imthatginganinja
Okay so, concerning my predicted ‘Stay Close to Me’ Viktuuri ending post, I’ve heard some…negative words.
That is, an Anon has challenged me. I’ll admit those kinds of flame asks I’d normally ignore, I don’t want to put unnecessary drama on people’s dash, and I happily deleted it. But afterwards, I thought I’d better address this, not for the Anon’s sake, but for the sake of sharing more info!
I was basically challenged to prove that Viktor and Yuuri would reach a point at the end of the series where they’d want to be together romantically. Sounds obvious, no? The entire show is a testimony of how their relationship grows; every single episode displays more and more of their love.
But the Anon insisted that nothing could be said about current episodes, considering what’s to occur about my theory post will potentially be in the last episode. ‘Actual proof only, no speculation!’ So basically, I was asked to give physical proof that Yuuri and Viktor care enough about each other only in the potential final episode, when that episode in question hasn’t been released yet…
Okay.
Challenge Accepted.
Let me take this in a different direction for a bit and talk about skate guards. They’re the covers that fit over the skate blades. When they’re off the ice, skaters always have these on, for safety and to avoid damaging their blades.
The ones I’ve seen in Yuri!! On Ice so far have been dual-coloured. For example, Minami’s are yellow and brown, Yurio’s are purple and black.
And Yuuri’s are red and white.
What else is red and white?
Why the Japanese flag! It’s no coincidence that Yuuri’s skate guards are his country’s colour.
Now moving on to the actual skating shoes. I think almost all the skaters we’ve seen have standard silver coloured blades. All except for Viktor. His ice skating shoes have slightly golden blades.
In the opening credits, this is highlighted by having his blades painted in a hard yellow colour.
But if you’ll observe this screenshot of his blades next to Yuuri’s, you can see the difference in colour.
What you can also see here is that although Viktor’s skates look sleek, full-coloured and polished, Yuuri’s look scuffed, well-worn and faded. It says a lot about them as people certainly, but also financially (we’ve seen that Viktor is used to flying first class). Viktor definitely practices as much as Yuuri, but if his skates get old, he’ll probably buy newer, better ones. Simply because he can afford to, but also as it fits with his personality, a relaxed ‘why not get new ones?’. Also, I imagine Viktor would care for his skates’ outward appearance.
This shot above of Yuuri’s (and Viktor’s) skates is from episode 2.
But here in episode 5, many months later when he does his free skate in the ‘Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship’, he’s still got his scuffed little skates. Yuuri hasn’t thought to get a new pair. He’s probably the kind of person who’d think ‘if it’s not broken don’t fix it’. I imagine he also cares less about how the shoes look, compared to Viktor who is quite immaculate with his outward persona (dat suit).
Now as I’ve spoken of in my other post, I predict Viktor skating ‘Stay Close to Me’ for Yuuri in the final episode to express his feelings, and a stronger Yuuri joining in, the song becoming a duet, a confession and acceptance.
I’ve drawn evidence from the opening scene of the first ep of YOI where Viktor skates in what we’ve all but confirmed to be Onsen on Ice.
A trailer (or PV) will show snippets of scenes that occur within a series to be released. You don’t know where that scene will belong (beginning, middle, end?) until you’ve watched the actual episodes. But it’s highly unlikely that animators will create a scene for a trailer that won’t be shown in the actual series. We’ve already seen most parts of the Yuri!! On Ice trailer within the actual series so far.
But some parts that we haven’t seen yet are scenes that look remarkably similar to the opening sequence of episode 1, where I imagine Viktor skates in the intimate skating ring for Yuuri.
It seems that those parts of the trailer will belong to that scenario. The clothes Viktor wears, the skating routine, the location and lighting; it’s all the same.
So I invite you to look at this section of the trailer:
The location– as can be judged by the window– is Onsen on Ice, and the lighting looks similar to the intimate skating scenario earlier described.
I feel like this scene would be the ‘right-before’ we get the ‘Stay Close to Me’ skate. Yuuri’s jacket is still on (so he’d take that off), and he’s eagerly lacing up his skates, looking towards something (someone) in the rink with a very pleased expression. It certainly looks like the direct lead-up to what I believe will be the ‘Stay Close to Me’ duet.
But I want to focus here on Yuuri’s skates.
By the look of them, they are still the scuffed ones he’s been wearing for who knows how long. He hasn’t changed them. But he has changed one thing, and that is the skate guards.
Instead of his white and red ones for Japan, they’re now blue and red. If you look at the other shots further up of him tying his laces, it’s a very clear and obvious change. Yuuri who hasn’t bothered getting new skates, went out of his way to get new guards?
And they’re red and blue…with his silver blades, that’s like red, blue and silver. What do these colours remind you of?
The Russian flag no?
In the opening, as Viktor skates and jumps, it passes very briefly, but we’re shown the Russian flag on the back of his skates. So Viktor is also one who ‘wears’ his country (though not explicitly so far). Animators don’t add minute details for no reason.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that by this point (the end of the series going by the snippet in the trailer) Yuuri is wearing a bit of Viktor. If we can take this scene to belong to that final episode, though it hasn’t been released yet, then we can see evidence, physical evidence, of Yuuri going out of his way to be more a part of Viktor.
It’s one thing to wear someone’s costume when you were in need of one anyways. It’s another thing entirely to wear their country. Yet another thing to replace a piece of yours with a piece of theirs.
I thought you were going in a different direction, like with the scuffed skates, but this is cool!
Don’t you think their skates are a great metaphor for the two of them? If it fits and its comfortable and nothing’s broken, why replace it? Which fits Yuuri in his life up til Victor…why worry about things like love when I’m fine just like this…and would by the end of the season, as well…I’ve found the one person I love and no matter his faults, he’s mine and I have no intention of letting him go!
Then with Victor, I have a strong feeling, especially with last episode, that “romance” and “relationships” were just a thing to him, easily replaceable when you no longer care for it (on both sides, likely, as in he did the replacing and was the one easily discarded). If something went a little wrong, no problem. Get rid of it.
I think part of the reason Victor was so surprised was because, up until that point in his life, anyone that had claimed to love him wasn’t willing to put in the work and neither was he. Then when he says something terrible to Yuuri that upsets him so, not only does Victor immediately regret and feel sorry, but he is stunned when Yuuri says, besides the testing he KNOWS Victor won’t leave him for that and that he believes in Victor, asking Victor to believe in him even more…in a way that Victor has trusted and believed in NO ONE else in his entire life.
While Victor’s still trying to work out if that really happened and if he really just connected with someone that way, Yuuri pulls the head boop stunt with the little pat at the end to snap him out of it and reassure him, then goes out there and delivers a skate Victor completely and unquestionably understands and is overwhelmed by, hence his need to kiss him to convey what words alone wouldn’t do in that moment. ::squee::
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see Victor’s skates a little more cherished by the last episode?
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