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#mitsurou kubo
forevernevermind · 1 year
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Moteki is a joy to read.
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cherry-oppa · 10 days
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You know what? I don’t even want a Yuri on Ice s2 if Mappa is never gonna make it.
Give all the rights to Kubo Mitsurou and let her make the manga. Her art is amazing. She already drew the short comic with Yurio and Otabek.
Just let her do it, and she’ll have the creative freedom that she had to fight so hard for anyway in the anime.
I’m so serious.
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astr-ll · 1 year
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i’m rewatching yuri on ice after YEARS and damn i forgot how much fun this show was. i miss that so much. i watched it first in 2016 when i was still figuring out my identity and even though the show has nothing to do with queerness, i met some of the coolest people in the fandom that were going through the same thing as me.
it was so much fun to celebrate and laugh and cry with yuri. it was so much fun to see victor fail, win, and be self conscious. and it was SO SO SO much fun to do it all with the friends i made.
i miss seeing a queer asian person be anxious, be happy, win, lose, make friends, make rivals, and ultimately grow and it had nothing to do with him being a gay man but everything to do with his relationships with people outside his love interest.
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cyansighs · 5 months
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skibatlaw · 9 months
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Picked up this manga at my local public library. This is amazing I absolutely love it. It got me quite hooked from the beginning until the end! I'm surprised this isn't as talked about online as I thought it would be while I was reading it. (Or I'm prolly not looking hard enough hah..) Bc this NEEDS to be talked about more!!! I can't wait to pick up more of this series!! OSU!
Synopsis:
"Kin'ichirō Imamura, a high school senior, prepares to graduate with no friends and having never participated in extracurricular activities. An accident on the last day of school somehow sends Imamura and Akira Fujieda, a popular girl in Imamura's graduating class, back in time to their first day of high school. Imamura seizes the opportunity for a second chance to improve his high school life, and joins the school's troubled ōendan club." (Wikipedia)
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limnsaber · 6 months
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Stammi Vicino and the events of Yuri!!! On Ice are still mind boggling to me. Where’s that post about scarcely-fathomable level of romance.
Stammi Vicino is the first skating sequence in YOI. It is the first full skating routine we are presented with and it’s the choreography we see in the very first moments of the show. Lyrically, Stammi Vicino is about a man calling out for someone to hear him, speaking of intense loneliness and decrying love. The lyrics were written by the creator of YOI, Kubo Mitsurou, and translated into Italian for the composition.
In the first episode of the show, both Yuuri and Victor skate this routine individually. Victor skates it for Worlds, and Yuuri skates it because he wants to get his love for skating back.
Unbeknownst to him, Yuuri’s performance was recorded and uploaded to YouTube, and Victor comes into his life from there (directly because of Yuuri’s SV performance).
Victor sees Yuuri’s performance and comes to meet Yuuri, and that’s the inciting incident of the show. Both of their routines were a calling out into the darkness, and they were answered. (That’s love!) Through the show, we learn that both Victor and Yuuri were in bad places at the time of the routine of the first episode, and we see them grow wonderfully together in their relationship and as people through the series.
Stammi Vicino is also known as Hanarezu Ni Soba Ni Ite in Japanese, or Stay Close to Me. This line is said by both characters throughout the show, perhaps most significantly by Yuuri in their argument in the parking garage in EP 7 (a major turning point for their relationship).
The first time Yuuri sees Victor in the flashback, we get notes of Stammi Vicino underneath the dialogue.
This song is perhaps the musical foundation for the entire show! Every aspect of Victor and Yuuri’s relationship is writ in, from calling out into the darkness to finally coming together— represented in the closing routine of the show, Stammi Vicino: Duetto.
Yuuri skates Stammi Vicino once more as the show’s final episode closes, and this time Victor joins him for a pair skate. The final episode is one where they’ve finally fully come together — they agree on their future and on their future together. It’s a beautiful bookend to the story, and represents, as the skating routines always do, their characters and their relationship.
In Duetto, the verses about condemning love are gone and the piece has two singers instead of one. Verses in both the aria and duetto say “your hands, your legs / my hands, my legs / our heartbeats / are blending together,” referencing — and they were crazy for this honestly — Plato’s theory of soulmates. At the end of the piece, the singers “leave together”.
