Are there any reasons why Viktor and Yuuri would be great parent figures to Allen Walker?
1st thing you need to know about D.Gray-Man: Being Allen Walker is suffering. 1st thing you need to know about Yuri Katsuki and Viktor Nikiforov: they are the purest OTP to ever grace our lives. Therefore, if these two can literally make half the internet believe in love again, they can and will provide Allen with the best therapy ever needed.
(tagging @monochrome-pierrot since we were talking about it yesterday)
After Allen drops into the YOI universe via the Ark, he unsuccessfully tries to survive because this is definitely not the 19th century. After a few days, he encounters Viktor and Yuri and then they bring him home because he is in need of some good taking care of.
They give him a warm bath. They wrap him up in the fluffiest quilt they can find, and give him hot chocolate and cookies even though it isn’t snowing in St. Petersburg. They then try to get him to talk. All 3 of them suck at communicating (In Allen’s case, he prefers to listen to other’s problems, but keep his to himself), but eventually, he learns. At night before he goes to bed (A warm bed! with a nightlight!), Viktor and Yuri tell him that he now does not have to worry about that anymore, he’s with them now and has to let it go as a nightmare.
At first, his behaviour is just like in canon before moving to the new HQ, but over time, as the skaters try to get him to socialize and integrate him into the 21st century, his behaviour starts changing. They find out that his mouth used to be as filthy as Yurio’s before a certain incident, so Yurio decides to trigger it as much as he can. Before long, Allen’s speech patterns is a mix of that and his current personality.
While Yurio (and Phichit whenever he got to visit) was the one who gave Allen some new modern experiences, Viktor and Yuri went and looked up every childhood experience Allen never got to have, and got everyone they know involved. From playing tag in the park, having a food fight (and then getting yelled at by Yakov who is so done with the world) and watching a super cute family movie to going to Disneyland. Allen cried for a good 6 hours because what did he do to deserve all this??? No one has pampered him like that before, not even his friends in the Black Order and Mana in his good days. They tell him that he is one of them now and he deserves all that after the BS his old world gave him.
Speaking of Mana, I have a headcanon that the only way to release Allen from Mana’s curse is for Allen to find someone who honest-to-God loves him and he learns to reciprocate the same way genuinely. One night, all 3 of them dreamt that Mana appeared and told Allen that he’s proud of him to have found peace at last, and to Viktor and Yuri, please for God’s sake take care of him. This is when Allen wakes up to find his scar gone (much to the younger skaters’ dismay because it’s cool). When the Black Order and the Noahs show up to retrieve him, both sides are chased away because Allen prefers this idyllic life above them now thank you very much. Eventually, thanks to the life and love Viktor and Yuri showed him, he loses his powers. CC still remains to support Allen’s heart, but his arm is normal now and the rest of it has become a glove. Slowly, Allen parts with it.
They’d enrol Allen in school after giving him a rundown on all the education he missed. It takes a while to get used to school life, and then going to the ice rink afterwards. The day Allen complains about a hard-to-understand algebra question, Viktor is silently crying with hands in prayer position. Also, imagine Allen playing with Makkachin. And laughing and smiling for real for the first time in his life. Every video taken of it goes onto the internet, even after Allen and Yuri protest. Viktor has life and love now, and he wants to show the world every single moment of it.
They teach Allen how to skate, eventually. Because of Allen’s past as a clown, he is very flexible and therefore quite gifted in figure skating. Everyone is impressed. He now goes to ballet class courtesy of Lilia. When in Japan, Minako takes over. He can’t just become a pro at his age, but he often shows up to ice shows and competition his new dads are involved in with homemade cupcakes with light blue frosting and snowflake deco. He’s gotten better at it since he first learnt how to make them. (BTW he also licked the batter off) Speaking of clowns, Allen no longer acts like one, to everyone’s rejoicing. He’s not an exorcist, not a clown, nor a Noah - just a regular teen with First-World problems.
Occasionally, Allen gets nightmares. About people dying and turning into Akuma. Sometimes he loses Viktor and Yuri to the Akuma. But they are there when he needs them and comfort him in the softest way possible. In Hasetsu, he does not need to worry about weird stuff in the springs, and Yuri’s parents feed him as much katsudon as he can eat. He gets along really well with the Nishigori triplets, and often takes part in their antics too.
Eventually, Viktor and Yuri manage to resolve most of Allen’s mental and emotional situations. The journey is a long one, but they manage. After all, Allen now has 2 dads, a brother figure, a lot of friends who will never leave him nor will use him for their own needs and the most normal life in the figure skating world.
