The1gairon

HERE WE GO!!! Well, I'm afraid this con left me a bit tired so I'm gonna sit the rest of the evening out and just watch! Have fun!

you know with how soddy all Toei's rebooted anime animation have become I wonder if they should just train for CGI? That ending vanity plate looked cool! Well, I'm afraid this con left me a bit tired so I'm gonna sit the rest of the evening out and just watch! Have fun!

Frieza's sarcasm, Funimation's tranlations, and Chris Ayres' epic delivery are the only saving graces of this episode.

On this show? He IS aware of what studio this is, and what era we're in??

... we get it you're clapping. Please stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop.

When did people start calling it the "dark web"??

SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW.

Well even with a new webhost, the boards still crap out when there's too much traffic. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Get ready for Goku and Frieza exchanging blows that don't do anything, as well as talking. for 24 minutes.

That must be the most pathetic drawing of Gohan I ever seen.

HERE WE GO!!!

I caught the 8 PM premiere today, but here I am again!

My Hero Academia 27.

I am catching the 8 PM showing too because I'm at a con and there's nothing else I wanna do there for the day past 7!

I am going to Connecticon! So I don't know when I'll be able to see this ep.

Welcome to the first Toonami live-commenting on the new webhost and new URL.

beat-boxes me.

My question was more on the assumption that they could have restrictions on their use of smart phones imposed onto them by their contracts or companies they work for. That;s all.

But look. The text is underlined when you click it. .... oooooo.

