Yuri!!! on Ice / Headscratchers

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Yurio's antagonism and attitude

What the hell is Yurio's problem with Yuri? I know we're supposed to see him as just a childish, egotistic bratty teenager but why is he antagonizing the guy so much? This troper literally cannot see any redeeming qualities in him as a character and can't even understand why he's so well-liked by the fandom when he has such an awful personality.
- The reason for fans to like him are that he is cute and has shown a bit more depth of character than "bratty teenager" given his family situation and his lack of relationships. as for the hate on Yuri, frankly, that's a matter of Alternate Character Interpretation. From what I could gather, some theories are:
  - He is in love with Victor, and hates both Yuri and Victor for starting a relationship.
  - He doesn't hate Yuri, he hates Victor, and sees Yuri as the only way to get to Victor.
  - He has No Social Skills and likes them, but doesn't know how to show it.
  - He perceives them as threats to his own career and his dream to win gold.
  - He hates Victor for giving up on ice skating and Yuri for beating him in a dance off.
  - He hates Yuri because he thinks that Yuri is a limitation to Victor, who would be better off either ice skating or coaching him.
  - Victor was right and he wanted to prove himself by skating against him and winning.
  - Given that Yurio was likely aware of Victor's post-GPF crush on Yuri, he may not have liked the personality change that resulted rather than the professional one — Victor in superstar mode is godlike and aloof, but Victor in I-love-Yuri mode is smitten and dorky. Yurio may not have been able to deal with the more human side of someone who seemed utterly untouchable, and blames Yuri for the transformation.
  - A less likely theory that has been gaining some traction is that he's got a crush on or idolises Yuri (who would have been competing when Yurio was in the Juniors) and is resentful of Yuri "letting him down" by crashing in the last GPF /becoming involved with Victor.
  - As it turns out, episode 12 confirms that Yurio deeply admires Yuri and has been determined to win in order to keep Yuri motivated in skating. While it's still not an excuse, his jerkassery seems to be a mixture of this and No Social Skills.
  - Also, Yurio tends to use his own defeats to motivate himself. Seeing someone who impressed him crying in the bathroom wasn't the most inspiring image, and while it doesn't justify his attitude, it's certainly part of it.
- ... Couldn't it just be the fact that he's a 15-year-old kid who has probably never had friends his own age(or any friends for that matter) and has a bit of an ego?
  - Even then, it still doesn't explain why he could at least be aloof and not borderline abusive of a guy who didn't deserve it.
  - ... Ever been around teenagers in Real Life? Quite a number of them are aggressive and self-centered for little to no reason, and may indeed mercilessly bully people who don't deserve it. Obviously there are plenty of perfectly nice teenagers - as are most of the teens in the show - but Yurio instead runs a bit closer to the Teens Are Monsters trope.
- As someone who normally hates this type of character... I actually like Yurio. There are little bits and details even quite early in the series that hint that he's not a complete jerk and which become more obvious over time, which probably accounts for at least some of his fanbase (for example, not turning Yuri down when the latter asked him to help with his jumps). Aside from that, his jerkish moments are often played for laughs, and it's made clear that the other characters are well aware of his asshole behavior - other series might instead play off such behavior as nothing, while Yurio often gets dismissed, berated, or trolled for it.
- It's also heavily implied that Yurio doesn't really have that many people in his life who care deeply for him. Yakov seems to, but his only remaining family seems to be his grandfather, who isn't in good health and couldn't have been a reliable caretaker for him growing up, though they do love each other deeply. When people think of unconditional love, their first instinct is usually paternal or at least familial – when it takes Yurio days of agonizing to think of someone that he loves who he's positive cares about him deeply, that should tell you something right there about the level of love and compassion in his life, as well as the fact that it's outright stated that no one has ever asked Yurio to be their friend before. Yakov and Lilia do their best for him, but they aren't his parents, they aren't his peers, and they're certainly not the biggest softies themselves. Victor, being so much older than Yurio, was probably one of the closest things he had to an older brother or mentor figure, and certainly the only person he considered a peer when he was still in his arrogant youth begging to do quads at 14 – it's no wonder he wouldn't take kindly to the person who drew that figure away from him, especially if it's easier for him to be angry at some stranger from Japan than it is to be angry at Victor for up and leaving him behind. He's lonely and overcompensating for a massive change in his life – over time, once he's able to get used to the idea, he doesn't shed his prickly shell but he becomes a lot nicer to Yuri as the series progresses and he starts seeing him as a peer and rival rather than a usurper and a thief. It's also clearly shown that he's not unable to develop good relationships with people and he isn't just a Jerkass, since he seems to get along fairly well with Yuko, the triplets, and eventually Otabek; Yuri just happens to be wrapped up in everything that's upsetting him at the moment. He's 15 with an already warped social life; he's not exactly mature enough to just handle that without finding someone to blame.
- Aside from that one outburst at the GPF, Yuri's actually pretty nice to Yuuri...when Victor's not around. It's possible it's Victor who gets on his nerves, but since Yuuri's main plot-relevant relationship is with Victor, it's pretty rare that Yuri can catch Yuuri on his own.