The creator, Kubo Mitsurou, has stated in the past very explicitly and publicly that Victor and Yuuri are soulmates. Canonically! The first time Yuuri sees Victor in the flashback, we get notes of Stammi Vicino underneath the dialogue. Stammi Vicino is the musical thread of Victor and Yuuri’s relationship.
They’re engaged!! To be married!!! They’re canonically soulmates!!!
The music in YOI is deeply intertwined with the storytelling. Each routine is uniquely representative of a character, who they are as person, and their journey. The relationship between Victor and Yuuri is the core of this show, and Stammi Vicino is perhaps the most important piece representative of their relationship.
Stammi Vicino, the aria and duetto, represent a story about loneliness and calling out for love and that call being answered. That’s the thesis of Yuri on Ice.
“There’s a place you just can’t reach unless you have a dream too big to bear alone. We call everything on the ice ‘love.’”
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When did Viktor choreograph Stammi Vicino and did he commission the music?
There are some controversies regarding Viktor's free programme and I took the time to look at them in greater detail and pin them down to the likeliest explanation. (some of the things discussed in this post I've mentioned in a discussion I was involved in recently. The rest of this post builds on that.)
Disclaimer: Please note that this is an analysis of the source material. Popular headcanons that have no basis in canon cannot be part of this discussion. This is getting a bit academic. Please bear with me.
1. Did Viktor commission the music for Stammi Vicino?
In an interview, Mitsurou Kubo called the aria a piece of music that exists in the world of YOI, but when we subject the hints in the anime to a close examination, they contradict her statement, making you wonder which is true.
I mean, there’s this (sorry for the crappy screenshot)
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Technically, the YOI creators might just have used footage of this programme because there was no time to animate Viktor skating an entirely different routine, but due to the tight time constraints of 12 episodes that forced the creators to condense the plot to 50% of its initial size, every scene and every image demanded to be filled with meaning. Speaking of time constraints, they could have used a series of pictures that show adult Viktor in different costumes (like those that had been drawn for Yuuri's room), but they didn't do that either, which rules out technical reasons for this choice.
But there’s more.
From a storytelling perspective, it makes no sense to combine these lines with a short scene of Viktor skating Stammi Vicino if it doesn’t apply to this programme. It’s bad storytelling, period. As Viktor’s fan, Yuuri knows which songs Viktor commissioned because skaters love to talk about these things in interviews. Being a skater himself, Yuuri is knowledgeable in all kinds of music genres even if he lets his coach pick the songs for him. Skaters just happen to be exposed to a lot of music.
This scene makes it seem as if Viktor has been commissioning music for his programmes for several seasons at least. While this doesn’t rule out the possibility that he occasionally picked a song that already exists for whichever reason, Stammi Vicino applies to Viktor’s situation at the beginning of the show so neatly that the lyrics must have been tailored to him. The commentator’s words while Viktor is skating his FS furthermore suggest that this programme shows a new and personal side of him. Of course, that could also work for a song that already exists, but how likely is it that such a song 100% matches the vision of a perfectionist? That a genius like Viktor would just roll with that is debatable at least. He’d rather think “Okay, that’s nice. But this verse and that verse don’t match my idea at all. I think I'll call my composer and ask them to write a song for me.”
Stammi Vicino holds unambiguous references to Plato’s Symposium, which the YOI creators have mentioned repeatedly. And while this is neither an argument for or against the song already existing before Viktor even thought about a free programme for the season in question, it seems too coincidental from a storytelling perspective.
To me, all this points to Viktor commissioning Stammi Vicino because taken all facts together, it’s what makes the most sense.
Side note: It’s not entirely uncommon for storytellers to contradict their creation. Sometimes, you forget details, remember them wrong, or didn’t think them through. Or your views simply change. In the case of YOI, we have to factor in the possibility that certain details had to be de-homoed due to protests from parts of the Japanese fandom. The rings that were removed from many official arts that were released during the first year after the show had aired are such an example. In addition, interviews are often heavily edited.
2. When did Viktor choreograph Stammi Vicino?
The first time we see Viktor wearing the Stammi Vicino costume, is right at the beginning of episode 1 at the GPF. While there is no rule against wearing the same costume for different programmes and costumes are expensive, you usually don’t see this in real figure skating. Some figure skaters even get a new costume for the same programme mid-season because matches the purpose better.
