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lilyginnyblackv2 · 1 year

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Still thinking about this one dude on Twitter that left a comment on my post about how Buddy Daddies isn’t a gay anime, but a queer one because Rei and Kazuki willingly chose to live and raise a kid together, so it goes against societal expectations and heteronormativity....

And they were like, “It’s sad how neither of them can have a real family because of their line of work.” :(

....??? Hello? They are a family. They are a found family. Like...??? I responded back as such (a bit more eloquently worded), but like...??? The OP for the series even states that this is a FAMILY STORY:

The part that I circled in red says: Family Story of Two Killers and a Girl.

FAMILY STORY.

Some dudebros out there are pretty desperate and insistent on not acknowledging the family aspect of Rei and Kazuki’s situation. They’ll just be like, “It’s just two friends co-parenting a kid together.” Literally like this meme:

The meme image is of the dog with the ball in its mouth. In the first panel, the dog looks pleading. The text above it (which I put in myself) is a question: “Two men living & raising a child together?”

The next panel is of the dog with the ball in its mouth. It looks angry this time and a human arm and hand is in the panel. It’s trying to take the ball. Above the image is the text (which I put in myself) that says, “No queer.”

The last panel is just of the angry dog with the ball in its mouth, and it says, “Only friends.” (Text was added by me).

Basically, not acknowledging that they are a family. They always hone in on how they are friends. And not in the same way that fellow aspec people like myself do, in the sense of something like a queerplatonic relationship or platonic life partnership, but in a very “they are JUST friends” kinda way. Not a family. Nothing queer. Still straight, kinda way.

It’s eye-roll worthy for sure, but also rather interesting to see the reactions too. Since Buddy Daddies has, so far anyway, gone for a normalization approach to this situation. Not the usual “gay or queer subtext that stays subtext and is meant to tantalize the audience” kinda way that we often see in anime. And usually these dudebro guys would just poo-poo away these kinds of series as “fujobait” and these sorts of readings as “yaoi fangirl delusions,” and the like.

But Buddy Daddies is putting it out there - normalizing - this fact that Kazuki and Rei are partners in this (regardless of eithers sexual orientation, that really doesn’t matter here), that Miri is their daughter, and that they are being viewed as a family, and I am living for it!

It’s causing these type of anime fans to flounder.

#Buddy Daddies #Rei Suwa #Kazuki Kurusu #Miri Unasaka #queerplatonic relationship #platonic life partners #representation in media #queer anime #queer stuff in anime #found family #long post

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thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai · 1 year

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On Love Eros is a textbook depiction of how a figure skating routine evolves over a season

If you watch figure skating, you might have noticed that skaters grow into their programmes as the season progresses and that sometimes elements (usually jumps) are rearranged or replaced because the skater struggles with them or to increase the base score of the programme. In Yuri On Ice!!!, there is a lot of this, most prominently in Yuuri’s and Yuri’s programmes. In the following, I will break this down for Yuuri’s short programme On Love: Eros as this provides the most comprehensive data on the subject.

Presentation

Figure skating is, to somewhat extent, acting. A programme can require a skater to slip into a role (I’ve heard of skaters who take acting classes for this), but even for a programme that portrays a skater’s feelings basic expression and projection skills are useful. Yuuri skates at his best when he skates true to his feelings and because of this, he gets high programme component scores (PCS), which help him make up for messed-up jumps. But when Viktor assigns On Love: Eros to him, Yuuri has no idea how to skate it. For how shall he express something he hasn’t experienced before?

Yuuri has never thought about love much less had a relationship. He says of himself that he didn’t pay attention to the things happening around him because he focused on skating since laying his eyes on Viktor for the first time. However, Viktor’s demonstration of On Love: Eros has given him an idea of a possible story:

A playboy comes to town and bewitches the women left and right. He decides to pursue the most beautiful woman in town, but she isn’t swayed. As they play the game of love, she finds it difficult to make the right choices and ends up falling for him. Then, he casts her aside as if he’s tired of her and goes off to the next town.

Which pretty much describes the situation in episodes 2&3 as Yuuri perceives it, including a possible scenario that Viktor discards him for coaching Yurio. (It also represents Viktor’s misperception of poor drunk Yuuri at the banquet, but that’s beside the point.)