Is Yurio a Karma Houdini?

Speaking of Yurio, this troper is kind of wondering whether he should have been formally reprimanded or at least garnered a worse reputation for his poor sportsmanship. The verbal put downs, while very unacceptable, are one thing, but if I recall correctly Yurio physically attacked Yuri in public right in front of a large crowd. Is this stuff just normal to fly?
- Actually, it seems that Yuri is an acceptable target of sorts. Yurio won't be reprimanded by being a grade A jerk to him, but he will be called out the minute he looks weird to his fangirls. Maybe Lilia and Yakov realize there's no way to solve his competitiveness jackassery so they just stopped talking about it?
- Many are starting to see him as a Jerkass. From what this troper can see, Yurio has gotten away with being a complete and utter Jerkass to practically everyone in the show, especially Yuri and Victor, but is the sole breadwinner of his family, is hailed as a Teen Genius, looks pretty, has legions of loyal fans, nothing goes wrong for him that won't be solved almost instantly and is apparently Victor's successor, if the recent episode is anything to go by.
- Yurio's behaviour doesn't go unaddressed: he does have a reputation as a "Russian punk" for his abrasive personality, and he gets scolded by Yakov and Lilia for it. As for the "physical attack in public", a lot of the characters do stuff that would be outrageous and/or illegal in Real Life (eg Chris and Yuri undressing and poledancing in front of minors, Phichit taking compromising photos of Victor and Yuri and uploading them to the internet without their consent), but get away with it because this is fiction and the scenes are unambiguously framed as comedy. Taking Yurio's Slapstick seriously is like taking Yuko's Nosebleeds as a real medical emergency and accusing Yuri and Victor of being heartless monsters because they ignored her while she bled on the floor. We can find these jokes funny or not, that's a matter of personal preference, but we can't ignore that the scenes are exaggerated for comedy. The characters don't react to them seriously because, In-Universe, they aren't serious.
  - This. Slapstick in anime is nothing new; it's almost never a serious event. Think of it like a hard punch on the arm – probably hurts, but no real damage. This troper also wants to draw attention to Victor letting Yuri fall flat on his face to avoid getting blood on his suit – if he had just stepped aside and let Yuri crash to the ground like that IRL, with confirmed video and photos of the event, it would have been lambasted as a pretty cruel thing to do, but it's fiction and it's funny, so it's not that big of a deal.
  - All of these are interesting points. Thanks!

Scoring Inaccuracies (Episode 11)

In episode 11, what is with the suddenly ridiculous scores?
- During an explanation of the scoring system in an earlier episode we see a screenshot◊ of Yuuri's protocols for an SP. His jumps were 4T3T (quad toe triple toe), 3A (triple axel), and 3Lz (triple lutz). Although his axel and lutz received negative GOE meaning they had errors, there were no deductions or markers which means he actually did the jumps. Yuuri received an 82.80. Meanwhile, JJ with 4T 1A 1Lz got an 86.71? What?!
- Yurio's SP score of 118.56 should not be possible from his program layout even if he tano'd all of his jumps and executed everything perfectly. It certainly should not be able to outscore Victor's SP◊ which has a quad lutz and quad flip.
- The scores this time around seem to be literally just for plot reasons. Yuri was underscored when he literally only flubbed his quad flip when he put a hand on the ice and everything else was fine. At best, he should have broken the 100-point barrier and scored higher than Chris. Yurio, on the other hand, should not even achieve his score because of what is mentioned above. The technical elements of his routine don't add up to his scores at all.
- Given how accurate the series has been till now, it could be possible that there was a bribe involved. If not... then it was for plot.
  - It was definitely for plot. Had it not been for those extra 5 points, and if Yuri's score was at least 5 points higher (since his actual score should not have been so low), Yuri would have won no matter what.

