Established in 2011, the renowned animation studio MAPPA eventually became one of the biggest in the industry after creating famous shows such as Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man. However, 2016 was the breakthrough year for the studio after their sports anime, Yuri!!! on Ice became massively popular. The series premiered on October 6th, 2016, and followed a beautiful story of Yuri Katsuki, who does everything he can to strive for the top as a figure skater. The anime concluded on December 22nd of the same year before promising the story’s continuation. However, since it’s an original story, not based on any manga, all fans could do was wait patiently to find out what would happen next in Yuri Katsuki and Victor Nikiforov’s careers as ice skaters, especially since the latter decided to continue being a coach.
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In April 2017, less than a year after the anime’s premiere, MAPPA announced a prequel movie, following Victor’s career as an ice skater, was under production for a while and even released a teaser. Fans kept waiting years for the anime to return, but their hopes were crushed when MAPPA officially cancelled it in April 2024. The anime is commemorating its 10th anniversary with several exciting surprises such as new merchandise and Blu-ray releases, but none of the announcements share anything about the anime’s continuation.
Yuri!!! on Ice’s Ending Leaves Room For the Story to Expand
Although the first season’s ending was fairly conclusive, it also opens up the door for the story’s expansion. During the beginning of the story, Victor was only supposed to coach Yuri for a year before making his comeback. It goes without saying that the entire time Yuri felt guilty as he believed he was holding back his idol from this thriving career. However, the finale changed everything when Yuri missed the gold medal by a margin and won silver instead. Since he wasn’t able to keep his promise to Victor, he requested his idol to keep being his coach for another year, which represented his significant growth compared to the first episode.
Victor didn’t hide his happiness and instead swore to keep coaching for the next five years so Yuri could win as many gold medals as he did. During the ending credits of the anime finale, we see the two performing together, confirming Victor had made a comeback. This implies that the final performance of the anime happens in the near future, possibly after Yuri won his gold medal. The story concludes with Yuri meeting both Victor and Yuri Plisetsky, the winner of the Grand Prix Finale, as they continue their journey. There’s no denying that the ending was satisfying, but it doesn’t change the fact that we could have seen so much more from the characters, especially Yuri winning the gold medal and Victor’s comeback, but now there will never be a chance to see their journey continue.
Yuri!!! on Ice the movie: Ice Adolescence Would’ve Been a Huge Hit
The anime is still in demand ten years after its premiere, which only means fans would have loved to watch the prequel movie in the theatres. However, MAPPA never gave any hope of continuing the anime again after the cancellation. The studio was pretty clear about cancelling the anime without making any promises on working on it again. While they claim that the anime wasn’t as much of a success as fans think, the truth remains that the movie would’ve been a hit regardless. The prequel movie was going to follow Victor’s journey from a young prodigy to becoming a five-time gold medalist at the age of 27, which was nothing short of marvelous.
He won the hearts of countless people all over the world and reached heights rarely achieved in the world of figure skating by anyone. However, after winning five gold medals and trying out almost every technique possible, his passion for ice skating was slowly fading. Victor always loved surprising his audience with new tricks. However, after his popularity soared, there came a time when, no matter what he did, the audience would enjoy it but wouldn’t feel surprised since they always expected Victor to pull off something unique in his performance.
This is also the primary reason that he found a new purpose in his career after watching Yuri’s viral video, in which the 23-year-old perfectly imitated his free skate routine. Victor found a new purpose in his career and decided to take a year off from competitions and work as a coach. However, the story primarily focused on Yuri’s growth while Victor’s role was mostly to support him as his coach, idol, and lover. The anime also had only a few episodes that couldn’t explore such a nuanced character in depth, as it should have. This is all the more reason why a movie centering around his past was necessary since it would have helped fans understand his character depth and see things from his POV.
What are your thoughts on the anime that played such a crucial role in shaping the future of Jujutsu Kaisen’s studio before its cancellation? Do you think it deserved a longer run, or was its cancellation the right decision?
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