I start my new posts about my reactions to Yuri On Ice!!! These aren’t reviews of each episode, one by one. These will just be overall thoughts on a batch of episodes whenever I get to see them, and whenever I get the chance to write about them. By now I have seen the first 4 episodes and yes, because I am online non-stop for my whole waking life, I AM in on the memes, and I AM in on the big twist that occurs near the end of the anime, and what the story and especially the end credit sequence keeps foreshadowing. So you won’t get a big ol “OH MY GOD THAT’S GENIUS!IT WAS RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME AND I DIDN’T EVEN SEE IT COMING! THIS SHOW IS AMAZING ANG GROUND-BREAKING AND GREAT WRITING! GAYNESS! LOOK AT HOW CUTE HE IS!! INTERNATIONAL APPEAL OHMYGODMUSTTALKABOUT ON ALLLL THE INTERNETS!!!!” reaction from me come Episode like 8 or 9 or whatever. I follow an anime blog that discussed, in detail, everything that happened along with stills from each episode even though I only skimmed those posts. I am spoiled on like 70% of everything in it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t bring up more surprising stuff I found here! This is coming from a male cynic who has been convinced that he is straight, but is recently having second thoughts on that, so maybe actually watching this will give me another perspective. There WILL be spoilers in this write-up, and in following write-ups in this series. Why did it take me this long to get around to watching only 12 episodes of something? Well, aside from the more sensible reason of not having enough time over my then-already-packed season schedule, I saw how the hype unexpectedly blew out of proportion,… and admittedly that kinda made me…… hate Yuri On Ice on principle, and I wanted to wait until the popularity died down to see it. This isn’t just a gripe I have with anime. It’s something I hate about ANYTHING that gets popular. I don’t feel like my feelings matter toward something if everyone else feels the same way and already capitalized on it. I wait 3 weeks or so after a blockbuster is released in theaters before seeing it myself because I abhor crowds. I roll my eyes whenever I see one thing getting mentioned on social media for the umpteenth time (I GET it!!! STOP REPEATING IT TO ME!!). I’m not a gamer so I get frustrated whenever I see a character make a debut on a new game and become popular because I know I don’t share their feelings. I try to stay away from politics, especially in 2016-2017, yet the media that does become popular all try to start a new trend that reaches the headlines. That last part I’m fine with, until I go back online and just wonder if all the fans posting ONLY YOI Tumblr gifs all day have turned into wackos. Now I calmed down a bit, and am going to try and understand why all those fans felt the way they felt those months ago. Yuri On Ice in the first second in, already shows that it’s going “to make history” by being totally ambitious and VERY risky for the Japanese anime industry. It’s headed by a female director who created Michitko and Hatchin, who directed A Woman Called Fujiko Mine, and who worked with Shinichiro Watanabe as an episode director on his shows. It showcases her obsession with figure-skating, and of course the only way to do that is to make it a sports anime, and hey, while we’re at it, let’s make all the main characters gorgeous, athletic young men! She pushes relatively small Studio MAPPA to the brink by having them animate full ice-skating sequences all on one’s or two’s, on a TV budget!! The team wants to make this appeal to an international audience by making most of the main cast of internatioonal origin themselves, in one of the least diverse countries in the world! And yes, it finally features main characters that aren’t plain straight, in a country that only really writes gay/lesbian/other traits for 1.) villains, or 2.) side characters who get killed off. The narrative does a great job at presenting Viktor as just another of those protagonists who likes to get close to others by being a natural romantic, and yes the anime frames everything with yaoi subtext like the tired trickery from other female-targeted anime like Free!! or Kuroko No Basket, until the twist reveals that it’s NOT subtext, and that Viktor, and even Yuri, are both not only gay (well, technically Viktor is bi), but form a relationship! The anime isn’t just about ice-skating! It’s about the formation of a gay relationship! I’m not sure I can warm up to the opening. The animation is some of the most fluid I seen on a TV opening sequence, but it feels like it’s a bit pompous, as if to say “yeah, WE’RE the SHIT, and we know you already agree! BASK IN THE GLORY THAT IS ONLY US!”. The song “History Maker” sounds a bit too Disney or fantasy-dreamlike for my tastes. I am warmed up a bit more toward the very inventive ED which is composed of, and I am not just exaggerating here, Instagram posts scrolling up on the screen (commercial placement- please pay us!). They’re still hand-drawn, but the characters here in the photos, most of whom you haven’t even met by this point, all pose in ways real people would appear in selfies, and it cements just how grounded everything in the story is. Plus, the ED beautifully hints that there is something more to Yuri than he lets on… and possibly more than even HE realizes about himself. A good part of his struggle is that he underestimates just how much potential he has, and dear Viktor is there to be patient and awaken that side of him (once more ). This brings me to the characters themselves. I really love all the boys because they’re artists, and I am one too, abite in a different field. 5 minutes in, and I am ON BOARD with the star. Josh Grelle is already one of my fav anime actors for this type of character because he can play wimps that don’t at all seem pathetic and have depth to them. Yuri is, aside from his profession, ME. End of Episode 1, he’s basically me at all hours of the day: tired, in a slump, depressed after facing a blow to his work, loving his cosy family, and weighs more than he feels he should, but is still driven to do what he believes is right. Everything he does comes from what he finds emotionally beautiful. How he wound up this far in a profession that more fits confident, alpha-male attitudes is beyond me. He’s nervous almost all the time, which makes him easy to root for. My goodness, his old school crush (she’s VERY cute too) not only got married to a much more confident classmate but in his absence on the competitions they had triplets! He doesn’t seem to phased by this, as he’s on great terms with her whole family, and again that brings me mentioning again how real the characters in this show feel. Viktor on the other hand, I have more reservations with. He’s supposed to be a flawless idol athlete, but that’s to his detriment. He’s TOO perfect, meaning I cannot identify with him. Does he himself have real problems just like Yuri’s problems the anime goes out of its way to emphasize?? Sure, he’s facing retirement at the ripe, old, experienced, withered, senior age of …… 27 (*ahem*)… and has to decide what to do with this life, but he makes that decision way early in the show and thus he becomes an ancillary character to Yuri instead of playing on a level field. Viktor is gorgeous, friendly, eternally calm, never yells, has a dreamy air about him, is all knowledgable, forgetful, doesn’t mind that he moves to another country every few months on his own decisions, and doesn’t care to dwell on problems, … traits that I assumed all athletes have. In fact, the male ice-skaters in this show besides Yuri and Yurio all seem to be those kind of jocks in high school I hated. The ones who never complain, are way more perfect than I, have their own cars, have their life in their own hands, and who never think twice about the littler guys (I loathed PE). The difference with Viktor is that he DOES care about Yuri, and honestly, him moving to Japan out of the blue to help out a fan he never before met, all because he was inspired by a viral video of Yuri performing on the ice, is so adorably sweet, and is what really makes me want to see how his somewhat by-the-numbers character evolves. He constantly acts in a very smug, mysterious tone, as if he’s hiding a motive that makes the rest of the cast perplexed (because he DOES have a hidden motivation!). But I want him to just out and SAY it to Yuri, if they’re so goddamn close! Quit talking in Mr. Miyagi philosophies! The last thing I’ll talk about here for now is the editing. The pacing in this show is extremely fast, which is expected for a 12-episode anime not based on an existing franchise and an original story with new characters, but I often wonder if I’m getting too old to even 100% enjoy what I have a hobby with. I am not at all familiar with how ice-skating competitions work, and the show tries to explain them to me, but they list the rules so fast that I can’t remember 90% of what they just told me. The animation here is GREAT, and it serves the pacing well by using a mix of chibi-cartoonish drawings for the comedic moments, and hard takes for the more serious moments. Movements are all fluid and perfect to each characters’ personality. The anime shows only the more essential moments that drive the story and never pause for small talk or empty pauses. A key scene could go one for nary a second! With all this stuff packed in 22 minutes each week, it’s no wonder fans had so much to say about it online, and why there were so many theories and hints that they discovered peppered through the show regarding the twist. It’s clearly tailored toward the sharpest of viewers who are engrained in this social media era, which brings me back to the Instagram ending as I mentioned. Characters often use smart phones through the anime, which play vital parts of the story. Do figure-skaters use them like this all the time?? That’s it for now. More will come when I continue with the anime.