Yuuri very keenly feels that he’s not at all like the playboy in his story as he considers himself physically unattractive and lacks confidence. Thankfully, Viktor’s old costume inspires him to swap roles and play the woman in his story as her part is closer to “how he feels”. To win, he must change the story and make Viktor stay. It’s unclear whether “how he feels” also refers to his unique notion of sexiness as a queer man, but as queer people are less likely to adhere to cishet stereotypes, it can very well be an additional factor. As a result of his revelation, he asks Minako to teach him to move more femininely. In the show, this is expressed in Yuuri using female pronouns during the first two times he skates Eros (the female Japanese “I” is “atashi”) and his voice being softer compared to when he’s off-ice. To cover up for his inexperience, he thinks of his favourite dish, which he’s only allowed to eat when he wins. Ironically, katsudon is a wrapper for everything Yuuri wants besides eating this food: he wants to win and he wants to eat katsudon with Viktor, representing his wish for Viktor to stay his coach (and maybe other things concerning Viktor he may not yet be able to express).

Yuuri's approach to expressing Eros reminds me of how actors approach the portrayal of an experience they never made themselves or that is hard to conjure. As a writer, I do this a lot too when putting myself in a character’s shoes. Switching the viewpoint character is also super helpful when a scene just doesn’t work the way I want it to (which is kinda what Yuuri does, too).

In episode 5, the story Yuuri wove around his programme has changed. His portrayal of Eros has evolved, but it’s not yet perfected. He still impersonates a woman and a tasty katsudon (“I’m a katsudon fatale that enthrals men” using “atashi”), but now it’s the woman who discards the man and goes off pursuing the next man.

Yuuri predominantly focuses on trying to include Viktor’s advice when he was flirting with Yuuri in the rink coaching him (“dance more like you’re trying to seduce me”). Only close to the end, he remembers the story of his programme: “On the conclusion for the love-crazed couple… how did it go?” which is kinda distanced compared to his thoughts about Viktor flirting with him and might imply that he doesn’t fully identify with the role.

As a sexually experienced person Yuuri’s coach, it’s evident to Viktor that Yuuri is still wrestling with his portrayal of Eros (which must be strange as he remembers how Yuuri was at the banquet lol). However, between episodes 5 and 6, something important happens: Yuuri and Viktor finally get together and thus the nature of their interactions changes (I discussed Japanese dating culture and how this is portrayed in YOI here). Because of this, Viktor instructs Yuuri to seduce him as himself the next time when he skates Eros in competition, which is at the Cup of China. And Yuuri’s reaction says it all.

Yuuri promptly starts using the same pronoun he uses when he refers to himself in his dialogue lines throughout the anime (“boku” is the Japanese standard male pronoun for “I). The programme is no longer a story with a protagonist Yuuri has to impersonate and identify with to some degree, but about him actively seducing Viktor with his own charms. It’s unclear whether he keeps the “female” skating style despite the pronoun change as this exceeds the limits of the animation (skating scenes are super difficult to animate so the pronouns might serve as a proxy for what the creators couldn’t translate into images). However, as Yuri!!! is super queer, I headcanon this style to become less exaggerated as it evolves into a natural expression that is 100% Yuuri as he fully blooms into his unique notion of Eros as part of his queer journey and his deepening relationship with Viktor.

However, it’s beyond doubt that the evolution of Yuuri’s portrayal of Eros is also closely tied to his relationship. Taking Viktor’s pep talk, Yuuri’s inner monologue while skating (“I am the only one who can satisfy Viktor”), and their exchange in the kiss and cry into account, skating seductively isn’t the only thing Yuuri thought of doing to Viktor *cough*, and they both know. As a result, he delivers a stellar performance with a new personal best.

I don’t think I need to elaborate on the off-ice activities the two likely have engaged in between the Cup of China and the Rostelecom Cup. As a result of his deepening relationship with Viktor and the subsequent experiences made, Yuuri scores even higher when he skates Eros in Russia. Being far away in a place where people might resent him for stealing Viktor from the sport, fuels his possessiveness which is one aspect of his Eros and ends in him getting an even higher score. His short programme has reached a stage at which he can hardly improve it any further with its current layout.