In short, Viktor and Yuri should adopt Allen Walker because they can give him much-needed therapy and give him life and love, just like they did to all of us.
who i will protect at all costs: Almost everyone, especially Allen.
who deserves better: Plenty. I have imaginings that involve Allen being adopted by two certain figure skaters after crash-landing in their universe.
who was killed off too early: Everyone who died within the same chapter that we got to know them. Especially Daisya and Alma.
who i used to hate but now i love: I’m looking at you, Link and Kanda.
who i used to love but now i hate: I don’t remember...
who needs to be killed off asap: Leverrier and Apocryphos. While the former might have an excuse, the other doesn’t. Also Chaoji.
who is unfairly hated: Lenalee. Pls stop bashing on her for the love of all that’s sacred.
who is unfairly loved: Not sure about that...
who needs to sort out their priorities: Allen, honey, I know you want to save everyone but sometimes you need to be selfish. But not to the extent of Homura (Puella Magi Madoka Magica) of course.
who needs a hug: A LOT of characters, will take me all day to list them all.
who needs to get out of their current relationship: I don’t think anyone here is currently in a relationship...
who the writers love: If Hoshino-sensei loves anyone, there had better be a good reason for that.
who needs a better storyline: Someday, an story arc focusing on Lavi.
who has an amazing redemption arc: Kanda, Kanda, Kanda.
who is hot af: Quite a number...
who belongs in jail: Chaoji and Leverrier. Enough said.
1. The plot of this sports anime isn’t like any other out there. Most sports anime always have ‘kid in his 1st year of Japanese High School discovers a sport and aims to be the very best’. Not this one. Instead we get ‘professional athlete who has had his time is considering retirement after a string of failures’. This show is basically showing us a sport from another side. And you’d think that Yuri Plisetsky, who has the personality of a typical sports anime protagonist would be one or else the main rival - nope, it’s Yuri Katsuki, whose personality would fit in another genre altogether and has anxiety, making him stand out from the other sports anime protagonists. And the show’s focus is not on the rivalry between the 2 Yuris (it’s something else, but I’ll get to it later), and they do not always face off against each other - their 1st Grand Prix Final qualifying competitions are held in different countries, while they share their 2nd, and on Plisetsky’s home turf no less. Sayo Yamamoto, who is the director for the show, had to fight her way in production to ensure that Yuri Katsuki became the protagonist she envisioned him to be. Also, the show is 100% Despair-and-Suffering-free, but bring tissues just in case.
2. Instead of an all-Japanese cast like most sports anime, we get an international cast with diverse backgrounds, and some do not even fit their national stereotypes. We have a tanned brother-sister duo from Italy taking part in separate divisions (and the brother has sister-complex), a narcissistic Canadian, an American who is half-Mexican as opposed to how they’re normally portrayed in anime, a South Korean who we hardly see smiling, etc… Some minor countries also get representation - there’s a Czech skater who’s happy-go-lucky and looks like PewDiePie, a Thai ball of sunshine who is a social-media addict, A badass manly Kazakh… While we do have anime with a diverse cast, it’s not something you see in the sports genre. Also, some of them might be inspired by real-life figure skaters - Yuri Katsuki is a mish-mash of Tatsuki Machida’s career, Daisuke Takahashi’s skating style and Yuzuru Hanyu’s appearance, Viktor Nikiforov is Evgeni Plushenko with John Cameron Mitchell’s appearance (and to an extent Stephane Lambiel’s level of extra), Yuri Plisetsky is Yulia Litpinskaya genderflipped, Leo de la Iglesia is a dead-ringer for Jason Brown, Phichit Chulanont is a Thai Michael Christian Martinez, Otabek Altin is basically Denis Ten as an anime character. And some of them have noticed.
3. The sport itself. So far I have heard of only 3 series aside from YOI that focus on figure skating. And it’s hardly touched upon in mainstream media - we only pay attention to it once every 4 years during the Olympics. And by golly did the crew do their research. Every single routine is choreographed by former ice dancer Kenji Miyamoto, who also choreographed for Evgeni Plushenko and Yuzuru Hanyu among others. The show also collaborated with Chacott (Japanese company that does makeup and costumes for dancers) to produce the costumes shown in the anime. Some of the chibi segments also teach us stuff like how a normal figure skating competition season is like, how the Grand Prix final works, how are the scores for the competing skaters calculated, etc… It helps that Sayo Yamamoto and Mitsurou Kubo (character designer) are both figure skating fans, and they’ve also managed to get everyone involved in production and the fandom interested in the actual sport, bless them.
