Subtitle: “I want to be the most beautiful woman in town, who seduces the playboy!” ( Image source)
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Image: Yuuri practicing posing his arms with Minako-sensei.
#Gay anime couples yuri on ice how to
However, the night before his first performance of “On Love: Eros,” he asks his ballet teacher (Minako-sensei) to teach him how to move in more feminine ways, changing the story so that the most beautiful woman seduces the playboy, then casts him aside. Yuuri has trouble accessing his sexuality for his “Eros” routine, so, after telling Viktor and Yurio that katsudon is eros to him, he tries to make up a story about a playboy who comes to town and seduces the most beautiful woman, then casts her aside. The other skaters might laugh at Georgi’s being way too emotional about being dumped by his ex-girlfriend and working his pain into his routine or about how Seung-Gil’s facial expression is completely dead while he’s trying to skate a sexy routine, but there’s no machismo, no snark, and no bullying. Other than JJ making a comment about “ladies first” to Yuri “Yurio” Plisetsky, the youngest skater, there’s no femme-shaming.
![gay anime couples yuri on ice gay anime couples yuri on ice](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/0b/ca/2b/0bca2be3d9826e6f818e21305cbe0e5b.jpg)
Both Viktor and Yuuri–as well as most of the other skaters–utilize feminine, masculine, and androgynous elements in their routines, costumes, and style.
![gay anime couples yuri on ice gay anime couples yuri on ice](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/07/ea/b5/07eab5a184d7fa6b4780a40855e08e5f.jpg)
No one is “the man” and no one is “the woman” in same-gender relationships (or, I would argue, in different-gender relationships where all members are queer). Yuuri and Viktor’s uniquely unconventional relationship isn’t like anything I’ve seen before, and I can’t emphasize how important that is. Rather, queer relationship models have the potential to break down cisheteronormative gender norms. There are many, many ways to be queer and happy, but in media, if queer couples get a happy ending at all, it’s usually through the relationship-escalator model, where the queer couple looks and acts “just like a straight couple.” The message of that model is that unless you’re “just like straight people” and your relationship is a (relatively) socially approved one, you’ll be sad and alone forever (or dead).īeing “just like straight couples”–fetishizing wedding culture, adhering to butch/femme standards, and propagating capitalism– isn’t the path to queer liberation. To return for a minute to the “happy ending” plot, it’s just another version of the relationship escalator, but with coming out: meeting, first kiss, dating, coming out and resulting homophobia, commitment ceremony/marriage, kids(?), bickering old married couple. Screenshot: Viktor, touching Yuuri’s lower lip, saying, “No one in the whole wide world knows your true eros, Yuri.” (Their lips are very shiny and Yuuri’s eyes are huge, a drop of sweat rolls down his cheek.) A mean bisexual goes back to their different-gender partner and breaks the heart of the sad gay, who has to carry on all by themself. Queer folks have a torrid romance and then one of them dies, typically in a hate crime, possibly with sexual violence. an out gay person (because they’re always monosexual) meets a person who identifies as straight and then they fall in love, live happily ever after, and no one mentions the pesky “B” word. In “Western” media, the plots seem to be more along the lines of 1. (I tend to avoid these shows because I don’t need that, but you can read about recent examples here, even though the author also forgets bisexuals and bi characters exist). In Japanese mainstream anime and dramas (read: not BL, not manga), there’s a lot of queer angst directed at a partner who doesn’t reciprocate ( Last Friends, IS: Otoko demo onna demo nai sei), and a lot of queer-baiting. I get so tired of “gay” (bi folks exist!) romance stories because the narratives are so tropey and limited. Mild spoilers throughout, major spoiler at end.Īvoiding Tropes and the Relationship Escalator
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Or, why Yuri!!! on Ice hops off the relationship escalator, disrupts homonormativity, and I CLOSE MY EYES AND TELL MYSELF THAT MY DREAMS WILL COME TRUE Screenshot of Viktor hugging Yuuri before a performance, saying “I love pork cutlet bowls.”