Scoring Inaccuracies (Episode 12)

In episode 12, how did J.J. place 3rd overall? His program was good but it wasn't flawless, and especially considering his disastrous Short Program, how did he beat Otabek, who made no mistakes with his jumps in the Free Skate?
- Guessing that it's because he's meant to have more technically difficult skates which allows him to gain more points, and it's not about being flawless as much as it's about taking on more challenging elements. Though this troper is no expert in FS scoring and would defer to any of those with they wanted to show someone mess up badly but make a big comeback even if gold was out of reach, giving some parallels to Yuri.
- Perhaps it was a reference to the 2013 World Championships. Denis Ten from Kazakhstan skated the skate of his life which was pretty much clean, yet he barely lost to Canada's Patrick Chan who fell multiple times.

How much does Yakov know?

Was Yakov aware of Victor's infatuation with Yuri? You would assume that he'd have at the fateful banquet as Victor and Yurio's coach, and if so he would have seen the resulting antics. However, you would think that he'd keep his skaters on a tighter leash, given his personality — he might have given up on controlling Victor, but he'd be perfectly within his rights to drag fourteen-year-old Yurio away. Instead, Victor and Yurio are enthusiastic participants in the dance-off, and Victor and Yuri's flirting isn't subtle. Was Yakov purely irritated that Victor had decided to take up coaching and risk his career as a skater on a whim, or was he more concerned that Victor had dropped everything to chase his crush?
- Yakov was annoyed at the idea of Victor "playing coach", so he probably assumed that Victor was pursuing coaching for selfish reasons. However, Victor is the type who enjoys surprising people and making his own routines. Although Yakov was his coach in name, he probably held little control over Victor. After all, Victor was probably skilled enough to not have to listen to Yakov's coaching to win anymore. Yakov probably would be irritated that Victor would quit while he was still on top, but at that point, he probably would also understand that Victor is an unpredictable, uncontrollable person. Still, Yakov knows that Victor is a completely inexperienced coach, so Yakov is probably fine with letting Victor change his career path for a year and then come back to skating with new inspiration gained and lessons learned. If that is how Victor can improve as both a skater and a person, then Yakov would have no reason to be concerned when all is said and done. Meanwhile, Yurio is a completely different person to coach because he is still young, both in age and skill. He actually needs to listen to his coach to improve.
- Yakov also has no real right to keep Victor on a short leash. Yes, there's certain standards of behavior to maintain, but Victor is 28 years old. It wouldn't be appropriate for someone to drag him away from dancing with a guy at a party – he's a fully grown adult and he can and should be making his own decisions. If he was so wasted he couldn't walk, that'd be one thing, but he clearly wasn't. Regardless of whether or not Yakov knew, it would have been pretty strange for him to be trying to make Victor's social decisions for him. When he left, it seemed like Yakov was more irritated by how sudden his decisions were – it seems like until Yuri's video came up, Yakov would have been in the process of trying to help Victor create new routines, analyzing his performances, and just generally devoting time to him that Victor hadn't indicated he didn't want. And then within a few weeks he just announces he won't be competing and leaves. Maybe he had the right, but it was still a dick move after being Yakov's skater for so long. Yakov makes it clear that he's expecting an apology when Victor talks to him next, but Victor – who's been a little self absorbed the whole show – blatantly refuses to even be apologetic. Why wouldn't he be angry with him for that, crush or not?

