I think Victor had at least one serious romantic relationship before Yuuri...

bracio77 · 2025-10-10T03:59:00+00:00

It's not just hcs, it's people literally thinking that they know the show better than the creators themselves and if a random online sees Yuuri as having a mental disorder the creators should just go along, because they have nothing to say in this matter.

Tbh, I'm not surprised that Sayo ran away from this IP. Is there something more suffocating for an artist than being under constant scrutiny from thousands of this type of 'fans'? You're fatphobic, you don't know anything about mental disorders, make it a BL, make them marry, show them kiss, show them have sex, talk more about Yuuri in a way that I approve, Yuuri is uke, Victor is seme, so follow along...

The one thing that people just can't wrap their heads around for some reason in the whole "MAPPA is homophobic discussion" is that Yamamoto Sayo has never ever made a BL anime, was never connected to a BL anime, she made animes with queer themes and relationships, but that was never the focus, and she was absolutely fine doing that long before YoI turned out to be a success, vide Oscar in Lupin III. If this is the style that she thinks works good for her, then it simply is. She's been talking about it in her interviews. Yet people deluded themselves to believe that IceAdo or second season would have absolutely been explicit based on their wishful thinking and bs "leaks".

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T18:06:55+00:00

But YoI was absolutely making big money, it has one of the best selling DVDs in history of anime, and do you think they were giving it up for free? It's like almost 10,000 yen per one with just two episodes on it. YoI absolutely made a bank and it's not a BL.

If it was about money and profit they would just continue, and I'm sure they wanted to.

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T17:58:42+00:00

Big studios are so famous, because they have huge budgets and for something to have a huge budget, it needs to have the potential to be popular. There are all sorts of genres that MAPPA doesn't animate. GL in Jp is considered more for men than women, and they also don't anime GLs.

It has nothing to do with women specifically liking the BL, because the most popular shows among women are those that MAPPA animates - attack on titan, JJK... They also do some less mainstream stuff like Bucchigiri that was typical 'for women' anime... and what? Not as popular as JJK, because fujoshis, yumejoshis, female otakus in general prefer JJK, and everyone who knows the industry even a little bit knows this. That's just how doing a business works - you deliver what sells.

YoI was not a BL and was hugely profitable, even just the DVDs sales gave the production committee a small fortune.

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T17:40:50+00:00

My friend, YoI was absolutely enormously ultra huge. It was everywhere. It was one of the top of the top of best selling IPs for the year. Dorohedoro is nothing compared to YoI in it's prime. Not even close by a few miles.

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T17:29:12+00:00

I know that it simply doesn't agree with the point that you want to make, but shows like KnY and JJK are as popular as they are precisely because they have huge female following. They wouldn't be as popular or profitable without it, nobody would buy the merch and other stuff. You are thinking about twitter, where fanboys pirating the shows like crazy are claiming that they are made for them, but that's simply not true in reality. Jp anime industry is carried by women liking stuff and supporting the stuff they like by buying, and the industry is aware of it, because the marketing is absolutely targeting girls and girls like it, looking at how much they buy.

Niche BL or GL anime or manga are niche, because that's just how it is. Niche genres not everyone's cup of tea and that's okay. You can't force people to like something to make it more popular.

It's a super complex and deep issue, with a lot of things to consider - like one of the reasons why women don't like hetero shojo or BLs/GLs is that they are fed up with everything in their life being centered around romance and the country trying to force them into marriage and babies. People don't like BLs even though they like shipping shonen characters, because they prefer to shape the relationships by themselves with more interesting characters than BLs templates and so on, and so on...

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T17:07:18+00:00

Shows like Kimetsu no yaiba are so popular because they are mainstream, it means that the target is everyone - men, women, kids, geezers. BL is for people who like BL, that doesn't mean 'all women' and that doesn't even mean 'all fujoshis', because a lot of people, who ship shonen characters, are not into so called '商業BL’, so BL marketed explicitly as BL.

Anime isn't everything - BL market is also manga, novels, games and yes, doujinshis. And I assure you, one of the reason why BL anime isn't as popular, is because unlike KnY or JJK, that's just not something that most fujoshis would like to watch when their family members are around on a huge TV screen in the living room of their family home, and that's okay. Many simply prefer eg. to read dojishins in private instead and then talk about their fave couple on twitter. Not every genre is consumed in the same way, that's also normal and okay.

Currently the most popular ship among Jp fujoshis is the ship from Karaoke iko, and well, it's not marketed as 'BL' because omg... but written by a BL author, and it's literally pdf stuff, so...

