I feel like it's a matter of time before I see "Yuri on Ice is the most feminist show ever"

[sqbr]

With arguments including:

• Made by a woman of colour (directed by a Japanese woman in Japan)
  
• Aimed at women, female gaze (don't get me started on 'the female gaze'. Just. Don't)
  
• Does not objectify women (because it's about men)
  
• Multiple well drawn female characters (who are secondary to the men)
  
• Canon amab genderqueer gay asexual protagonist in canon relationship with a man (is about two mildly gender non conforming guys being homoerotic-with-plausible-deniability)
  
• Ethnic diversity (a Thai character has had a few lines)
  
• Title is clearly a queer feminist deconstruction of male gazey yuri anime (title is very confusing if you are looking for actual yuri)
  

Which is to say: it's a lot of fun and less problematic/more progressive than most sports anime. I really like it! But it's still a mainstream anime about dudes.

I haven't actually seen any arguments along these lines for this show in particular but I was replying to a friend's post about the way people twist themselves in knots to argue that stories about dudes are THE MOST FEMINIST EVER and went "What would my example be? Well I just watched an episode of Yuri on Ice, and...oh God. I know exactly what someone out there is saying about this show".

Now later when I see such meta I can say "I KNEW IT" :)

Comments

[moonvoice]

Yep, there's been a bevy of ice skaters who love it, and I've seen articles along the lines of 'it's ridiculous, no one can humanly do that many quads in a routine, BUT they clearly *researched* the quads and the points system and the culture.' Etc. There's a great post about that here that breaks it down in a pretty fun way. If you don't have time to read, I'll just quote this part:

as a long-time figure skating fan, i’ve been really looking forward to yuri on ice, and i wanted to talk a little bit about the skating in episode 1. i worry that maybe people who aren’t as into skating don’t understand how RIDICULOUS that program viktor did was.

this is not in any way a complaint. the program was completely unrealistic, but not because anyone involved with the show neglected to do their research. it was clear they actually put a ton of research & work in, and then intentionally designed something that was the skating equivalent of your power level being over 9000. viktor (and yuri) went out there and threw down the skating version of a level 100 mewtwo. it was DELIGHTFUL.

(Which pretty much echoes my feelings as a fan of figure-skating, lol).

I believe they studied ice skaters and ice skating culture for a *long* time. It certainly feels like it, as an amateur ice-skating enthusiast. You can tell the ice skaters that each of them are based off (if you follow the games / Winter Olympics / performances etc.), and there are moves in there that were made famous by openly gay figure-skater Johnny Weir in America etc.

But yeah not the most feminist show ever. Just fun and pretty different for sports anime, heh.

[sqbr]

Ahahaha that's so cool, thank you! I know NOTHING about skating so that stuff all goes entirely over my head.