Nothing in the show is established as explicitly canon. While it is one of the better examples of queerbaiting, it is still queerbaiting. The characters were well-written and the romantic aspects were all very compelling and genuinely touching but only if you wanted them to be there.Īnd that is where Yuri on Ice fails in its representation. It normalised depictions of male characters and male relationships that weren’t overtly sexual or fetishised. It’s no stretch to say that Yuri on Ice’s success was culturally significant.
Having said this, Yuri on Ice exists in a sort of limbo between these two categories. Shows garner fans and a following by teasing the possibility of a gay relationship but never actually following through.Īdmittedly, as the years have gone by, the anime industry has improved in this regard and we have gotten more mainstream shows with canon queer characters – I look to Banana Fish and Given as examples of this – but it’s nowhere near becoming a norm.
Queerbaiting has existed in the industry for a long time and has shown to be a very effective strategy to gain viewers. More recently, shows like Haikyu!! and Sk8 the Infinity have grown their own sizable fan bases through similar uses of attractive characters and queerbaiting. Both featured casts of pretty-boys and enough sexual tension to make you question if you read the anime description right. In the early 2010’s, shows like Kuroko no Basuke and Free! became exceedingly popular with young women in both Japan and the West. The Shonen Jump bestseller My Hero Academia started airing, cult-classic Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure was in it’s 4th season, and most importantly to this article: the ice-skating anime Yuri on Ice became an unexpected smash-hit.Īnd it doesn’t take a genius to understand why.Ĭontrary to popular belief, quite a large number of anime-watchers are women, and so many shows are made with this in mindt. That being said, I’ll say that 2016 was a pretty good year for anime. I’ve been watching it for a long time and have hundreds of episodes and shows under my belt.
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