The music, the composition and choreography, and costume build the concept of a figure skating programme. The more perfectionist a skater is (and many top skaters actually are), the more specific you can bet they are about the concept. Viktor is a perfectionist who has full authority over his programmes and he can afford having several costumes per programme. Wearing the same costume for several programmes is a breach with his characterisation.
Let’s assume for one moment that Viktor did indeed create Stammi Vicino because of his encounter with Yuuri at the GPF in Sochi. Why would the creators have been so sloppy and put him into the same costume which he wears at Worlds when they even designed costumes the other two GPF winners JJ and Chris?
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Does he wear the same costume because he met Yuuri there? Well, Yuuri approached him at the banquet at the end of the competition and only because he was drunk. Before, Yuuri was to awkward to even talk to Viktor and was, in all likelihood, too busy not freaking out, dealing with having bombed his performance, and Vicchan's death. To reflect Viktor's first actual meeting with Yuuri in a programme, thus choosing a costume that resembles the suit he wore that night would make way more sense.
Some skaters change their programme mid-season. Some switch back to an old programme, other skaters create an entirely new programme. Again, a skater like Viktor could afford this and is skilled enough to bend a new routine to his vision in time for the big competitions. (For reference: Russian Nationals are two weeks after the GPF, which leaves a skater competing in both events one week in between. That’s just enough to pitch the idea to his composer and commission a costume.)
Once Nationals are over and done, Viktor could start working on the new programme and show it at Europeans for the first time. That would leave him about one month to bring it to a level that will win him this competition. Yuuri would now have about two months to create a perfect copy. As he his busy graduating and preparing his move back to Japan, it’s debatable whether this is enough time. That’s the only reasonable timeline for such a scenario. However, since Viktor wore the costume before the banquet, this doesn’t seem likely and the show gives us no clear-cut clue why that could be and I’m loath to speculate wildly.
BUT: Viktor can't have created this programme after Sochi because Yuuri explains to Yuuko that he started practising the programme when the competitions ended [for him, the season itself is not yet over]. For Yuuri, the season ended at Japanese Nationals, which happen to be at the same weekend as Russian Nationals.
Long story short: Everything points to Viktor having created Stammi Vicino at the beginning of the season in which he wins his fifth GPF and world title, respectively. And there’s a beauty in this choice because it gives Viktor an agenda beyond his love interest. Well-crafted characters exist outside of their interactions and relationships with the other characters. Giving them things that belong to them alone adds more depth to their personality and turn them into individuals. Viktor had a life before Yuuri and this life was lonely and his (secret) longing for love was an inherent part of it (I’m preparing a follow-up post that examines the lyrics more closely, so forgive me for not going into the details here).
Especially in a show that is limited to 12 episodes and in which every image is filled with meaning, including details that hint at the characters’ past are beyond precious.
Thanks for reading! <3
If you enjoy my meta, please consider checking out my works on AO3 (link in bio)! My YOI canon works all include my meta musings.
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rikeijo · 2 months
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Today's translation #542
Yuri!!! on CONCERT pamphlet, Aria <Stammi vicino non te ne andare>
Matsushiba Taku commentary
Aria <Stammi vicino non te ne andare>
Part 1.
The order for "Aria <Stammi vicino non te ne andare>" was placed during the first staff meeting. It was a meeting with the Director, Yamamoto Sayo, Kubo Mitsurou-sensei, and the music team - we all gathered together and at that meeting orders for a few pieces were placed.
The specific order for this piece was that it, first of all, should be an Italian classic, an opera. Behind this one word "opera", however, there is 400 years of history, so there are different styles, but the style that I was attempting to compose was something like the model example of Italian opera written by Verdi or Puccini. That means I had to write an opera that could be performed at La Scala in Milan, one that everyone knows.
I knew about it only later, but it seems that for anime, usually no-one writes classical arias that properly. But for me, it was a first time working on anime, so I didn't really have that notion in my mind [that he could slack off, because anime fans wouldn't know anyway that it's not a properly written aria], so I didn't think much about it and started to write a proper aria.
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harocat · 1 year
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Join us on October 6, 2022 at 2:30 AM JST (the exact time Yuri!!! on Ice's first episode aired six years ago) for an international hashtag; #MappaWhereisYOI
As dedicated fans of the series, which became at the time the third best selling anime of the twenty-first century, we have been waiting for news on the continuation of the franchise for years. As reboot upon reboot, second season upon second season, and new IP upon new IP is announced by Avex and Mappa, Yuri!!! on Ice, a cultural phenomenon at the time it aired, is left behind.
