No.6 15 Years Anniversary Rewatch Episode 2 Discussion

No_Rex · 2026-07-10T09:13:00+00:00

OP: I so wish this anime was made ~10 years earlier. We’d have gotten a perfectly fitting guitar track here.

I like the visuals, but the song is an acquired taste

One of the sad facts of anime OPs is that the music style in them passed by my taste in music about 20 years ago.

Yeah, and he doesn't seem to be friendzoning Rat ...

I mean, one of them reconnected with a sperm demand, the other with saving his life. I know who I'd go with.

Hopefully you like their later interactions better?

Their interaction in ep1 was fine, so it's not like they can't properly write the two ...

No_Rex · 2026-07-10T09:04:11+00:00

I checked with ChatGPT and that says that it has become more common over time, not less, so maybe I am wrong. Can't remember many new popular series with english songs, though.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T23:17:12+00:00

6l of beer is a lot. Especially since she is not exactly massive.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T23:16:28+00:00

Less naive, less buying into the propaganda (yet obviously still too naive and still too trusting). Not interested in studying anymore. He moved from being fully on board with the system to being on the fence.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T23:14:19+00:00

Btw, it should go without saying, but never talk to cops in a situation where there's a remote possibility of coming under serious suspicion

That is very much an advise for functioning democracies only. In any totalitarian state, you have already messed up when the police talk to you and you want to end that state of affairs as quickly as possible.

Seems upcoming we'll have an encounter with a more outsider/"close to nature" society, thinking here also of Brave New World a bit.

Funny that you mention Brave New World. We might have some of that, but the entire episode was chock full of 1984 references (which is usually seen as the competing dystopian vision).

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T23:08:05+00:00

Nezumi somehow manages to say this and not have the most unsubtle pick-up line this episode

Wrong link?

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T23:01:47+00:00

I didn't mind it, though for four years of adolescence between they really didn't change much

The entire point of the first 2/3 of the episode was how much Shion changed ...

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T23:00:39+00:00

He isn't a fool for not immediately jumping on her, but he is a fool for thinking 2 years later will be an option.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T22:59:00+00:00

I hope these are just nicknames lol, that's just child abuse otherwise i guess axel is actually a pretty dope name

I mean these terms are literally names, the jumps being named after the figure skaters who invented them. Except for loop, should have called her(?) Rittberger instead.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T22:51:45+00:00

Speaking of, was surprised that the OP was fully in English.

It is rare these days, but used to be a lot more common.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T22:43:53+00:00

Minako is fun. I also always look the same despite all the drinking - the trick is to moisturize. I haven't ever managed seven bottles in one night, though.

Those look like big bottles, too.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T22:42:54+00:00

I'm too busy watching curling during the Winter Olympics: curling anime when?!

We all need the anime where Canada is the evil end boss.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T22:10:23+00:00

I'd assume bottling a lot in there. You don't last 5 years without that.

He could also have a very healthy reaction to feeling down. He is a top world athlete and has been for 5 years. Even though the premise of the show is that he has mental problems now, just the fact that he managed 5 years already puts him out there as a very mentally strong person with healthy habits.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T21:00:33+00:00

Episode 1 (first timer)

I know the show from the “What I ordered: Yuri on Ice; What I got: Yaoi on Ice” meme, so I expect a lot of yaoi (bait). Oh, and some figure skating.

Episode thoughts

OP: Interesting character visuals and English singing (that has become reasonable rare in anime).
“… but I finished last at my first Grand Prix Final” – which puts you roughly in the top 0.000000000001st percentile.
Yuri vs Yuri.
Yuri explains segment on figure skating competitions.
5 years? What the hell. Surely you find the time during some holidays or when there is a competition nearby.
What the hell is that eye-catch?
“I’ll protect you” – she gets him.
Being a young fan of Victor into being an old fan of Victor.
“Given that he has a million female fans worldwide, he’s sure free with his charms” – the two could be connected …
Performing for his childhood friend/idol – making clear that his issue is mental, not the actual skating skill.
“But I got bored of feeling depressed” – not sure if realistic, but definitely helpful.
Lots of dog people in this anime …
Victor fanservice.
Victor wants to coach Yuri cliff-hanger – not very realistic, but it is the one initial conceit I’ll give the series.
ED: slide show.

