Yuri!!! on Ice

Episode 11

Welcome to the penultimate writeup of this season's megahit, Young Athletes On Ice. Dumb jokes aside, while Yuri!!! on Ice's storytelling has largely been excellent so far, this is unfortunately the point when I'll have to start collecting some receipts. Previously, I've lauded the show for its avoidance of melodramatic emotional climaxes in the past, but this episode seems to have gone too far in the other direction, starving the final tournament of some needed impact. While I imagine it's difficult to follow up last week's showstopping conclusion, the Grand Prix Final is currently being outdone by its own buildup. There's still good material, but the tone is off-kilter, resulting in some minor anti-climax.

The issue seems to be that some longstanding narrative deficiencies have finally come home to roost. I've written the past few reviews under the assumption that Yuri!!! on Ice!!! was building toward some concrete revelations regarding Yurio and Victor's family lives. The fact that we haven't received this (yet) hurts both of their characters at this point in different ways. I'll start with Yurio. Some of the information that I find necessary to understand him (his mother's absence means he provides for his family financially by skating) is stuff I've had to gather from production materials outside the show's content. This really should have been stated in the show at some point, and if they're waiting until the final episode, it may feel like too little, too late. Without much backstory, Yurio's issues are hard to define, and it seems like he gets over them without much impetus over the past few episodes. Yurio's character arc (as shown in the anime) is that he's an angry, antisocial child who craves familial attention, but his issues work themselves out naturally through his improving performances, and he proceeds to crush world records and become happier. The end? What happened in the middle there? What was learned? I'm not sure.

Emotionally understated storytelling is great to an extent, but if it muddles the building blocks of character development for an audience, then that subtlety becomes a liability. I fear that may have happened with Yurio's character. However, there's still one more episode, and his free skate bears a lot of significance – that's where he relinquished his personal and expressive autonomy in exchange for the promise of victory. If a fall is coming, that's a good place for it. Should the show go there, I'd still think that it could've been built up better – Yurio's connection with Yuuko was dropped like a hot potato, and the Otabek material, while good, was introduced suddenly. Even a late fall would be better than the alternative, where Yurio just keeps doing super-well without confronting any of his obvious issues. Oh well. I'd given previous Yurio material a pass on this front based on the assumption that the show would deal with it eventually. The show has accomplished some virtuoso narrative moves in the past, so there's no way they'd fumble one of its three main characters, right? Thematically, Yuri!!! on Ice!!! is largely a critique of perfectionism, and it looks like, on a metatextual level, it hasn't been a flawless performance either. That doesn't mean that it isn't impressive, or that it wasn't a great ride regardless.

Victor's development suffers some of the same problems. It looks like they're making a resurgence in Yuuri's confidence issues the final impediment in their relationship, but that feels inadequately foreshadowed, especially since last episode's conclusion primed us to focus on Victor's character instead. Ultimately, I'm more confident that Victor's longstanding issues will be addressed in the last episode than Yurio's, since he was plagued by unexplained moodiness throughout the episode. It'd be weird to introduce that for no reason at the tail end of the show. I still think that Victor and Yurio are intended to have similar backgrounds. That could be why Victor darkens when he sees Yurio perform his “agape” program – it's based on a sad past that they share in common. But once again, this isn't made explicit. Yurio and Victor's contrasting dispositions make them hard to compare at first. Without confirmed backstories, the similarities between them can only be inferred from vague hints about their true feelings. While this approach can result in some powerfully subtle characterization sometimes, it's mostly starving this conclusion of some necessary gravitas right now. I definitely think there's still time, but the prime moment for these details has passed.

