hot(?) take but i don’t think we give yuri on ice enough credit for making a believable and powerful relationship between 2 men the Real focus of its story despite never really being marketed as anything other than a sports anime. like however you wanna interpret the “canon-ness” of the gay stuff it was a really wonderful surprise back when it first aired, and i think it deserves the insane hype it had for that reason
sorry i’m back on my bullshit but like no exaggeration you just had to BE THERE. in the dark year of 2016. on the 2016 internet. walking blindly into something about figure skating with interesting animation. only to get blasted out of NOWHERE with this surprisingly mature story about a male athlete struggling with severe depression + anxiety, following his journey towards a career he could finally be proud of and a Much better state of mind, which was only possible due to a miraculous encounter with his idol who’d soon grow to become the most important person in his life and vice-versa.
it was and imo still is groundbreaking, but ESPECIALLY for its time of release. no one had seen something like this in anime before and no one could’ve predicted it