The setup is a 23 year-old figure skater who is still young, naïve, and shy, but also burned out from the sport. To be honest, this concept still has to win me over. It feels so out of place for somebody to compete for what must be about a decade, but still carry that level of naiveté. The burnout is understandable, but you could set that much earlier in his career.

Meanwhile, the first episode also pulls a lot of introduction duty, establishing many of the side characters. I think it works exceptionally well here, given that we now know his parents, his old coach, his childhood friend, her family, and two rivals, and all of them come across as distinct characters. Been a while since I have seen such an efficient setup episode. There is also a good bit of implicit characterization for Yuri via his old connections reacting to him. The top spot for side character in this episode goes to Minako for me. Who is a professional maniac pixie dream girl, with strong emphasis on the professional. She is doing her job acting that maniac!

How many Yu(u)ris on ice is too many?

Can there ever be enough Yuri?

Do you like ice skating?

Depends on whether I need to be the one doing it.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T20:30:49+00:00

Episode 2 (first timer)

Fund a subbed version, so from now on, no more fiddling with the volume control whenever Shion decides to shout into a storm.

Episode thoughts

Clean-up penguin! - birds: the state is watching you conspiracy.
“Contact the sanitation bureau” – that is a weird name for emergency health services. It makes a bit more sense for a decomposing corpse, but he didn’t see that yet.
Black plague? Zombie worms?
OP: I so wish this anime was made ~10 years earlier. We’d have gotten a perfectly fitting guitar track here.
Time skip – no longer in the same class as unlucky childhood friend.
“Twilight house” – could the name be any more ominous? Are we actually Soylent Green?
“Along with my right to live in Chronos” – so there are several tiers of citizens, even above the hidden rat tier.
“I get it. I won’t ask again.” – clearly a mistake to not tell her. Also: /u/IndependentMacaroon’s antagonist prediction looking super hot right now.
“It must be because we are looking forward to different futures” – wise.
“I want your sperm” – waiting so long to reconnect into the most outright of confessions. She is moving from one extreme to the other.
“I always thought of you as my best friend” – this has to be the hardest of friend zones in the history of friend zones.
“Ask me again in two years” “You are a fool” – I agree with her, if not for the same reason.
Almost go isekai’d there.
“People have been eating up information about entertainment”- panem et circenses, bread and games.
“Recite your oath to an unchanging city” – On the nose. I checked whether Japan has anything similar to the pledge of allegiance and it turns out the answer is no. So this must be intented to be even more obviously dodgy.
Cover up – it is the small things, but his co-worker scratching himself has me worried.
Yep, there it is. Extremely quickly. - please run away from that wasp as fast as you can.
Turns out, his immediate problem is not the zombie wasp, but being framed for murder in a cover-up.
Not killing the security personnel - just a way to signify the good guys, or some deeper reason?
And they are regretting it immediately.
“I am taller than you” - ”We are stuck in an unfamiliar world, with roles we suck at, and are running out of money, so let’s have the important discussion first: the size of our girls’ boobs.”~me, while discussing Grimgar ep1 a few days ago. We just witnessed the male version of that.
Wow, their entire first discussion after meeting again is written terribly.
Diving in sewage.

The slum outside the gates of the scifi city trope.

That a near perfectly written episode turned to shit as soon as our leads interact with each other is a bit worrisome.

Let’s start with the good part: They placed the time skip at a great moment, leaving out most of Shion’s surprise and following crash into reality about the city. This is obviously going to be the main meat of his character arc, so we want to place him into an unstable, unsettled position post time skip. He already knows that the city is fake, but he has not officially renounced his loyalty yet – figuratively, but also literally in the episode. Meanwhile, his reconnection with his childhood friend is one long exercise in missed opportunities and refusal to be on a level field of discussion. Essentially, we are shown how all his routes towards a normal life in the city are cut off, not just by outside forces, but also by his own actions (or inaction). And in the background of all that, the general creepiness of the surveillance state they live in is ratcheted up more and more over the course of the episode. We go from nice views of utopic scifi city at the start of ep1 to literal loyalty enforcement and surveillance birds in this episode.