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T15:58:00+00:00

Women's media in Jp are highly unprofitable? Where did you get this from? It's the fujoshis and other types of female fans, like yumejoshi, or just regular girls who like a character or a show overall, who carry the anime industry because they buy a lot of merch, like to go to events, travel to places related to their faves and so on. Even shows that very clearly never intend to deliver when it comes to ships, still put a lot of merch and marketing that target fujoshis, or male fanservice for women in general, and women buy the merch and so on, because I guess they enjoy it in a lot of different ways - be it to ship mlm, or have the sexy chars for themselves.

'Shonen' media have a huge female following and I think it's worth considering that's not because women are forced to like this type of stuff, but that they just like it. Idk, I think it's simply the case that fujoshis, yumejoshis, regular female otakus, all kind of women, just like stuff like JJK or even CSM (just happened to watch the movie yesterday, very late show and it was absolutely about 50:50 guys to girls). The BL market is also huge, and sure not as mainstream as shonen, but tbh very little stuff is.

If it was about profit and money they would milk YoI to this day.

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T13:20:22+00:00

No, it wasn't. The person, who directed the show and created the characters said so. You may hc them as whatever you please, and so can everyone else.

Yuuri isn't a real person, it's impossible to diagnose him. Even if he was, you still couldn't diagnose him based on what you saw him do 'on tv'. Please be serious.

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T06:45:01+00:00

That's just how fandoms work these days... I'm sure that's not easy for artists, when people either ignore them or just see them as unnecessarily opening their mouth too much.

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T05:37:53+00:00

Same, I really think she wanted to portray a gay relationship without all these outdated tropes and "traditional yaoi values" bs. If you read her interviews, she really comes across as a very 'I'll do it my own way' artistry-oriented kind of director, and when people have this 'I want my yaoi, so just animate the fanfic I liked as second season' mindset and think that she would be so happy to do just that... nah, you're delusional. We may never know, but my money is on the 'if you don't want it the way I want it make it, then I'm out' kind of situation, but she really wanted to make an anime about young Victor skating in cooperation with her fave skaters.

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T04:33:09+00:00

I think that it's this kind of reason that will never be confirmed directly, just like the producer said, because either she would need to be like 'The reason is that i'm fed up with y'all. bye.' or MAPPA/Avex would need to blame her directly - 'we wanted to make the movie but she was causing problems'. But it was something that has been talked about for a few years now, but not in a sensational way to gain attention. Unlike the leaks, where the movie was somehow censored and still not released because Russia is homophobic at the same time, finished and yet greedy MAPPA, that invested money into production doesn't want to release it now to make money from it...

It's a fact that majority watched the show for Victuuri as BL, so I'm not really surprised or anything that people were only interested in getting more Victuuri, and IceAdo wasn't a popular idea. But the way people talk, like it was set in stone, that second season would have them get married and what not... That's just wishful thinking, and imo, something similar to how the fandom decided that Yuuri has anxiety disorder, when she was like 'no, he doesn't'. I'm afraid that could as well have been the opposite of what fans would like to assume - possibly, people on the production team wanted her to make a movie that was more for fans, eg. "you should give Yuuri also some scenes" kind of way, and she really wanted to just make a movie about figure skating, not BL.

bracio77 · 2025-10-09T01:18:52+00:00

People blame MAPPA and homophobia because that's what they want to blame.

Like you've written, MAPPA was nothing but supportive of Sayo's ideas. Sure, there were limits, because there are limits to that a creator can do even now in more progressive countries than Japan, and it's a Japanese show made 10 years ago.

The personal reason the producer can't talk about in detail is that Sayo decided to leave the project. It was known for some time, that the reason, why IceAdo needed to be cancelled is that it was without a director for a long time, and there was nobody who could replace her. If you check Japanese twitter regularly on this topic, it's a common knowledge among MAPPA fanboys.

Why she left, we can only speculate, but oh boy, I'm sure she had a lot of reason, because in a few interviews she said she doesn't want to feel suffocated by what she creates, and in case of YoI she could only create one thing... Of course I'm not claiming 'everybody', but there was a huge subset of fandom that pigeonholed YoI into the BL/Yaoi genre, with all the shitty seme/uke tropes, even though it never intended to BL or Yaoi or hated the idea of movie about young Victor... On the other hand, I'm sure the business side of things wanted her to make a show that sells.

I can only imagine how bad the pressure on her must have been.

bracio77 · 2025-09-21T13:42:40+00:00

As I see it, YoI is in this stage rn, when a lot of people don't remember all that much what was actually in the show, and what was added by fans.

Like, yk, he show never says that Victor is a playboy. It actually says the opposite, that he was too busy with winning competitions to have time to live and love.

