Yuri!!! on Ice

Episode 9

Yuri!!! on Ice continues to be my favorite type of show, by fulfilling all of my expectations while still managing to surprise me. The second half of the Rostelecom Cup resolves its established character conflicts with a gentler touch than I had anticipated. It's a less exciting conclusion than the Cup of China's, but it crams in just as much meaning and puts all of the characters in the necessary emotional states for the Grand Prix to have high stakes. Since there's so many as always, I'll go through these skaters in order of appearance, starting with a certain clingy Italian.

First up is Michele Crispino and his sister complex. Like last arc's Georgi, Michele's story is a quick nugget of feminist commentary about men and their entitled attitudes towards women. Siblings Michele and Sala are in a codependent (non-romantic) relationship where they can't skate without the other's direct and exclusive support. Sala gets fed up with the situation first, largely because Michele - who is protective of her to the point of possessiveness - doesn't let her date anyone. This is a commentary on how chivalrous love (where a man protects a beloved woman as a distant and idealized love-object) is mostly just a form of egoistic self-aggrandizement on the guy's part, disregarding the woman's actual needs and desires. It's also an unhealthy suppression of desire for the man, or in the case of these siblings, possibly a suppression of unhealthy desire.

Last episode set up that Sala, in confronting her brother, could mess up Michele's skating, but it turns out that Michele, while saddened by this ultimatum, loves his sister selflessly enough to accept the loss without much fuss. He then manages to channel those feelings of loss into his skating, resulting in a lifetime best performance. While I knew something like this was going to happen, I definitely expected it to go down differently. I anticipated that Michele would react with a tantrum, leading to a crash-and-burn ala Georgi. The fact that he doesn't – that Yuri!!! on Ice corrects his behavior while also acknowledging the validity of his pain – reveals subtlety on the part of the show's writing that I hadn't anticipated, achieving the much more difficult, but also mature balance of “this man is being a jerk, but he's also an emotionally complex individual who deserves his own space to process change alongside correction” rather than “ha ha dudes suck.” The latter can be cathartic, but the former is what leads to understanding, healing, and progress. It's a very difficult balance to strike, but like a good surgeon, Yuri!!! on Ice's writing manages to be both cutting and gentle.

Like Michele, Yurio dodges his own anticipated crisis. His grandfather's absence, which was so critical to his conflict last week, is implied to have been due to illness. He's immediately cheered up by a visitation day, where Grandpa Plisetsky (adorably) bakes him katsudon pirozhkis. Feeling loved, Yurio proceeds to his free skate with renewed confidence. In his efforts to one-up Yuuri, Yurio bumps his routine into an unprecedented level of difficulty with six jumps in the final half. Surprisingly, he nails them all, leading to a career-best performance. He does this partly by channeling his anger (at Yuuri and that jerk JJ) into his skating. However, he finds himself eager to support Yuuri in his own free skate afterwards, which surprises even Yurio. It turns out that the Blond Brat only hates Yuuri as a symptom of his own anxieties. Now that he's feeling good about himself, the two of them can be friends. It's important not just that the audience realizes this, but that Yurio realizes this about himself, leading to his attempted reconciliation with Yuuri at the end of the episode. Yurio has learned how to open up to others and use skating as an outlet for his anger – he just learned it gently and without a lot of melodrama. I assumed that the process would require a dramatic failure on his part, but Yurio managed to pick it up on his own. He is a smart and strong cookie. I love him and want to protect his smile. He still hates JJ though, but that's perfectly understandable.

Speaking of smart and strong cookies, our hero Yuuri must face the unprecedented challenge of performing his “Yuri!!! on Ice” program without Victor there to support him. So far, Victor's presence has been the key to warding off Yuuri's severe performance anxiety. But without his boyfriend there to bore a hole through his skull with his iron sex gaze, Yuuri needs to prove (to himself, more than anyone) that he can hold down the fort on his own. Yuuri and Victor's relationship has progressed magnificently so far, but its major pitfall has always been its potential for codependence. The show has addressed this through different stages of the characters' intimacy, but now that things are serious between them, it's time for their relationship to face a serious challenge. Maccachin getting sick is pretty much the only situation in which I can imagine Yuuri encouraging Victor to leave him right now, so Yuuri makes the responsible, mature decision of letting Victor go to handle the crisis, demonstrating his commitment to being a full partner in this relationship.