We want answers. We want to know why this series, which was explosively popular; which touched millions; skating fans, lgbtq+ fans, and so many others, has been ignored for so long. We want to know what's going on, both for the fans, and the team and creators behind the series who put so much love and care into it, and who talked many times about how much they wanted to continue it.
As of April 2022, it has been five years since the film was announced. We have only gotten a brief teaser which was released online almost two years after it aired in Japan. As of late 2018, merchandise and promotion for the series almost completely halted. Other IPs that catered toward similar audiences, continue to be promoted for years after their conclusion. Yuri on Ice gets radio silence. It's hard to overestimate the popularity of YOI when it came out, the cultural moment it created internationally, but according to Mappa and Avex, it is acceptable to just leave those dedicated fans in the dark.
We want to see the continued creations of Sayo Yamamoto and Mitsurou Kubo in this universe, but if for some reason, that's not possible, we also want to know that.
On October 6, 2022, starting at 2:30 AM JST, the time in which YOI aired its first episode six years ago, please use #MAPPAWHEREISYOI on twitter to share your thoughts on what the series means to you, why a continuation and/or answers are important to you or whatever else (safe for work and appropriate for all ages) you may have to say.
We want to get this hashtag trending internationally. We know companies like Mappa and Avex pay attention to social media trends. Help us let them know that we're still here.
Please retweet and share this thread far and wide; ig, tiktok, tumblr, etc. The more participants, the more they'll see how many of us are frustrated by years of radio silence.
Yuri!!! on Ice was born to make history, but that doesn't mean we want to let it remain in the past.
Here is a link for time zone conversion, so you know when the hashtag will start in your time. Please pay CLOSE ATTENTION to the timezone conversions! For example, Wednesday 10/6 at 2:30 AM JST is going to be the afternoon of 10/5 in the continental United States. In order to get this trending, it's important we all do it on the same day.
Thank you so much.
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jewishvitya · 8 months
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Looking at the trivia part on YOI wiki just for a bit of fun. Ignore me, I’m not doing well in summer, the heat is killing me.
Kenjirou was planned as Yuri's Planned Design.
Help, Minami is what Yurio was supposed to look like. Yurio was supposed to be an angry chicken nugget.
Georgi is known in Japan as the "pigeon".
DFJGLJGHJLHKL WHY??
Seung-gil has an extreme aversion (a strong dislike or disinclination) to women and vegetables while he likes meat and dogs
Dislikes women and vegetables. That’s the same category. I hate cabbage and also half of humanity. Where’s that meme. “You’re gay because you love men. I’m gay because I hate women. We’re not the same.”
Seung-gil doesn't look good in anything, but he wears sportswear when he dresses himself as he basically has no interest in fashion since he's so devoted to his sport
SDKGHJLSHFGLKFHSLDH “DOESN’T LOOK GOOD IN ANYTHING” WHY SO MEAN TO HIM. He didn’t do anything, he just wanted to skate as a rainbow parrot.
He also has many mischievous friends.
This is about Otabek. What does it meannnnn. I wish I could read the source.
According to SNS, Phichit is one of the Three Most Adorable Men's Figure Skaters in Asia.
The others are Minami and Guang Hong. I love that this is a thing.
The caption on his Instagram post during the credits reads "Reunited with bae".
This is about Chris. Captioning a post with his cat. I want to know if that’s the cat’s name or if he’s just being ridiculous. Probably just being ridiculous.
Chris is near-sighted. He uses contacts when skating.
See, Yuuri, you don’t have to skate practically blind.
Emil does extreme sports during the off season, which makes his coach nervous.
dhfghdjhghjkfg I did not know this. I love. “I swear to god if you come back with a broken leg--”
It is likely that Celestino has a low alcohol tolerance.
The way this is phrased compared to the image of him passed out on the table with Phichit taking pictures
Toshiya does not know much about figure skating as he is more of a soccer fan.
That’s not an excuse, Toshiya, your son started doing it when he was a child.
On the official site, she is described as "the woman of Yuuri's dreams"
About Yuuko. I’m. What fgjhghjlfhkjg Even with my interpretation of Yuuri being bi, this is a lot.
According to Mitsurou Kubo, while the staff did their best to portray the appeal of the skaters, they didn't try very hard with Takeshi. 
