When I was around 10 years old, I went to the Aviator Sports and Events Center for the first time on an elementary school field trip. We visited the ice rink, which I don’t remember too many specifics about other than the cold and the fear of falling that accompanies any person during their first time on skates. I do remember getting out of the rink while carrying my skates when, for whatever reason, I accidentally dropped one on my big toe. Suddenly, it felt as if my foot erupted in fire.

It was my first time skating, and I walked away with a broken nail on my toe, which didn’t heal for weeks. However, despite my injury, that was not my last time skating. As it turns out, my sister was interested in ice skating and asked for more lessons from my parents, and as her twin, I was automatically obligated to go with her. And while she improved and learned many things—like how to skate backward gracefully—I was literally frozen (excuse the pun) on the ice as I gripped onto my instructor, afraid to fall and get sliced by the other skaters around me. Needless to say, I did not fall in love with skating at first sight.

Nearly ten years later, after a decade of not skating, I still had little interest in the sport. But, during finals of my sophomore year of college, when I should have been studying for Organic Chemistry, I decided to check out a few clips of an anime that had been gaining a lot of attention online: Yuri on Ice.

The show centered on a character named Yuri Katsuki, a talented Japanese ice skater, and his desire to compete in and win the Grand Prix, an internally acclaimed ice skating competition. After failing in his first try, Yuri is scared to enter again. However, Russian ice skating champion and Yuri’s childhood hero, Viktor Nikiforov, offers to personally coach him, and his life becomes a lot more complicated.

Though I was very interested in the anime, I held off until after the exam to watch the first episode, which soon turned into binge-watching every episode. I was captivated by Yuri Katsuki and his personal journey as he trained for the Grand Prix. The show drew my attention for its beautiful skating routines, amazing music, and unique character dynamics.

But what really made me invested in Yuri on Ice was the fact that the anime reflected so many parts of my life that I never thought I would see on a show.

In the show, Yuri presents various symptoms that indicate some type of anxiety disorder. In the first episode, after ranking last in the Grand Prix final, Yuri breaks down crying in a bathroom stall, apologizing to his mother for failing and feeling disappointed in himself for his perceived inadequacies, which I could relate to.

As a student, whenever I feel I have failed at something, such as a test or an internship, I emotionally break down, perceiving my mistakes as my failings as a person. Yuri has a negative perception of himself, thinking that he’s just a “dime-a-dozen,” even though he is a celebrated athlete in his home country and one of the most talented skaters in the world. 

Like Yuri, I tend to sometimes have a distorted perception of myself. While I know myself to be an intelligent person, a good writer, and a loving daughter, it doesn’t change the fact that I feel like the worst person in the world when my thoughts go into a negative spiral.

Another aspect of the show that I love was the Russian representation. As a person of Russian descent and someone who grew up watching Western media, I always saw Russians depicted as stereotypical, Cold War-esque villains. Whether in movies or television shows, screenwriters always related Russians to the Mafia and portrayed them as gangsters and murderers, which was the opposite of my own family’s background.

In Yuri on Ice, however, there are two central Russian characters, Viktor Nikiforov, Yuri’s coach/figure skating idol, and Yuri Plisetsky, a younger, talented skater. Rather than being depicted as cold and cruel, both characters are accomplished athletes in their own right, and they each have complex, lovable personalities with endearing traits and weaknesses.

I also saw references in the show to my culture in food, like pirozhkis, or in nicknames, like Yurashka (Yuri) or Vitya (Viktor). What’s more, the show depicted Viktor Nikiforov as openly in love with Yuri Katsuki, becoming one of the first queer Russian characters I ever saw in fiction, which is an amazing thing in a culture that is often shown as completely homophobic. As a person of the LGBTQ+ community, I often have trouble conciliating this part of myself against a culture that has a strong history of prejudice against people like me.

However, within Yuri on Ice, I saw a world reinvented, in which someone like Viktor, a Russian man, could love openly regardless of his nationality felt re-affirming to my own identity.

Now, years after my first unpleasant skating experience, I have no immediate interest to put on skates again and get back on the ice. However, since Yuri on Ice, I have found a new appreciation for this fascinating sport. Through the show, I gained a new understanding of how dynamic this graceful sport could be, the stories skaters could tell through competing on the ice, and how ice-skating could be incorporated into a visual medium like anime to tell narratives that could draw parallels to my own life.