Yuuri's motive for retirement

Why is Yuuri so adamant to retire in the first place? Even in the first episode where he's feeling depressed, he was trying to gain back his love for skating and claiming that he definitely wants to skate on the same ice as Victor again◊. But in episode 2 where he actually manages to win the onsen on ice battle, he drops this bomb◊ about this season being his last and keeps mentioning it in his monologue throughout the series without explaining his reasoning further. Many fans have attributed his decision to his anxiety and low self-esteem, but that alone doesn't seem to be enough reason, especially after he gains more confidence over the course of the series. His monologue in the final episode suggest that he plans to retire so that Victor is free to return to competitive skating, but this troper fails to understand why the two things are mutually exclusive (the other characters seem to hold the same assumption, Russian Yuri's reaction◊ at the news of Victor's return being an example). Yuuri straight◊ out◊ admits that he wants to continue but will retire anyway so that he won't hold◊ Victor back◊, and I'm just sitting here wondering why Yuuri working with another coach is absolutely not an option.
- It has a lot to do with Unreliable Narrator and Poor Communication Kills. Because Victor says, in his own words, that he will coach Yuuri so that he will get gold at the Grand Prix Final, Yuuri assumes that Victor will only coach him until then. And early in the series, he is still trying to build confidence, so while he is motivated to strive for the GPF, he still thinks that time with Victor is limited. Plus he knows at his age, his body could be seeking retirement soon. And yes, his confidence and self-assertiveness does grow. But something Yuuri doesn't foresee happening is falling in love with Victor! So that complicates his worries that Victor would still want to return to the ice, and that he is holding him back from his passion. And he believes it is not possible for Victor to compete AND coach Yuuri at the same time, even though he wants to keep that coach-and-athlete relationship as much as Victor, as evident in the airport reunion and during his FS in episode 12. So basically towards the end, he wants to end the professional relationship so that Victor can be free to focus on his comeback; and he will retire because no one else can be as good of a coach to him as Victor has been. That, and/or if Yuuri ends up with another coach, it's possible he and Victor will not be together during the season, and that's not an option because as Word of God said, they cannot bear to be separated. A painful conflict just because he has the case of I Want My Beloved to Be Happy.
- Not to mention that Yuuri suffers from anxiety. The thing about anxiety is that it can wreak havoc with your mind-set and it isn't always logical. Just because you know something in your head doesn't mean it won't spiral and drag you down. This troper has a friend with severe anxiety and one time said friend locked his keys in his car by accident and became a wreck. He was at my place, and my family has AAA so we were able to call and they AAA came out and opened his car door with out a scratch and at no cost. But even while he knew he was somewhere safe with no where else he had to be and that AAA was coming to open the car, it didn't change the fact that I had to talk him down from panicking a couple of times. He even commented how frustrating it.
- Anxiety alone won't explain it all because it was a decision he based after contemplating for several months, it wasn't a sudden impulsive action. The scope of his decision is also massive, for an adult completely changing the direction of their career is serious business. This meta here actually has a pretty complex explanation that combines both of your answers, and in my opinion it makes sense for him to have reached that decision due to a combination of several factors instead of it being some weird shounen-manga style hasty move.
- 24 is not a young age to retire from figure skating; notice that many of the skaters he goes head to head with are still in their teens, and people like Chris, Georgi, and Victor are some of the oldest in the show. Yuri had the decision in his head to retire after his sixth place in his first grand prix final; once Victor showed up, he had a temporary goal, but as someone who has experience with maladaptive thinking habits, it's entirely possible he just never really realized that not retiring was an option. Once you get something like that in your head, it feels inevitable – and considering how Yuri considered himself 'dime a dozen' despite being quite literally the best figure skater in Japan at the time, it's not unreasonable for him to have considered this season to be his last hurrah before he inevitably left the game for good.

Yurio being uncharacteristically nice

Yurio gives Yuri the bag of katsudon pirozhki, saying "It's almost your birthday, right?" However, it is a Russian superstition that if you give someone birthday wishes before the actual day of their birthday, they will have bad luck. The creators of the show are clearly aware of this- in episode 10, when Yuri is walking with Viktor in Barcelona, he mentions that Viktor's birthday is coming and asks what he'd like as a gift. Viktor responds by saying "In Russia, we don't celebrate before the actual birthday." So I'm wondering what this means. Was Yurio trying to give Yuri bad luck on purpose? Is he just not superstitious? Is this just an inconsistency that went unnoticed?
- Most likely he' not superstitious, but possibly he figures since Yuri is Japanese and it's a Russian superstition, it only effect Russians. Victor says the next episode he's gonna buy Yuri a suit for his birthday, and I wouldn't think he wants to wish Yuri bad luck, so perhaps he has the same logic? It slips my mind whether Yuri ever wore a suit again, but I doubt he'd let Yuri off without buying art least one new suit.
- Yurio is not the kind of person who gives gifts out of the goodness of his heart. At least, he doesn't want people to think he is. He was really excited by Yuri's performance and wanted to congratulate him, but Yurio still has his Ice Tiger image to keep up. Yuri's upcoming birthday was a convenient excuse for Yurio to be nice without being too nice.
- Keep in mind it was genuinely impossible for Yurio to celebrate Yuri's birthday with him on the actual day of. He only saw Yuri at the Cup of China, and Yuri'd just had a horrible day getting shifted between coaches, being without Victor, and being worried for Makkachin (who is literally older than Yurio). If he'd really wanted to give him bad luck, Yurio'd have wished him happy birthday before he skated instead.

