So, I kind of saw that “new” teaser-trailer-thing for the Yuri on Ice movie (that is thankfully still a thing!) with a couple of seconds of young Viktor at the Olympics, but it’s a couple of seconds of Viktor Nikiforov therefore it’s amazing, because Viktor is still best boy. Thank you very much.
Anyways, since I’m still waiting for my precious gay babies to return, I thought I should watch another sports anime, because I really like sports manga/anime and I haven’t watched anime in a while, so why not? I’ve read over 1300 chapters of Hajime no Ippo and every single sports manga Adachi Mitsuru ever wrote. I really like my sports manga/anime.
Apparently, thanks to Yuri on Ice Skate-Leading☆Stars was born. Well, I love figure skating, so yay, but any anime with a star in the middle of it’s title worries me. So I’ve watched 3 episodes and I’m done. It’s basically Yuri on Ice Boyband edition, just less offically gay and written about 10 times worse. I mean, I get it, it’s not targeted towards me, I’m “too old” for the intended demographic, but it could have been good.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly:
The Good: The animation is nice and the actual figure skating is looking pretty good with some nice shots. The idea of a figure skating team event is nice, too. It doesn’t really make much of a difference, because they could’ve just done the same story with the normal men’s singles figure skating event. I guess it was some kind of excuse to add more bishounen to the story. I like the general idea, but it’s not beneficial for the story at all to use a made up version of an existing sport instead of just using that sport.
The introduction of an artifical scoring system is AMAZING. We all know artistic sports with judges are very prone to questionale results here and there. The women’s single gold medal scandal at the 2014 Olympics for example and many fans are convinced Yuzuru Hanyu is getting downscored quite a lot, too. Anyways, for an anime to tackle this problem and intruduce a fair objective rating system is surprisingly good.
The Bad: The team event of Skate Leading is fiction, but it’s based off a real sport and the elements they’re showing are based off real elements, but I don’t like how they’re handling it. Pretty much in the first episode, they’re breaking all rules what’s humanly possible in figure skating. I just really don’t like when these boundaries are broken too much in stories with real existing sports, which is my main complain with Kuroko no Basket for example that borderlines on superpowers. The main Maeshima hasn’t been on the ice for years, he stopped still in Gradeschool and started again in Highschool, that’s at least 4 years not in skates. Children can do amazing stuff and it’s very beneficial to be small and light, if you want to spin fast, which is the main reason why so many top female gymnasts are so insanely young. I’m pretty sure gradeschoolers don’t jump quads, though. Maeshima, off the ice for at least 4 years, comes back and lands a perfect quad Flip. That is absolutely insane. If quads by themselves aren’t hard enough, a quad Flip is a harder one on top of that. In episode 2, he attempts a quint, a freakting quint. By the comments of the bystanders he actually managed 5 rotations and by going by his own comments, he only fell, because the ice was overused and his blade got stuck. If landing a quad flip with 0 practice after 4 years off the ice since Gradeschool is not insane, a quint is. The Axel has 1/2 extra rotation, which is the reason why a quad Axel has not been successfully landed during competition yet. The 4 + 1/2 rotations a quad Axel requires are considered the holy grail of jumps right now. Trying for a quint with another half rotation more, is absolutely nuts.
The Ugly: Yes, it get’s worse. The figure skating could have been done better from a technical standpoint, why not stick to what’s possible? What really makes it trash is the absolutely horrible writing. The story is super flat. Revenge and that’s it. Revenge for what? For a silly comment from a cocky child? It honestly dones’t even feel worth all the hassle. It looks like Maeshima is overreacting so much. Then there’s the characters and talking about Maeshima, he’s so unlikable I don’t even want to root for him. He’s cocky, he overestimates himself, he behaves like a 5-year-old, he changed his mind from “I’ll never figure skate again” to “let’s do this!” in 5 seconds flat, he mistreats his teammates and is overall all around an absolute ass. I didn’t even know you can mess up a main character this bad.
The main “antagonist” Shinozaki is pretty much an ass, too. Didn’t anyone feel the need to teach this kid some manners and respect for other people? No? Because that would explain why he’s so rude towards everyone around him. He beat Maeshima by 0.3 points in this Gradeschool competition. That’s super close, it’s not like he had a huge lead or anything… and he tells Maeshima to quit figure skating, because he’ll never be able to beat him? Like… hello? Maeshima could have won that day. Shinozaki just spits on every single person who’s below him in skill, which apparently is everyone since he’s never been beaten, but Maeshima is pretty damn close and he treats Maeshima like a cockroach. Well, that’s one way to get rid of your rivals, I guess. And that’s all there’s is to him.
The other characters are pretty much the same: one after another one dimensional caricatures of stereotypes as Fujioshi fanbait. The cutie, glasses-kun, the genius, etc. and they all have color coded hair, too! Isn’t that nice? They really are like a boyband… or the cast of a reverse harem. Are there even females in this anime? Like, do they even exist?
It’s absolute trash and not even the guilty pleasure or enjoyable kind. It’s just straight trash.
A Glass of Manga 