With the popularity of the Yuri on Ice TV series last year and the strong sales that we saw from the individual volumes, the reveal today in Japan that a feature anime film isn’t exactly too much of a surprise. The feature will be a new story rather than a compilation film, though one of those is certainly possible to be announced before this film comes out to make it more accessible to those who haven’t seen the TV series. No details about staffing or dates were revealed, though a really great new key visual arrived.
The series was directed by Sayo Yamamoto, who also handled the series composition with Tadashi Hiramatsu on as the character designer and was animated by MAPPA. Yamamoto has some solid credits to her name with the Fujiko Mine TV series and Michiko & Hatchin and she’s listed as the original creator here along with Mitsurou Kubo.
The Japanese cast includes Toshiyuki Toyonaga as Yuuri Katsuki, Junichi Suwabe as Viktor Nikiforov, Kouki Uchiyama as YuriPlistesky, Jun Fukuyama as Takeshi Nishigōri, Yoshimasa Hosoya as Otabek Altyn, Yuutaro Honjou as Ki Guanhong, Hiroki Yasumoto as Kristoff Giacometti, Mamoru Miyano as Jean Jack Leroy, Kensho Ono as Phichit Chulanont, Tomoaki Maeno as Michele Crispino, Ayumu Murase as Kenjirou Minami, Kenji Nojima as Lee Seung-gil, Satoshi Hino as Emil Nekola, Wataru Hatano as Georgi Popovich and Shunichi Toki as Leo de la Iglesia.
Dean Fujioka performed the opening theme song “History Maker” for the show while Wataru Hatano performed the ending theme song “You Only Live Once”.
Plot concept: Yuri Katsuki carried the hope of all Japan on his shoulders in the Figure Skating Grand Prix, but suffered a crushing defeat in the finals. He returned to his hometown in Kyushu and hid away in his family’s home, half wanting to continue skating and half wanting to retire. That was when the five-time consecutive world champion, Viktor Nikiforov, suddenly showed up with his teammate, Yuri Plisetsky, a young skater starting to surpass his seniors. And so the two Yuris and the Russian champion Viktor set out to compete in a Grand Prix like none the world has ever seen
