Trivia / Yuri!!! on Ice

• The Abridged Series: Octopimp, the co-creator of 50% OFF, made Yaoi!!! On The Rocks, but it was eventually cancelled after only one episode was made.
• Acting for Two: Akiko Yajima voices all three of the Nishigori triplets. Averted in the English dub, where they're separately voiced by Lara Woodhull, Kristi Rothrock and Kristen McGuire.
• Anime First: One of the many original anime premiering in the fall of 2016, and by far the most successful.
• Cross-Dressing Voices: In the English dub, Kenjiro Minami is voiced by Trina Nishimura.
• Defictionalization: The Makkachin tissue box cover, which first shows up in Episode 4, was eventually made into actual merchandise.
• Deleted Scene: The last DVD/Blu-ray volume includes a bonus video of Yurio's exhibition performance, "Welcome to the Madness", which was cut from the TV version due to time constraints.
• Demand Overload: When Episode 12 came out, Tumblr's, Crunchyroll's, and many other anime streaming sites' servers all crashed.
• Development Hell: Two words: Ice Adolescence. Initially announced for a 2019 reveal, that year came and went without any word about it and the only other update was a short teaser posted to Twitter on 26 November 2020. The movie was taken off MAPPA's "Coming Soon" section on their website and delayed until further notice possibly because the studio had so many other works they're involved in. Despite this, Mitsurou Kubo said that the movie was in development but there was no word on when further news would ever be announced. On April 19, 2024, MAPPA announced that the movie was canceled, citing various circumstances as the reason.
• Dueling Shows: Not in Japan, but in the West, it's gone neck and neck with Keijo!!!!!!!! as one of the top viewed sports anime in the fall of 2016. It helps that both were Crunchyroll/Funimation co-licenses (under a partnership they had at the time) and Keijo!!!!!!!! was highly advertised at the beginning of the season, with Yuri!!! on Ice completely supplanting it halfway through when it got popular.
• I Just Write the Thing: According to Kubo, her initial ideas were knocked off-track when Yuri and Victor fell in love instead of keeping their relationship strictly as coach and skater as initially intended, and certain plot points such as the possibility of separating the pair at the end of the series, no longer made any sense. In short, the characters hijacked the plot.
• Playing Against Type: Daman Mills being Yakov. See the aforementioned Dawson Casting for details.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Yuri (whose sexuality is never confirmed, but he's some flavor of a man-loving-men (or just Victor-specific)) is voiced in English by the nonbinary Jessie James Grelle. Noteworthy in that part of Yuri's arc involves becoming more In Touch with His Feminine Side through the Eros program with a costume that has been transcending gender boundaries even when Victor originally wore it.
• The Red Stapler: Chanel lip balm increased in sales after being used by Victor on Yuri in Episode 5.
• Referenced by...: Ben from I Wish You All the Best has an image from "this ice-skating anime" as their phone background. When they let Nathan look at their phone, they hope he doesn't pay too much attention to it because they don't think now is the time to explain how gay the anime is.
• Sleeper Hit: While many assumed it would only be a modest hit due to being an original anime about an unconventional sport, the series steadily grew in popularity as it aired. Once Episode 7 hit and Yaoi Fangirl and LGBT Fanbase alike heard that yes, Victuri was an Official Couple and not just the average sports anime's Ho Yay, viewership went way up, to the point that Crunchyroll started promoting Yuri!!! on Ice more heavily than Keijo!!!!!!!!, which until then was the only thing they were advertising off-site that season aside from the Big Three shounen Long-Runners. It was also hugely successful in Japanese Blu-ray and DVD sales, surpassing fifty thousand copies in the first week and becoming the fourth best-selling anime of all time less than a year after its release.
• Tourist Bump: Yuri's hometown of Hasetsu was based on the real city of Karatsu in the Saga prefecture of Kyushu. Tourism to Karatsu exploded thanks to fans of the series wanting to visit, and the city reveled in it, creating merchandise and tours just for them. They even named Yuri the tourism ambassador for the city.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Commentary from the second bluray volume reveals that Yurio's mother was going to make an appearance in Episode 3, when she travels from Russia to Japan to watch Yurio skate in the Hot Springs on Ice competition, but this was also cut because of time. There was also a backstory planned for her, namely that she was a former Russian idol who quit show business early and gave birth at a young age.
  • Kubo explained that the series was supposed to strictly be about the relationship between a coach and their student, this changed as Yuri and Victor fell in love with each other. Kubo went along with it, essentially meaning the characters hijacked the plot, leading one to wonder how the story could've panned out; especially with Yuri proposing Victor stops being his coach after the Grand Prix.
  • The scenes in the ending credits of Yuri and Victor at the beach were originally going to happen in the anime itself, but they were cut due to time and were relegated to the ED instead.
• Word of God:
  • Lead writer Mitsurou Kubo confirmed on her Twitter that yes, The Big Damn Kiss in Episode 7 did in fact happen. Some time after Episode 12 aired, she also confirmed in a magazine interview that Yuri not winning gold was planned since the beginning, and he really would have retired if that had actually happened.
  • In the magazine Crea & Febri, she confirmed that the engagement rings are proof of Victor and Yuri being soulmates.
    • The director of the series, Sayo Yamamato, later (quite a bit later) corroborated the statement by saying, once and for all, that Yuri fell in love with Victor◊.

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