5487
Location: Iscandar
PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2016 10:34 pm Reply with quote
I will start by saying that episode 7 was strong. I appreciated the very emotional routine from Yuri.

I am convinced that Victor and Yuri kissed in the mouth. I can believe that both of them are gay, but that does not automatically mean that they will become a romantic couple. And like others have indicated, I don't really care if Yuri!!! on Ice is a gay show or not. What I want from this show is good writing and outstanding production values.
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taurussieben



Joined: 10 Oct 2016
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Sat Nov 19, 2016 1:44 pm Reply with quote
Weazul-chan wrote:
the way I've heard and had confirmed by anime/manga fans from Japan or who have spent several years in Japan, BL is the genre that started in the 90's focusing on romance between two main male characters and is aimed at female readers. ...


Thank you very much for the explanation. Smile

And yes, as I implied, and others said, the relationship is not really the main focus, but Yuuri is and the sport, and in the end thats what really makes it so great imho.
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lebrel



Joined: 16 Oct 2009
Posts: 374
PostPosted: Sat Nov 19, 2016 3:19 pm Reply with quote
I can't believe the number of people who are all insisting there's no gay. Anybody who didn't see that Yuuri and Victor were an item even before this is five kinds of blind. -_-

On the other hand, anybody claiming that the depiction of their relationship is not BL-influenced is also five kinds of blind. Yes, it's not formally labeled as BL, but in the manga sphere there's a constant trickle of BL-type stuff that is published in shoujo or josei magazines and thus Technically Not BL, despite being indistinguishable from the stuff that does run in BL magazines (for example, Setona Mizuchiro's excellent Cornered Mouse series, which is 100% BL content with explicit sex even, but is Technically Josei).

YOI is the anime equivalent; it's not labeled as BL, but to all intents and purposes it is. You can see it in the character designs, the relationship dynamics, the visual tropes.... Yes, it has more non-romance plot than most BL, which is certainly connected to the fact that it is Technically Not BL and thus not relegated to the BL ghetto and its more restricted budget (No. 6 is another example of this effect). But the people cheering queer representation! are unfortunately celebrating too soon.
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