4. The music. This show is tied with Puella Magi Madoka Magica as the best OST in anime if I’m to be believed. So far there’s 1 for the songs used by the skaters in the show and another for the BGM (if there’s a download link for the BGM soundtrack, pls link me). While both are pleasant to listen to, the Skate Song soundtrack is the one that stands out the most. Each song captures the emotions and thoughts of the skaters dancing to the piece, and some are strong enough to make you have feels (no joke - Yuri K’s free skate and exhibition piece are the worst offenders). And they’re both easily accessible too - you can find them on iTunes and Spotify, something I haven’t seen with other shows’ OSTs (at least you can find the Steven Universe OST on Soundcloud via their composers). You cannot make me choose only 1 favourite track, but I’ve listened to In Regards to Love - Eros the most. As for the OP and ED, once you start listening to them, good luck getting them out of your head. History Maker is completely in English (a rarity) and has motivational lyrics. The ED is literally called YOLO (You Only Live Once) and is about living in the moment, because time is shot, ya know?
5. The animation. Lest some people come after me because of an incident with Crunchyroll that I’m not going into full detail about, the animation is really good. Not one of the best, but stands out all the same. They have 5 more key animators than Flip Flappers, which is well known for having a similar animation style as a Studio Trigger production for a good reason. It is very difficult to animate a figure skater. It takes so many frames to animate something like a Triple Axel. Even though the broadcast version is sometimes inconsistent, the animation during Viktor’s ‘Stammi Vicino, non te ne Andare’ is damn beautiful. THIS is what drew people to the show in the first place. The art is beautiful. The characters are drawn realistically. Basically, a work of art from start to end.
6. Excellent Character Development. A good show can have a good plot but if the characters are not developed well then the show is overall average or mediocre. This show can take a previously unlikable character and somehow make people like them to the point where they’re someone’s favourite. Don’t like Jean-Jacques Leroy (JJ) in the Rostelecom Cup for his narcissism? Episode 11 has him undergo an anxiety attack and shows that even kings can fall. Never had a good impression on Michele Crispino because the only thing on his mind aside from skating is his sister? Episode 9 shows that he can do just as well, if not better without her (though the later episodes still has him being overprotective of her, though played down). You think JJ’s girlfriend Isabella Yang doesn’t deserve to be there? In the same episode as JJ’s anxiety attack, she redeems herself by leading the audience in cheering for him even though his emotions are at his lowest, showing us that she loves him no matter what. Christophe Giacometti’s too sexual for you? Episode 10 reveals that there’s a damn good reason why he greeted Yuri like that in Episode 6. And then there’s the biggest one - We all know that Yurio’s sometimes an ass to Yuri (and to a lesser extent, Viktor) and isn’t that much of a nice guy. Well, slightly towards the end of Episode 9, Yurio is shown being actually nice to Yuri, Episode 10 has him earning his 1st and best friend in Otabek, and Episode 12 reveals that all along he idolises Yuri, and wants to compete against him when both are at their best. And then, we have Yuri who goes from his lowest point to the badass Japan’s Ace skater he actually is and Viktor who we think is playing with him but is actually lovesick for him the whole damn time. They will do anything to make you love everyone at the end. Their personalities aren’t over the top either - there will be someone who will make you think you’re looking at yourself in the mirror, ranging from Yuri’s anxiety and constant downplaying of himself, Viktor’s tendency to fill his life with only one thing and nothing else, Phichit’s need to fill his Instagram account… there’s someone for everyone. And they do not slouch on the minor characters either. You WILL find fics focusing on Yuri’s family, Yurio’s grandpa, Yakov and Lilia, Celestino (Yuri and JJ’s old coach and Phichit’s current coach), the Nishigori Family (Yuko and Takeshi are Yuri’s childhood friends and if it weren’t for their mischievous triplets, majority of the show wouldn’t have happened), Yuri’s old ballet teacher Minako… almost everyone will make sure they stick forever.
7. For an anime focusing on sports, social media plays an equally important role in the development of the show. Part of the ED sequence is someone’s Instagram feed, Episode 10 looks into the photo album of 3 of the character’s phones, Viktor wouldn’t have packed his bags and left for Hasetsu if the Nishigori triplets didn’t upload that viral video of Yuri skating his award-winning Free Skate on Youtube… Aside from Instagram (thanks to people like Phichit) we also get to see someone’s Twitter homepage in Episode 10 filled with news of Otabek rescuing Yurio from rabid fangirls and Leo has something like LINE on his phone. Alcohol also plays a part in the show’s story but that’s something else altogether. There is a reason why there are that many social media fics for the YOI fandom.