GSLJHSLKDGKHJLDH SO MEAN
Mila is seen during the Sochi GPF banquet taking pictures of Yuuri Katsuki pole dancing.
And I want to see her pictures too. We got pictures by others, give me hers too.
Sara's Instagram is sala-crispino
And I find this now, years after we had the naming discourse.
Michele is ironically described as a virgin.
The “Ironically” is the part that kills me here.
A portion of Michele's free program is skated by Yuuri Katsuki in the opening credits
Does he deserve the honor? And he was so rude to Yuuri too ( ᓂ︿⁾⁾⁾)
Actually this made me think about Viktor deciding to get back at Mickey for disrespecting Yuuri, and encouraging Yuuri to skate his program just because he’ll do it better. I think Viktor is that kind of petty.
Some part of one of Michele's skate program "Serenade for Two" have been a part of Yuri Plisetsky's skate for the opening of anime.
Definitely Viktor’s idea. And Yuri was in on it.
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choujinx · 21 days
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YUURI!!! ON ICE BANGAIHEN: WELCOME TO THE MADNESS (2017) by kubo mitsurou
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theanimepsychologist · 5 months
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Don't you think it's funny cause actual canon gay characters in BL manga/manhwa will say "I love you" but only the shounen bromance can spew out some of the most romantic shit akin to a 19th century poet writing a letter expressing his surpressed love for his lover 😭.....
ok but when you put it like that...
This is an interesting conversation to have because I am not sure it's so much about the demographics (shonen is more of a demographic than a literary genre although it does have certain characteristics that define it because of its intended demographic), as it is about writing skill and being able to show vs. tell.
Because, as a fujo who went through a thirsty fujo phase, I consumed a lot of bl. Like... A LOT. And I came out of that phase accepting the cold realization that I did not like most bl/yaoi because it is highly clichéd and relies on tropes entirely way too much.
Like I literally used to say "I read yaoi for the plot" because...
GIVE ME THE CHEMISTRY, GIVE ME THE DYNAMIC, GIVE ME THE DRAMAAAAAAAAA!!!!
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To your point under the cut 😂 ...
Man, I just can't get over how well you put it.
Anyways, given how you framed your ask, so do you think it's a male perspective thing? I ask because I do recognize that sometimes the way male friendships are portrayed in animanga feels very intimate and very unique to Japanese media, although I could be wrong.
Because, if we're talking about the big battle shonen bl manga out there, jjk, naruto, bnha, hq, etc. are the big "offenders" and these are all male authors (well, we're not sure about hq). So I can see why you feel like these characters are able to express their perspective for each other in a way that you don't see in other manga.
Personally, I am a big fan of how CLAMP (who are all women and very possibly all queer) executes LGBTQ+ dynamics. An example found in a shonen manga that I particularly love is kurofai from Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle.
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And the thing about this pairing is that you never hear them say "I love you." Instead you are shown through their behavior towards one another and the subtext how much they have grown to care for each other.
In addition to the majority of CLAMP's m/m dynamics (across a variety of manga published for different demographics), another couple of examples of gays I love include Tomoko Yamashita's pairing in Sankaku Mado no Sotogawa wa Yoru (although I didn't care for the ending), Yoneda Kou's Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai, and obvs Sayo Yamamoto and Mitsurou Kubo's Yuri on Ice. I haven't read/seen Banana Fish but I understand that's another bl fan fave classic that is good.
So there are some good dynamics out there outside of shonen lol, you just have to dig for them like a maniac... or so I've been told ehem.
But even as masterful as CLAMP is at executing soulmate dynamics, if you specifically take itafushi for example, Gege's ability to vest that bromance with so much beauty is just off the charts something else. As a woman I find the container of this dynamic to be deeply aspirational. There's this shared and unspoken understanding between the two characters, not to mention love that... idk.. it just has this... je ne sais quoi.
idk... I am curious about more #thoughts on this because there's a lot going on here in terms of self-insertion into male characters, equality in dynamics, just so much to unpack.
Please feel free to send all the #thoughts to whomever else reads this!
Thanks for reaching out anon!!!!
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canmom · 2 years
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For most of her life my friend Fall Rose worked as a manga translator. She started to teach herself Japanese at school, and eventually studied it formally. It is a terrible industry, which still gives translators little pay, tight deadlines and often no credit - against which they have little recourse since much like animation, most are on short-term freelance contracts and reputation is everything.