Yurio's name

It makes no sense for Yurio's first name to be Yuri. Why doesn't he have a more traditional Russian name instead?
- Because the fact that "Yuri" is both a Japanese name and a Russian name is kind of a plot point. Also, a quick search can tell you that the Russian name "Yuri" is in fact a very old one; it may not be "traditional" and it can be spelled several different ways, but it's been used as far back as the eleventh century and it's essentially the Slavic version of the English name "George", which is a pretty widespread name.
  - Apparently Yuri is named George. Neat...
  - Guess Georgi can't catch a break in being overshadowed.
  - He's based off of Yulia Lipnitskaya; Yuri is a fairly similar male name to Yulia, especially in a Japanese show where L and R wouldn't be pronounced differently.

Yurio's flashback as a junior skater

Why does the stadium where Yurio skated as a Junior [the scene where Victor promises to choreograph for Yurio] look awfully empty? We see judges, and hear a cheering crowd when Yurio pulled out a quad, but Victor is clearly shown to be standing in front of an empty section of the rink when Yakov is yelling at Yurio in the kiss-and-cry.
- There are 3 factors which is true for just about any sport:
  1. Figure skating events such as the Grand Prix Final are multi-day events (with different groups performing certain days) and can be awfully expensive(with a 1 day pass costing upwards to $200). Because of this, many fans may only be able to attend one session and therefore are going to shell out for the session they want to see the most, which leads to:
  2. Figure skating is culturally a woman dominated sport, so attendance often goes to the women's events rather than the men's. Compare the audience of Evgenia Medvedeva's GPF performance to Yuzuru Hanyu's.
  3. Which brings to Yurio's case, junior events are seen as the least popular session due to juniors having lower difficulty, lack experience, and less prestige than senior skaters. Compare Jun Hwan's GPF again to Yuzuru which isn't a huge difference, but you can definitely see more empty spaces at the junior event.

Other

Why was Yurio getting hit with a stick at the temple? My sister and I guessed that it's some sort of punishment since he must have mouthed off to the wrong people or something...
- It's a common practice in Zen Buddhism. The stick is called a keisaku, and it's used to hit people around the shoulders while they're meditating in order to maintain concentration.
Why did Yuri hit Minami (or Minako, I can never remember. The guy who admires Yuri.) on the back in Episode 5? That actually seems kind of mean of him.
- He was apparently trying for a dude-y hard pat on the back as support/congratulations. It didn't work, exactly, considering his mental state, but...
What's the point of Serenade for Two and his whole I Want My Beloved to Be Happy speech if Mickey showed up in Barcelona to keep the hyenas away from Sara?
- Given that he's been acting in an overprotective manner towards Sara for years, it's not like he can easily get over it in one night, but I'm definitely sure that he'll get better little by little, given that he really thought hard about it during the Rostelecom Cup.
- In addition, he probably didn't show up just to keep the boys away. His twin sister is in the Grand Prix Final, meaning she's literally one of the top six female skaters in the world. Even if he wasn't a skater himself or had that weird relationship with her, he'd be honor-bound to attend the finals and see her skate.
How the blazes did the banquet shenanigans not leak to the media? There were quite a lot of people looking scandalized, and at least one guy was filming/taking pictures as Yuuri was grinding on Victor.
- It's possible that it did but Yuuri was actively avoiding the media during that period so he missed it all.
- The Grand Prix Finals banquet seems to be a pretty exclusive event made up of skaters, sponsors and coaches etc. It makes it easy for everyone involved to mutually agree to never let anything leak to social media. Plus, the ISU has a vested interest in not letting anything leak out considering how some very famous skaters were involved and the ensuing scandal could damage their careers.

Headscratchers / Yuri!!! on Ice

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