When it comes to sports anime, Japanese culturehas covered pretty much every sport,including basketball, soccer, golf, and many others. What a lot of people don’t realize is that even figure skating found its niche of anime fans back in 2016.Yuri On Icewas a surprise hit series that managed to mixslice-of-life elementswith the challenges of a sport that is hardly ever covered in the world of movies and TV. If you were planning on watching it or became curious to check it out,Hulujust made it easier by adding Season 1 to its library this month.
Like many sports stories,Yuri On Icecenters around challenges and protagonists that areconstantly trying to push their limits. The series kicks off with figure skater Yuri Katsuki (voiced byToshiyuki Toyonagain the original Japanese and byJessie James Grellein the English dub) suffering a terrible defeat at the Grand Prix and reconsidering his whole career. His life changes when his idol reaches out to him afterseeing a viral videoand offers to train him for his next competition. He is then pushed even further when his rival Yuri Plisetsky (Kōki Uchiyama/Micah Solusod) announces that he is also planning to be a formidable opponent.
Unfortunately forYuri On Icefans, though,animation studio MAPPAannounced that the previously greenlit movieYuri On Ice: Adolescencewas suddenly not going to move forward. The announcement was made through an official statementon the series' official websitelast year. MAPPA provided no details of why they pulled the plug on the project, butapologized to fansfor having to reach the unfortunate decision.
MAPPA Elevated ‘Yuri On Ice’ As High As Possible
Part of the reason whyYuri On Icebecame such a standout is because MAPPA made a point of making the sport look as accurate as possible. to do that, they enlisted the help of professional figure skater and choreographerKenji Miyamototo create and perform the routines for reference. The result couldn’t be better:Yuri On Icewas praisednot only because of how it looked, but also became a favorite of professional figure skaters.
AsJujutsu Kaisenfans know, MAPPA is no stranger to doing its very best to make its anime titles look as good as possible. The supernatural anime conquered a horde of fans not only because of its story, but also because of how perfect the series looks. The same is true of other titles of the studio, which includeAttack On Titan’s final season,Chainsaw Man,Vinland SagaSeason 2, andDorohedoro— which is just about to launch new episodes.