In the resulting performance, Yuuri does OK. Not great, not terrible, just OK. He squeaks into the Grand Prix's lineup by a hair's breadth, pushing Michele out in a tie, purely based on their performances earlier in the season. All-in-all, Yuuri earned a passing grade, and in these trying circumstances, that's all that matters. The lesson here is that sometimes these crises just happen, and you'll be incapable of doing your best, but you've still got to show up and try. It sucks, but that effort to cope is admirable in-and-of-itself. A similar crisis almost destroyed Yuuri during the last Grand Prix, when he was sabotaged by his dog's death. He took this one-off incident as representative of his whole self-worth, and he nearly quit ice-skating because of it. In reality, almost every performance relies on specific and unpredictable emotional circumstances. You're going to have good days and you're going to have bad days, and you won't be able to tell which is which until the moment strikes. This is true for everyone, even performers like JJ or Victor who can seem infallible. Now that Yuuri understands that, Victor returns immensely proud of him, as am I. I hope that he's proud of himself.

I've got to say that I really felt for Yuuri's characterization this episode. Fiction tends to oversimplify depictions of hyper-competent people who doubt themselves, but Yuri!!! on Ice just gets it. Yuuri's issues aren't that he has zero confidence in himself – he isn't somehow living under the delusion that he isn't a world-class skater. The real issue is that he sets such impossibly high standards for himself that he constantly gets depressed when he can't live up to them. This depression results in worse performances, which leads to a greater sense of failure, which leads to more depression, and onwards ad infinitum. It's a vicious cycle. Contrary to Yuuri's meek exterior, this is a problem of too much ego, not too little. Yuuri tries to hide his arrogant side because stubborn pride is considered an uglier character deficit than excessive humility. It's also why Yuuri turns into a freak when he's feeling good about himself, as exposed through his internal monologues during performance. The sexually aggressive bad boy routine was always there, simmering just below the surface, but it took Victor to bring it out.

And then there's JJ. Saving the best for last, I guess. I was wrong in thinking that Michele was being set up for a fall last week, but I'm making the same bet with JJ now. He just feels like slightly too much of a jerk for the show to let him get away with it. Yuri!!! on Ice places a high value on self-love, but JJ seems to represent the point where that spills over into narcissism. He's an acclaimed athlete with millions of adoring fans who skates to music written about how awesome he is, but he still says that's “not enough love” for him. This man has an addiction, and he's lucky that it hasn't yet degraded his good nature past simply being condescending toward his fellow skaters. He comes away with the gold this time, but he's definitely my last bet to win at the Grand Prix. Unlike everyone else, we've only ever seen JJ at his best, and if there's anything that this episode tried to convey in particular, it's that streaks – good or bad – are transient. Expect a reversal of fortune soon.

In the end, both Yuuri and Maccachin make it through these trying times. Yuuri finds support in his acquaintances at this event, but ultimately, he still feels best in Victor's embrace. Once again, their relationship has grown stronger through hardship. The episode even ends on a joking proposal of marriage that doesn't sound entirely like a joke. “It's even gayer than the last one” has become a recurring joke for every new episode of Yuri!!! on Ice, but it really does keep turning out that way. At this rate, it does feel possible for Yuuri and Victor to end the show married (with Yurio as their angry adopted child). It does still feel like we're going to address Victor's “deal” at some point. Dramatically speaking, it can't just be smooth sailing for them for the last three episodes. I'd still like for the show to expand on Victor a bit, and I'm curious about how they'll do it. Like everything else, however, I now expect it to be approached with a gentle and surprisingly naturalistic touch.

This marks yet another mega-length write up where it still doesn't feel like I've exhausted everything the episode contains. I haven't even covered the minor skaters this episode yet! Seung-gil turned out to be this arc's Guang-Hong equivalent as filler central station, but they still worked in a nice little story about how cold calculation will ultimately cripple you in art, since the poor guy only lets himself feel emotion when he loses. Hopefully he'll start taking cues from everyone else and just let himself feel, dammit. Emil Nekola amounts to a side player in Michele's story, but I like the guy. He's just so happy regardless of whether he wins or loses. I admire that attitude. Plus, he chose a cool cyberpunk theme for his program. I hope that he and Sala start dating. But most important of all, GEORGI IS BACK. My boy. He seems to have recovered from his breakdown in China. Last episode even revealed that he took bronze at a later event, suggesting that he got over his girlfriend enough to become a better skater. And of course, he relates hardcore to Michele's program about wistfully moving on from love. I believe in you, Georgi.

At the end of all this in-depth character study, I feel the need to emphasize that Yuri!!! on Ice is still an absolute blast to watch. I've seen every episode (including this one) at least six times over and can still enjoy watching them more. Its only rivals in terms of sheer moment-to-moment lovability for me are probably Space Dandy, Kill la Kill, and Blood Blockade Battlefront. It's coming close to perfect entertainment, and its optimistic image of the world has kept me afloat over these past few weeks. I'll be sad to see this show go, but it's only ever gotten better over time. Yuri!!! on Ice has saved my life, and I don't think I'm alone on that.

Grade: A

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

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