Warning: For this review I'm going to consider Russian Yuri as Yurio
Story: The story is with Yuri Katsuki a professional ice skater that somehow flop at the final and meet his so-called rival Yurio as well in the journey of getting better in ice skating again with love thrown in as well with his coach Victor. That on paper sounds interesting.... However poorly executed. Why?? Let's find out
Characters: Now the main 3 characters are great. Yuri, Victor and Yurio. Those 3 got the most character development. Yurio start out as a prick but at the end turn into a gentle, kind and just thought out person. Victor from a coach that was doubting on getting back on the ice but thanks to Yurio and Yuri that broke his records he is going to get back into ice skating. (Although felt last minute)....
Yuri... Thank god he is the main character if not he will be boring and forgettable really. Now with all main leads aside let's look at the secondary characters in this anime and the main issue is TOO MANY CHARACTERS. Like seriously do any of us remember any of the characters??? Some characters are classified as what I would love to call them as "characters there to be there". some of the characters only show up for 1 or 2 episodes and we never see them ever again. Like remember the scary Russian guy?? No?? Though so.... The only
side character I remember is JJ. Speaking of JJ, he actually did something in episode 11 questioning why and how it happen?? JJ as been doing his best for the past 10 episodes and always reach #1 or at best #2 and in episode 11 he just fail epic. HOW?? I mean give us some reason why he mess up. I mean Yuri got into a mental breakdown once. He since fine... So what is his reason. Like give him some sort of reason to he felt the pressure. Is the same routine, same opponent, same ice. What is the reason???
Art and animation: The art style is kinda iffy in some moment. Some look fantastic while some look like berserk 2016 or even Ajin animation bad... Stretch that is worst. The 3D animation in this anime are worst than those two. Also, if you pause frame by frame you would see that their faces look like... To put kindly... off-model. I have to credit to MAPPA on making the ice-skating scene look like real figure skater. But other than that... Nothing stand out in a good way.
Music: I'm not a big fan of the opening and the ending. I just found it bland and dull. The visual are pretty and great but the lyrics were bland and just can't get into it. The OST... Some hits and some misses.
Enjoyment: Overall some positive but a major let down at the end with "characters there to be there characters", Horrible 3D animation but that's not the biggest disappointment of the series are the filler performances. Performances in sport anime are great and all but what are you getting of the performances are the major key to the performances and I pray to the heavens no other sports anime will do that ever again. Also, Ice skating is such a great influences in those characters live so it should have some impact on me to try ice skating. It doesn't... In fact they make it felt boring with the same routine over and over again. Ok, you can argue that the sport is not the main focus but the love between yuri and victor but if you remove 70-80% of the filler performances it would have no effect on the relationship. Look, I have not seen ace of diamond yet but I would bet that it would make the most boring sport ever due date exicting and fun which is baseball.
So with the average score of 3.4 I would present yuri on ice a recommendation of a skip it. I love sport but this by far the worst sport anime I have seen due date that and battery
Other recommendation include cheer danshi which highlight the sport with the fundamental basic and also give us great characters along the way. Next is a blind recommendation I have not try it but I bet is 100 times better than this chihayafuru.