8. The. Freaking. Romance. In. This. Show. For YEARS the LGBTQAAP+ anime community have waited for someone to portray them as happy and loving instead of angst and death in mainstream media. Some shows do have loving LGBT couples but they aren’t that much known (should I start watching No. 6?). And the sports genre is infamous for queerbaiting, meaning that we get 2 guys/2 girls doing suggestive actions, but they’re only just friends in the end. Enter Viktor Nikiforov and Yuri Katsuki. We get some MAJOR Ship Tease in the first few episodes, starting with how Yuri came to idolise Viktor and then using his short program to seduce him (Episode 6 SP, enough said.) to Viktor himself being a tad too close for Yuri’s comfort (stroking his arm, hugging him from behind, putting his finger at Yuri’s lips…). And then Episode 7 made them the Canon Official Couple via Big Damn Kiss. On the lips. You should have seen the Internet when it first aired, it was GLORIOUS. And then there’s Episode 10 which was even more shook than Episode 7, and now you know why Episode 12 caused the Internet to crash. It’s not everyday we get a couple in anime who are sweet, consensual, happy and head over heels in love with each other to the point of #RelationshipGoals without typical BL cliches and tropes. And to boot, both of them are from countries who in real life are not known for being LGBTQAAP+ friendly. And instead of the typical dream relationship, their love is portrayed in a realistic way. They argue, fight, be absolutely sappy, but overall they love each other oh so very much and A number of people who weren’t interested in the first place jumped on board the bandwagon because of the realistically portrayed relationship between the two. All that’s left for them to become the ultimate OTP is for their wedding to happen.
9. In Asia, mental illnesses and disorders are something that isn’t mentioned so publicly, much less portrayed realistically. Here, we have Yuri Katsuki, who has anxiety. He shows traits of people suffering from anxiety in a way that isn’t mockery. JJ also has symptoms of anxiety as seen in episode 11 (unrealistic portrayals of other people for one), and Viktor might have depression from before the show’s start - he mentions in Episode 10 that he’s been neglecting in life and love for about 20 years in order to focus on his career. Mental issues are no laughing matter, and it shows here.
10. (I’ll make this my final point or this will get too long) The effin’ impact this show has in real life. When this show says that they were born to make history, you better believe it. Their motto is to ‘Go Big and Wild or Go Home’. It’s not like you know any other anime that trends every damn week on Tumblr on the days that the show airs and whenever they make a major announcement. Most are even lucky to trend once in their airtime. And then there’s the Episode 12 crash - they crashed Tumblr, Crunchyroll and various anime streaming websites the day it aired before settling in as the no. 1 trending topic. No other anime has done the same thing. And how many sports anime can count athletes from their sport being fans of the show? Yes, professional figure skaters love Yuri!!! on Ice. To the point where Evgenia Medvedeva got art made for her, Nobunari Oda and Stephane Lambiel (this guy also has a YOI phone case) made cameos in the last 2 episodes, etc. When Johnny Weir told the internet that he’s watching the show, Kubo and Yamamoto were ecstatic. Weir even did routines to Agape and Eros, and has some YOI merch. And this year a Japanese pair skate duo have chosen Yuri’s free skate song (Yuri on ICE) as their short program for this year’s season. No really. The show also has won many awards, and in various polls have left all the other 2016 anime in the dust. The show is also the 4th best selling anime this millennium (5th all time once you bring in the older ones), and it hasn’t been a year since the anime first aired! Besides that, it’s also the 2nd best-selling franchise of the first half of this year. (right behind One Piece, and they did this with OSTs and Blu-Ray/DVDs alone).
Overall, unique storytelling, lovable and relatable characters, perfect romance, amazing art (and also decently controlled fanservice) and has made one of the largest impact in real life. 10/10 will recommend.
Violet Evergarden! It’s so pretty and I cried so many times watching it… … Though Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san comes close because of how hilarious and relatable it is!
As a diehard fan of DWDs , it pisses me off to see that someone had the NERVE to upload a video of a stream with people's own private comments. I just started getting back into DWDs a year ago and so far I've purchased the manga and the first PsVita game. This next year I still plan on supporting it but it angers me that fans like the one you mentioned ruin our chances of getting new content... That said, where can we report them on Youtube?
There should be a report button somewhere in the video description, but I'm not sure how to explain to YT that someone is breaking copyright infringement on other's work.
Either way, if you're heading to the Fermata streams, there will be a security check at the door.