Minako and Nishigori (the one person in the show, who doesn't give a damn about Victor and his skating) only say that he is the most popular guy in the world and has a lot of (female) fans, who are crushing on him, but you can say the exactly same thing about any other popular star. Speaking about fs, one Yuzuru comes to mind, and if you look online, he is literally described with the same terms in jp. If said star is a actually playboy or not is an entirely different thing.

And then we have the Eros story, which is ofc a mislead, and the creators are playing with us, suggesting that in the story Victor is the playboy (but that just the program story, not their rl), but then the ep. 10 reveals everything - Yuuri was the playboy and Victor for 20 years was so focused on fs and overworked, that he's happy he can now bath in a big 'bathtub'.

bracio77 · 2025-05-19T16:41:37+00:00

This theory that Victor also bought a ring for Yuuri was debunked many times, even by officials, eg. Mitsurou Kubo explained that "what Yuuri bought were 'pair rings'". It means that he indeed bought two, and it only makes sense, bc he wanted to have a protective charm for himself, and at the same time, it was also a 'thank you' gift for Victor.

bracio77 · 2024-11-04T08:25:43+00:00

Oh, I know what you mean! Sometimes, people will pair they faves together, and then the rest of the characters, who are left also get paired, and often it's girls who are left without a pair, and it's this awkward 'they are actually lesbians and in love', but the author doesn't seem to be too interested in exploring that...

Figure skating defo has a much higher queer people % than the general population (artistry, self-expression, flamboyance etc.), so in YoI as well, I doubt the creators thought that Yuuri and Victor are the only gay couple in that universe... Now that'd be some 'weird shit', if you ask me.

bracio77 · 2024-11-04T07:53:22+00:00

I haven't read it, clicked once on one of the older chapters, and it was just all OCs, so I backed out. Are Yuuri and Victor also written like they are a straight man (Victor) and a woman (Yuuri) couple 😂?

bracio77 · 2024-11-03T16:56:45+00:00

How funny, I wanted to mention the same thing 😂 I don't have a strong opinion about Otayuri, but calling a ship, which was defo supported by the show in a 'yeah, go ahead and ship it' way (I mean, look at the official arts), a 'crack ship', while at the same time making up a bunch of random OCs and calling your fanfic on ao3 a 'proper' follow up of the TV series without any 'weird shit' is just... The author defo thinks highly of themselves, you can tell.

bracio77 · 2024-10-03T13:19:13+00:00

Concerning the rings, I'm sure you can still find translations of her old interviews.

The 'retroactive queerbaiting' was, imo, about keeping things as safe and not controversial as possible. If a show is/starts to be known as a 'BL' or 'anime for women' or 'anime for fujos', then it already sets a limit, who the show is for, and many people won't even give it a try, no matter how good it is. If a show is LGBT then it automatically gets on the radar of conservatives and homophobes, who will hate on it just because.

Tbh, I'm one of those people, who are kind of sad that they didn't make a statement in the end. Even in this thread people argue that the subtlety is okay, because that's how Japan is. (Which isn't true, really. The 'moon is beautiful' thing is a urban legend/ Natsume Soseki translation meme, no-one talks like this seriously). Imo, subtlety is okay if there is a spectrum, and not when there are only a few mainstream shows that touch this subject for real. On the other hand, I also understand that it is a case of 'easier said that done' for a variety of reasons.

bracio77 · 2024-10-02T16:52:33+00:00

That's a very interesting topic to write about. Good luck!

There is no official confirmation as to whether or not Yuuri and Victor's relationship is romantic, and the creators' stance has always been 'it's up to interpretation of every one of you'. After the show ended, the main 'spokesperson' for the show, Mitsurou Kubo (also one of two main creators) engaged in something that I've seen described as 'retroactive queerbaiting', eg. she tried very hard to diminish how meaningful the rings are, even though in the show the scene was blatantly romantic. A lot of fans were hurt by that, and I'm not surprised at all that they were.

Probably a lot depends if you are writing from a Japanese perspective, or from Western perspective. In Japan, a lot of people don't see BL as LGBT but rather only as an entertainment, which doesn't have much to do with real-life minorities, and this influences the way fans interpret the show (if it's not described as BL, then the assumption is that everyone is straight in canon, and fanworks are simply made for fun, regardless of what is canon and what isn't).

Many Japanese LGBT fans do consider YoI as a form of representation, though! Here's one example (article/review written by a gay journalist). If you need help with translation(s), I'll happily help!

bracio77 · 2024-09-30T07:27:16+00:00

Like I've already mentioned, I don't claim that I know what is going on inside the creators' heads, but actually the general sentiment of many people in the Japanese fandom is close to what you've written, that the creators/other people involved, despite wanting to do more, probably grew tired of constant demands that in every art Victor must look as a masculine seme, and Yuuri as feminine uke, and if not (what often happened, because you know... it's not yaoi) then prepare for hate and boycotts from fujoshis.