“Inadequate foreshadowing” is basically this episode's problem overall. While characterization for the leads suffers a minor crisis due to this, the issue appears most perniciously in JJ's program. JJ has been set up to fall so hard over these past few weeks that it would've been shocking for him not to crash here, but the problem lies in why he fell. While it makes perfect sense for JJ to get psyched out by the insane expectations he's taken upon himself, some earlier hints at the anxiety lurking behind his bluster would have been nice. For example, it would have been easy to reorganize the scene so that the nervous flashback to JJ's proposal to his girlfriend comes before rather than during his routine. Fortunately, the scene comes together due to how well it's orchestrated. His fans, seeing him struggle, break into an inspiring chorus of his theme song. This is led by his girlfriend, proving that she's not a fairweather lover. He loses soundly, but the experience seems to have humbled rather than broken him. As always, Yuri!!! on Ice!!! is an exceedingly kind show. It treats its most obnoxious (but still profoundly likable) character to an outpouring of love, even as he receives his well-deserved comeuppance. This positivity is what I admire most about Yuri!!! on Ice, the thing that will stick with me most once it's over.

On to the rest of the skaters! Phichit scores lower than Yuuri, but he's ecstatic just to have completed his dream of performing “Shall We Skate?” at a major event. Witnessing this, Yuuri is both proud of his friend and unable to comprehend his satisfaction at something less than victory. Phichit (whose cadre of adorable hamsters now makes him a literal Disney prince) represents what Yuuri can never be: effortlessly charismatic without anxiety. Chris continues to be Chris, which is excellent. He doesn't soil the ice with his excellence this time, but we get to see his boyfriend, who looks exactly like Kotomine Kirei. I'll consider that some nice fanservice exclusively for me. In the end, it looks like Chris's role is a positive version of how Yuuri could end up after Victor. (If there is an after - I'll get to that bombshell soon.) Like Yuuri, Victor seems to have been Chris's first love, idol, and inspiration for skating. However, Chris has succeeded in moving past that initial attachment to become an emotionally, sexually, and artistically independent person. He can now look fondly on Victor as part of his past, and as a friend. There are only two years between them, but Chris seems like much more of an adult than Yuuri, and not just in a sex way. He represents how positively moving on from experiences, good or bad, is essential for maturation. Yurio's new BFF Otabek is the odd man out in this trend of minor skaters commenting on the protagonist. His deal is that he can jump crazy-high and crazy-far, but he can't do much of the flexible gymnastics stuff that other skaters can, especially Yurio. Either way, he gets a fantastic score, putting him in second place behind Yurio. Their newfound friendship has also inspired Otabek, imbuing his normally workmanlike performances with feeling. They're cute, these two.

And now for the elephant in the room – stupid idiot Yuuri tells Victor that he wants to break up after the Grand Prix. What?! Dammit Yuuri. What are you doing? This is bad, bad, bad! This show could end in a few different ways, but the big overhanging question is whether Yuri!!! on Ice!!! wants to be a commitment story or a breakup story. While my early guess was that it would be the latter (a story of flawed-but-formative first love, like a gay Paradise Kiss), as the show went on, I've changed my mind. Yuuri and Victor's relationship is just too overwhelmingly positive and healthy for a breakup to feel like anything but a betrayal at this point. They've surpassed so many hurdles that it wouldn't make sense for a sudden resurgence in Yuuri's confidence issues to tank the relationship right now. It does make sense for those issues to return, but it shouldn't destroy them as an item. The possibility of a breakup has been foreshadowed (the Eros story, Georgi, Michele, and Chris's programs, some pregnant pauses on Victor's part), but the vast majority of the show has been building up to their triumphant union. The show can't change tracks at this juncture without feeling like a serious mistake. It's especially unfortunate that a cliffhanger of this magnitude concludes an episode that has, for unrelated reasons, somewhat destabilized my faith in this show's storytelling. The whole thing left me squirming in a bad way.

While this wasn't a bad episode, I don't feel that it's representative of the level that Yuri!!! on Ice should be at this point. This should be the climactic finale, but it feels like it's been outdone by its own buildup. I attribute this to some character backstory that really needed to get done before now and won't work as well later, if it even arrives at all. Like its characters, Yuri!!! on Ice has fallen victim to sky-high expectations. I hope that this late-stage problem doesn't end up invalidating the journey. Either way, we'll always have China, Russia, and Barcelona. Good times are still good times.

Grade: B

Yuri!!! on Ice is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.