It’s almost 2019 but I’m still emotional over how revolutionary Yuri on Ice was.
Healthy non-yaoi mlm relationship
Never before in mainstream Japanese media (or even mainstream Western media) has a mlm relationship been depicted in this way. YOI was a show that pretty explicitly showed a same-sex relationship between the MAIN characters and had it be one of the main plot points. That has never happened before. Not only that, it’s a HEALTHY relationship where both characters compliment each other, lift each other up, and make each other better people.
While Victor is implied to be gay, Yuri is actually bisexual. I’ve seen this often overlooked by many people. I’ve seen a lot of bi-erasure in the fandom regarding Yuri’s sexuality. However, Yuri is clearly shown to be bi, which is big because having a bi main character is extremely rare in media.
Multiple queer characters
Yes. Multiple. It’s one thing to have the two main characters be queer, but it’s another to have side characters implied to be queer as well. Many people often overlook the other queer characters in Yuri on Ice. Chris is arguably, in my opinion, the most explicitly queer character in the series. He openly flirts with Yuri and other men, makes gay jokes, and is even shown to have a boyfriend in the last episodes. However, there is a second queer character people overlook. And that is Seung-Gil Lee. He canonically “dislikes women”. And in the Yuri on Ice stage show, even kisses Takeshi Nishigori. There may be other queer-implied characters as well, but I feel that Chris and Seung-Gil are the ones that stand out the most.
Normalization of the LGBT community
Yuri on Ice has received some criticism for this, but as a person in the lgbt community, I love it. In the YOI universe, being in a gay relationship is just as normal as being in a straight one. No one bats an eye. Phichit even announced Victor and Yuri to be married to an entire restaurant, and everyone clapped and congratulated them. So what if there was no homophobia? I and many others found it refreshing. It’s nice to see the world portrayed in a way that we hope it to be one day.
Not only is Victuuri a mlm relationship, it’s also interracial- Yuri being Japanese and Victor being Russian. They are also from countries where being lgbt is still highly not accepted.
Ethnically/Racially diverse characters that touch on their culture
There are so many characters from different countries and of different races/ethnicities in the series. Many being from different Asian cultures (Japanese, Thai, Chinese, and Korean). There are many European characters that are not from the UK, two of them being Italian. And even the character from the United States isn’t white-he’s Mexican-American. A lot of these characters (Phichit for example) express the issues they face being from certain countries. Victor talks about his culture as well, pointing out that in Russia, people don’t celebrate Christmas in the way that people in other countries do.
Accurate depiction of clinical anxiety
Never in my life have I seen someone with anxiety be depicted so accurately. Many times I would feel an ache in my heart because I saw myself in Yuri. Yuri’s anxiety blinds him from seeing how great he is. He’s an “unreliable narrator”. A scene that depicts his anxiety well is the scene where Victor is reassuring Yuri that he doesn’t want to quit, and Yuri cries out “I know!”. People with anxiety often know that their fears are irrational, but still, to their frustration, believe them and can’t get past them. This is a big aspect of anxiety that I haven’t really seen portrayed in the media.
Many people praise Yuri on Ice for being revolutionary for its depiction of a same-sex couple, but there’s so much more than that. It’s an all-embracing and diverse show that is ground breaking in today’s society.