But... she always approached the work with such passion. I remember her telling me all about how the research she did to understand an allusion or idiom and make sure she got the nuances of the translation as well as she could.
Her old website had a list of manga she’d worked on as of 2019. I’m going to reproduce it here in case it ever goes down. I want people to know some of the amazing things she did.
Beauty and the Beast of Paradise Lost by Kaori Yuki
Knight of the Ice by Yayoi Ogawa (11 volume series)
KaraKara 3 by calme (visual novel)
Chasing After Aoi Koshiba by Hazuki Takeoka and Fly (volume 2)
Peach Girl NEXT by Miwa Ueda (volumes 4-5)
Initial D by Shuichi Shigeno (volumes 34-42)
Again!! by Mitsurou Kubo (12 volume series)
Land Lock by Ai Odahara (chapters 1-5 and 15-22)
Red Riding Hood's Wolf Apprentice by Sayaka Mogi (volumes 1-2)
Shojo Fight! by Yoko Nihonbashi (volumes 1-6)
Beauty Bunny by Mari Yoshino (8 volume series)
Cosplay Animal by Watari Sakou (volumes 1-8)
The Full-Time Wife Escapist by Tsunami Umino (9 volume series)
Peach Heaven! by Mari Yoshino (13 volume series)
A Springtime With Ninjas by Narumi Hasegaki (4 volume series)
Various Harlequin comics
She’s definitely worked on other series since then, and if I find out what, I’ll edit this list (she was very worried about breaking NDAs). We were working together on a scanlation project when she died, and for the sake of her memory, I am going to try and make sure the scripts she wrote get typeset and released. And I’m going to learn Japanese for real. I want to keep her love of languages alive in me, and carry that forward.
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Again!!
Story and Art by Mitsurou Kubo
Manga Volume 03
Shounen, School Setting, Sports, Time-Travel, Romance, Drama
Story   ★★★☆☆   ||   ★★★★☆   Art
Summary
Aiming for the Top -- Kinichiro Imamura is trying to get high school right the second time around. So far, he's managed to reunite the old members of his school's ouendan cheer squad, saving the club from the brink of destruction, but his time-traveling troubles are far from over. With the newly-revived ouendan tasked to cheer at their school's next baseball game, they'll have to cheer harder than ever if they want to bring their team to victory. To pull it off, Kinichiro the cheering newbie is going to have to learn from the very best...
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honeyblair · 2 years
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hey, mysterious anon again (yeah, i'm sticking to mysterious, i like it). i just wanted to ask since you've been here for more time than me, do you think mappa would like, let us know if ice ado actually got cancelled or shelved? i'm still getting into anime and i'm not sure how these studios communicate with audiences... like, if they just gave up on it, wouldn't it make sense to just deal the coup de grace and let us know it's not happening? how do they benefit from keeping us in the dark?
this question is.... complicated. there are a lot of factors that go into it.
i've been hoping someone would ask me this question so i could go nuts lol. this is very VERY VERY long (tl:dr at the end) and goes into a LOT so brace yourselves...
just to preface this: yuri on ice is the only anime whose production i closely watch. i have much more knowledge in western production practices (modern cartoons like the owl house for example) so i'm kind of assuming a lot of policies are similar for anime.
alright, so i'll split this question into three parts: 1) has ice adolescence been cancelled? 2) what could lead to cancellation? 3) would they tell us if it was cancelled?
1 ) has ice adolescence been cancelled?
as far as we, the general public, are aware: no. but is there a possibility of it BEING cancelled? at this stage in the game it would be a major loss for MAPPA as a company assuming they're as far along in the production process as we'd expect. animation is extremely expensive and we know that ice adolescence has been at the very least in pre-production (brainstorming, pitching, etc.) since yuri on ice ended. so nearly six years. six years of investments MAPPA has put into this movie and therefore that means they'd lose a shit ton of money.
from a business standpoint, cancelling (or shelving) the movie unless it is ABSOLUTELY necessary, which i can only think of very few situations that would allow for that (i'll elaborate), would be a huge loss. they've put too much money into the franchise and they're probably relying on it to bring in major bucks when it would release as it is the anime that put their studio in the big leagues with its sucess.