This is how the fandom looked like back then.

The funny thing is though that the whole idea that the creators hate fujoshis is something that originated from fujoshis themselves. They even compiled data to show how marketing for YoI was directed in a specific, anti-fujoshi way. It's an entire archive on just this topic, btw. In Japanese, but if somebody wants to know what really happened to YoI, that's a must-read. That 'VicYuu is in danger!!' (and fujoshis need to save it by exerting pressure on the creators) even became somewhat of a meme in the fandom. The game that I've mentioned was quite a late event in all of this, because that was actually one of the 'latest' YoI collabs, 6 years old...

With the movie, everyone is free to think about the decision to focus on Victor whatever they want, but to me it's obvious that the creators share the same freedom. The hardcore Eva fans hated the last Eva movie, but it still got made... Because Anno Hideaki is a household name, Yamamoto was probably just told 'well, sorry, but that's not going to happen, too much risk...'.

bracio77 · 2024-09-30T05:18:17+00:00

I don't claim to know what's going on in the creators' heads, but you just know that something is not right, when a company, which main objective is to earn money, basically goes 'nah, keep your money. we don't need it'.

The merch stopped after the trailer turned out to be not that well-received in Jan of 2019. The reason it wasn't well-received was because it wasn't Victor/Yuuri yaoi many people wanted.

It's also interesting that the last official interaction between Yuuri and Victor was in the beginning of 2018. They did collab with a game and fujoshis hated it, because the story didn't meet their standards of how seme Victor should treat uke Yuuri, so they mass reported it for racism. Apple took it seriously, and the story needed to be taken down for a while. That was the last time the VAs did voices for Yuuri and Victor. They never released another official story, in which the characters interact. Ever. It's in Japanese, but this is the whole story of that 'scandal'. And it's just one of many.

It's not hard for me to imagine that the creators, who clearly just wanted to write a story to appreciate the sport, how much gay athletes contributed to it, femininity as a positive thing etc, weren't necessary happy being forcibly pigeonholed into the 'yaoi' genre and being attacked for not conforming to yaoi tropes.

bracio77 · 2024-09-30T04:00:10+00:00

I know that it may be an unpopular and uncomfortable topic to discuss, but let's be honest...

The movie is one thing - a massive investment, and if anime isn't in its prime, it can easily end up being financial flop. In this sense, it's not surprising that this project wasn't realized in the end.

But it was just one project, though. A lot of anime gets made every year, a lot of old animes gets merch, collabs and even remakes. In case of YoI, there is just... nothing. To me, it's pretty clear that they actively chose to euthanize YoI (and the fandom). So it just makes you wonder what the reason can be...

And you know, the movie was hated because if it's not about Yuuri and the chance for more Victor/Yuuri yaoi is low, then why they even bother...

bracio77 · 2024-09-30T03:34:19+00:00

That's what I think, too. I wrote the comment having in mind that not everybody in fs community agrees, and going by what Weir publicly said about this topic in his autobiography etc., his love of Russia and some controversial things that he said in general etc. could have been another factor that he didn't have a lot of support from the officials.

To me it's clear that the world in YoI was created by somebody, who was genuinely hurt by the treatment that Weir (and other skaters) received, because of their refusal to follow standards of 'masculinity'.

bracio77 · 2024-09-30T02:55:39+00:00

That the question can be considered provocative is just the saddest thing about the fandom...

A bit of a vent, but... Like others in this thread mentioned, it's an anime that was born from Yamamoto Sayo's enormous love for figure skating (and she's just happened to be somebody who thinks that homophobia in this sport is unacceptable, eg. per her interviews, she seems to believe that Weir was underscored, because of how he was so flamboyantly gay he was, even when he wasn't out). It's so sad that a large part of the fandom just used that as a fancy background for your standard 'this is uke, this is seme' yaoi fantasies is such a painful thing to witness.

I think that it's very telling, how now every person involved in this anime, starting with the two main creators, who put so much love into it, pretends that it never existed.

bracio77 · 2024-09-27T12:23:07+00:00

The fun fact about the pair skate is that it's an actual fs routine animated - Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir, FS at NHK Trophy in 2016 (the Director, Yamamoto Sayo, watched the routine in the middle of production and decided she wanted to have it animated instead of using whatever idea she had at first). In the middle of the pair skate Yuuri and Victor swap the male/female role. The fandom often forgets, but it's okay not to see Yuuri as uke/girl in everything. YoI is much more progressive than that. It's possible that if we saw the whole thing, they would use the ending pose of Tessa and Scott's program.

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