Yuri!!! on ICE

Yuri!!! on Ice is MAPPA's 2016 figure skating anime, and unlike most sports series it adapts nothing: director Sayo Yamamoto conceived it with the Moteki manga artist Mitsurou Kubo, who drafted its scripts and created the original character designs. Its hero, Yuuri Katsuki, is a 23-year-old Japanese skater who retreats to his family's hot-spring inn in Hasetsu, a Kyushu town modelled on Karatsu, after a crushing Grand Prix Final. When footage of him copying a programme by his idol Victor Nikiforov, a five-time world champion, spreads online, Victor turns up to coach him, while the Russian junior world champion Yuri Plisetsky arrives determined to take Victor home.

The skating is grounded in the real sport: former ice dancer Kenji Miyamoto choreographed the programmes and skated them himself, while Tadashi Hiramatsu adapted Kubo's designs and served as chief animation director. Dean Fujioka wrote and sang the opening, "History Maker", and Taro Umebayashi and Taku Matsushiba composed the score. The honest catch is uneven animation: in our view the later competitions lean on reused jump cuts and stiffer frames. The rivals carry those episodes, none more loudly than Canada's Jean-Jacques Leroy, voiced by Mamoru Miyano.

What carried it beyond skating fans is the bond between Yuuri and Victor, a coach and pupil who become something more, written with warmth and played sincerely rather than as a joke. Some critics find it too coy; for many queer viewers it remains a landmark. It won all seven fan-voted Crunchyroll Anime Awards it was nominated for in 2017, Anime of the Year included, and the American skater Johnny Weir became a vocal fan.

It is one 12-episode season, aired on TV Asahi from October to December 2016. The film Ice Adolescence, first dated for 2019, was cancelled in April 2024 after years of delay, and as of October 2026 no second season or new film has been announced, so those twelve episodes are the complete work. The tenth anniversary brings a Blu-ray and CD box on 23 December 2026, with new footage of Stéphane Lambiel skating Yuuri's free programme.

It suits anyone after a short, finished story, skating fan or not. We rank it among the best sports anime of all time and the best romance anime; for another original sports series, try SK8 the Infinity, Bones's 2021 show about underground skateboard races.