also, there's a lot of evidence that suggests the movie is fairly far along in the production pipeline, probably in the end stages of animation and probably in post-production right now. (compositing, sound design, etc.) mitsurou kubo, co-creator of yoi, has given a few hints that the movie is still being worked on, like changing her private twitter account's bio to read "This account is inactive for a while. Now at work #iceadolescence" back in december 2021. and she posted some pictures of her at-home workstation with yoi related notes when the pandemic hit. so it's safe to assume the movie is still being produced.
also if the movie was cancelled, it probably would have been months if not YEARS ago. it's too far along in production and would 1) be a huge financial loss, 2) could give their studio a bad reputation, 3) people have waited too long to hear that it would be cancelled and could start major upset among the public. and if it was cancelled we would have been told, either by the creators/staff or by MAPPA themself. (i'll also elaborate on this as well)
2) what could lead to cancellation?
this... is a loaded question that relies on many outside factors. i'll break it down into internal and external factors. note that most of these are unlikely to happen at this point in production!
internal factors that could lead to cancellation could include budget issues, executive-ordered cancellation, licensing and contracting, legal issues, etc.
a lack of budget into ice adolescence could ultimately cancel the project if it needs a larger budget than they can allocate. though i wouldn't be surprised if ice ado has a HUGE budget as they need a shocking amount of external resources for production. for skating sequences alone they need a choreographer to make them (which we know were choreographed by kenji miyamoto and unnamed living legends, so one can imagine those prices are high as fuck), someone to perform the routines, recordings of the routines from multiple angles, a team of animators to focus specifically on skating sequences, among other things. not to mention the amount of original music they need for skating routines, rule-compliant costume design from professional costume designers, gathering sounds effects for each routine so the sound design is as accurate as possible.... the list goes on. they need MONEY for that and if yoi had it, ice ado likely has twice as much if not more.
there's been instances of shows being cancelled straight from executive request. for example, the owl house was supposed to have a full third season but was cut down due not to budget, but because company executives felt that the show was too progressive and was losing them money in conservative countries. this is technically internal but it can be influenced by external stuff too (like politics and culture). if ice ado was cancelled this way it would have happened ages ago and we would have been told already.
in terms of licensing and contracting, music can be a tough road to navigate because most of the time producers will sell their music to a company and then that company own full rights to that music. years ago it was common for artists to own their music and just license it to a company so they still owned it but not so much anymore. an example is c418, the composer of the original minecraft soundtrack. the reason he doesn't compose music for the game anymore is because he and his lawyers couldn't come up with a contract that microsoft would accept that still allowed him to own his music. so maybe MAPPA ran into an issue with the music or sound design. these things can haunt production but a cancellation from this is rare.
other legal stuff can include copyright issues, more licensing stuff, publishing stuff, distribution, that kinda stuff. these might also fall under external but the reason i'm putting them here is because my external category is gonna get... overwhelming.
external factors that could lead to cancellation include the current political climate, laws regarding media content, external funding, and stuff like that.
i'll skim most of this because i want to get straight to the two things that i FIRMLY believe have an actual possibility of cancelling ice adolescence and that i am CONVINCED have halted production: the 2022 winter olympic doping scandal and the war in ukraine.
ice adolescence is pretty much confirmed to be about victor nikiforov's backstory and past accomplishments as a world-class skater. a russian world class skater. and the movie takes place during an olympic season. AND if we're assuming his backstory takes inspiration from real skating events, there was a huge doping scandal at the 2014 sochi winter olympics. so i think given the fact that ice ado takes place during an olympic season, victor is 17yo and it's his first olympics, i wouldn't put it past the writers to write some sort of doping scandal or some sort of olympic fiasco. it doesn't necessarily need to be HIM, but if it mentions doping in the same vicinity as russia, there's gonna be an issue.
for those of you who aren't aware, russian figure skater kamila valieva was caught doping at the 2022 olympic back in february and it caused CHAOS. the women's division was a mess and no one knew how to handle the situation. its resulted in the isu raising the age to compete in the senior division, the team skate podium never receiving their medals, and just general chaos among russia and talk about how they treat their athletes. i think you can understand why ice adolescence might be stepping on sensitive territory with these... cough... current events. MAPPA could have faced lethal consequences if they released the movie content near or after the olympics.