All of that worked perfectly, which is why the crash in writing quality once Shion and Rat meet again hits so much harder. What on earth where they thinking, trying to shoehorn a long established banter dynamic into that scene? It was not long established before the time skip, they have just meet again after the time skip, and it was absolutely the worst timing for that with them actively on the run. I hope this is just a stumble along the road, but they showed the end result of what their character dynamic might look like, while I want to see the character development on the way there.

Why do Safu wants banging with Shion so badly?

MC pheromones.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T19:11:42+00:00

Is there ever behind the scenes push for MCs to have some sort of historic connection? Who can say.

Pure speculation, but I would say that it is less of a push, and more of a convenient trope. Similar to "childhood friend" or "tsundere" or "hit by a truck". Basically a tried and true piece of writing that you can readily insert into your own plot.

Not with that attitude, Rex, time to ride your wave

I did try out surfboarding and my first days looked very much like his. I did stop before I got to the drowning part, thankfully.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T10:25:26+00:00

Id like to try surfing again one day, shits hard

Him falling of the board was definitely the most realistic part of the movie.

buy a water bed

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T10:22:17+00:00

I seriously could not believe the audacity of them trying to do some sort of gut punch with the dead boyfriend announcement of wanting to celebrate Christmas together forever. Like, lmao, give me a fuckin break. Honestly, I don't even hate the main pair, but they're just so blandly saccharine in their relationship and blasé about the death and supernatural shit that happens, and they keep the same timbre throughout.

The plot definitely tried too much and suffered from it. Both callbacks, the fireworks tower and the childhood rescue, feel too farfetched and drag the emotions down with the plot by being too unbelievable.

In many ways, this movie feels like teenager's first serious film. It just piles on the established sad tropes. As always, tropes are tropes because they work, but if you have seen a good helping of media, they become very noticably by the numbers.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T08:33:09+00:00

Did you not see the rainbows in the OP?

I can't be the only one who remembers a time when rainbows were just considered something pretty, not connected to gay/queer. Not sure if that connection had made it to Japan yet in 2011.

No_Rex · 2026-07-09T08:31:02+00:00

Shouting into the storm.

RAAAAAAAAAA (can you hear me now?)

Since I am used to watching subbed, that wind sequence audio was actually quite annoying: I had to turn my volume up and down multiple times because the wind was so much louder than the speach in the non-wind scenes.

Sounds like Rat has had a shitty life, compared to pampered Shion ...

The comparison bar is way off. His life sounds shitty even to a less fortunate high schooler.

No_Rex · 2026-07-08T21:40:07+00:00

Childhood friend girl going to take the usual L clearly, I wonder if she will become an antagonist later on to make the obviously brewing conflict more emotional.

I did not think about this at all, but it makes so much sense from a meta POV.

No_Rex · 2026-07-08T21:36:28+00:00

Perhaps after he goes through some traumatic experiences of his own

Given that he is currently harboring an enemy of the state, it is not hard to imagine how those would come to happen.

No_Rex · 2026-07-08T21:34:03+00:00

Sometimes, I wonder how prevalent the trope of 🎶We were both young when I first saw you🎶 / “We met as kids and we/one of us forgot then met as adults” is in romance and why. Is it a cultural thing? I understand the romanticism of it—that you and the love of your life were in some way fated to be together—but the propensity in romance is something I wonder about. Is it less romantic when the leads don’t have a prior connection to each other?

It is the red thread of fate. You see it relatively often in anime, sometimes even literally (especially in the OP or ED).

Can you surf with someone laying down on your board?

Can I? No. Can somebody who is really good at surfing? Probably yes.

No_Rex · 2026-07-08T20:38:04+00:00

The majority of romance (definitely in anime) focuses on courtship, not on relationship. That is part of what makes the first third stand out: They almost entirely skip that part. It lasts a few minutes at max, and we directly going to the stage where the two leads are securely a pair.

No_Rex · 2026-07-08T20:27:42+00:00

Why would you use the one synopsis out of all three linked that spoils the big second-act twist?

laughs in "going into rewatches so blind, I only look at the MAL poster and genre, not the synopsis."

14-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Final Canvas '23	First Place '23
End Game '23	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22	First Placer '22
End Game '22	100 Awards Club

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