Before I’ll talk about the last time we see Yuuri skating Eros, let’s dive into the technical side.

Technical aspects

Eros is a super difficult programme for a skater with lots of stamina. All the jumps are in the second half and every entry into a jump is more difficult than the previous one, starting with a spread-eagle into the 3A and ending with a lunge entry into the 4T+3T combination. The step sequence which covers the better part of the first half looks quite demanding, too, as it has to match the pace of the music. All this makes the programme pretty ruthless, matching the theme. The initial layout includes a 3S as the second jump, which Yuuri decides turns into a quad in an attempt to beat Yuri at the Onsen on Ice because he is that desperate to win. Of course, this doesn’t go as planned, but Yuuri had to take the risk. As a side effect, it makes the entire routine even more daring. (fun fact: many irl skaters struggle with the 4S too)

As said above, Yuuri skates at his best when he skates true to his feelings. This is especially true for jumps as he is prone to flub them when something is on his mind or the programme isn’t working for him for whatever reason. To successfully land a quad jump, everything going into the execution like technique, timing, speed, power of takeoff, the moment of opening the body before landing etc. must be finely tuned. So, it’s no surprise that Yuuri nails only the 4S when he fully settled into the programme in episode 6.

For the Grand Prix Final, Yuuri changes his jump layout of Eros one last time to maximise its base score. Again, it’s a risk he’s willing to take to win. He’s been taking risks all season by changing jumps, most prominently in his free programme when he included the 4F to surprise Viktor, and now he plans to jump the 4F in Eros as the final jump, while the 4S remains in the second jumping pass but is combined with the 3T whereas the 4T is omitted.

For reference: these are the base values of the jumps in question as they appear in Yuri!!!*:

3S: 4.4

4S: 10.5

4T: 10.3

4F: 12.3

The 4F is a jump so far only Viktor could land successfully in competition and so it became his signature move. It symbolises everything Viktor is to Yuuri and expresses his desire to become as good as Viktor or even surpass him, as well as his romantic feelings. Including it in Eros, adds a possessive layer to the many things the 4F represents like showing the world that Viktor is his now, but also Yuuri’s ambition and growth as a person including his newly-discovered confidence. Remember the flashback to the rink between the Rostelecom Cup and the Grand Prix Final when Yuuri had already proposed to Viktor? “You want to see me land a quad flip in the short programme, right?” “I do!” It sounds a lot like a second proposal—all this is ultimately part of Yuuri’s Eros, too.

In the end, Yuuri doesn’t nail the 4F and ends up in fifth place after the short programme as his mind was more occupied with winning than with seducing Viktor. I like to believe that Yuuri succeeds at the next competition and that he continues refining his SP throughout the rest of the figure skating season as his relationship with Viktor deepens and evolves further. But as the anime ends mid-season, this speculation is mostly based on watching irl figure skating and my headcanon.

Closing remarks on queer presentation

What sometimes is referred to as “female” expression in dance sports is a soft and sensual movement style as opposed to the cishet male stereotype (strong, shows little emotion etc). It basically describes a gay stereotype. However, how a queer person presents can apply to a variety of queer labels. Being queer myself, I don’t feel comfortable deriving labels from isolated information for an individual be they real or fictional. I don't want to promote stereotypes, and because of this, you won't find me jumping to conclusions about their unique queerness.

Japanese pronouns

For further reading about Japanese pronouns especially when used by queer people, I recommend this comprehensive article. Having read this, Yuuri’s switch to “atashi” during the first two times he skates Eros, makes even more sense to me.

*these base values were the same in the seasons I checked starting from the 2014/15 season to the 2016/17 season, which encompasses the time Yuri!!! was produced.

If you enjoy my meta posts, please consider giving my blog a follow or checking out my works on AO3(link in bio). You will find the results of my meta musings in there!

#my yoi meta #yuri on ice #yoi #yoi meta #yuri on ice meta #katsuki yuuri #katsudon yuuri #viktor nikirofov #viktuuri #figure skating #On Love: Eros #anime #queer expression #lgbtq #If you like my meta please check my fics on AO3 they're full of this stuff

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