now for the war in ukraine. i'm not saying that ice ado will mention anything about war (maybe something about the fall of the ussr but probably not??) but given how any topics regarding russia right now are super duper sensitive, one wrong comment and it could be really dangerous. MAPPA could lose rights to distribute yoi to russian companies, streaming services, selling merch in russia, etc. and also not to mention victor nikiforov is engaged to a man and his younger self doesn't follow traditional male gender roles (long hair, androgynous costumes, etc.) russia's stance on lgbtq+ people is. uh. you know.
basically, MAPPA is kinda holding japan's political stance on russia in their hands. if they released a movie with content on doping, scandals, or anything that might paint russia in a bad light, they're representing japanese media on an international scale. and if russia doesn't like this silly little gay movie that's come out of japan and take offense to it.... i think you get what i'm saying.
realistically, the war is the only thing i could see ice adolescence getting completely cancelled over. though as of right now, it's just a delay and silence on ice ado news.
to summarize this: i firmly believe that ice adolescence has been delayed because of the current shit in russia. cancelling it would be too detrimental to the studio's finances and i honestly believe the yuri on ice pr guy is sitting with the ice ado trailer in his drafts waiting for russia to calm its shit so he can post the trailer without fearing legal consequences or making an international political statement by accident.
3) would they tell us if it was cancelled?
in short, yes! since it's already been announced and a trailer has been released, there would need to be some sort of public announcement for the media, if not for fans. if the movie wasn't publicly announced and was under NDA, they wouldn't publicly announce the cancellation.
for announcing cancellations and similar situations, in the western animation world it's usually not the studio or company that announces it but media that is given the information. sometimes crew or the creator of a show will announce stuff about their show instead of the company. also if they cancel something, they'll use their pr team to announce it and usually not on their main social media accounts or websites.
for example when the owl house was cut down to a shortened season 3, it was external media and the creator herself who made the announcement, not disney the company. and if you've been on social media recently you might know about the mass layoff in the western animation industry at companies like netflix. netflix never announced the cancellation of any of these projects publicly. the crew who worked on these projects (no longer under NDA) and external media as the ones who report this stuff.
assuming that eastern media uses the same procedures, if ice adolescence was cancelled, someone would have to report it. either the studio, an external reporter, or the creator/crew on the movie. and if by some horrible chance ice adolescence was cancelled, we'd be told some way or another.
delays are another story. technically they don't need to tell us about delays but considering how we were told about the first initial delay back in (if i remember correctly) 2019, they'd hopefully tell us if another one occurred.
and in terms of keeping us in the dark: they don't benefit from that in any way. they're technically losing money, viewership, and loyalty the longer they keep us waiting. one could argue that it's a strategy by building up the hype but at this point it's been too long. regardless of the production status right now, this long of radio silence is costing them. they're doing it for a reason.
my best guess is that MAPPA is holding off on releasing ANY information about ice adolescence to protect their company. it's too risky given the current politics surrounding russia and their drama at the olympics. i'd guess they'd wait a few more months until announcing anything, but at the very LEAST until russia's invasion of ukraine has calmed down or ended. politically, japan cannot risk any sort of statements while russia is this fired up. i can guarantee MAPPA will wait until russia has either gotten their ass kicked and is returning home with their tail between their legs or until they leave ukraine on their own terms.
TL:DR - all evidence points to ice adolescence still being in production! at this point in the game it wouldn't make sense to cancel the movie. they'd lose money from production and they'd lose income from its release. there are very VERY few things that could lead to cancellation at this point. however, i reckon production has been slowed down and they've been unable to release much about it recently because of the touchy political climate of the recent 2022 olympic doping scandal and russia's invasion of ukraine. they'd be risking their company (and country) if they released anything that could set off russia. so, they're holding off on releasing any information. whether that's general updates, a trailer, or even a release date. i believe MAPPA is waiting for things to calm down before they release anything that relates to ice adolescence.
but yeah! sorry this took kinda long to answer, i wanted to be a throughout as possible. hope this kinda answers your question! thank you once again for the ask mysterious anon! :)
sources for a lot of the production stuff i mention: dana terrace (creator of the owl house) and her crew, a storyboarding and animation production class i took, conversations with professionals in the western animation industry and animation students, the standard western animation pipeline, etc.
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abitofboth · 2 years
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THE ACTOR MITSUROU KUBO BASED THE LOOK OF VIKTOR NIKIFOROV ON IS IN THE SANDMAN I’M GONNA COMBUST LMAO
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