Yuri on Ice translations by /a/

SCANS: http://aliasanonyme.tumblr.com/post/151540503664/yuri-on-ice-in-the-november-issue-spoon2di


“This interview with Kubo opens by asking about how the anime came to be, being inspired from Yamamoto’s previous figure skating short (broadcasted in the animator’s expo I think), and the Sochi Olympics. She goes on to talk about how they talked with producers etc until eventually they got the greenlight.
Then she talks about how while researching for locations to use in the show, she found it interesting how the official hotels where skaters stayed also housed regular people like fans.
etc etc


Kubo: International skaters do a lot of fanservice, so we tried to incorporate that into the characters as well. Furthermore, many skaters, Japanese and beyond, often use social media like Instagram to upload pictures. They upload pictures from off-season when they’re on vacation, so I wanted to draw vacation scenes completely unrelated to skating too!
We tend to exaggerate what skaters are like in our imaginations, so even when we drew things that were somewhat unreasonable in the anime, we told ourselves that ‘real skaters probably do this too!’ (laughs) … If you draw manga you know that unrealistic stuff often happens. But I believe that if you create something with meaning and some truth to it, then even that world can be established in reality.”
http://blackwhitebunny.tumblr.com/post/153090303154/this-is-something-that-i-found-in-the-4chan


Translator anon here, I'm back and seeing the thread I should probably clarify a few things regarding the translations from the last thread.


When Kubo was talking about real life skater fanservice it's as >>149656705 said, the fanservice isn't like anime fanservice (tits, ass, gaybaiting) and more like being nice to your fans and putting on a show when performing. For example, the raunchiness of Swiss' short program. Things that happen off the rink, e.g. Victor and Yuuri being all over each other, isn't part of that.


>>149656884
The thing about unrealistic stuff in manga wasn't directly talking about the skater fanservice (or homo between Victor and Yuuri) and was more general I think. Things like Victor travelling across the world to train Yuuri and being naked all the time.
http://boards.4chan.org/a/thread/149656132#p149657553

Continuing translation of spoon pages.


Kubo: The people who most admire works about a sport tend to be people who are players of that same sport. Love too has such a deep bond, doesn't it? I decided that I wanted to carefully depict people who struggle with that. The story of Yuri on Ice was written up last year and during the stage where I fleshed out the drafts, the character relationships were deepened more than I could have imagined. ... In the end we didn't think about what we were writing and drawing into these characters, rather we were going off what the characters they themselves would want.


Q: When you were working on the character drafts, what were some key points about the main three that you can share? Please start with Katsuki Yuuri.


Kubo: When it comes to Katsuki Yuuri's aggressive but innocent sex appeal, the theme focuses on the innocent part of it. Normally he has low self-esteem, but he's the kind of character that has the potential to break free of it. I thought of a story like, a protagonist discovers figure skating for the first time through high school club activities or something like that, and grows as a person through it. That kind of story is common, but I couldn't get through all of that in one cour! (laughs) so instead it became about the resurrection of a skater's career. When I draw him at first glance he seems mediocre, but in actuality he's really talented and a really good skater in Japan. When I heard Toyonaga Tomoyuki's voice at the auditions, the patheticness in his voice was great and it suddenly switched to a strong voice, which was wonderful. I had an image of Yuuri in my head from long ago, and hearing his voice made me excited for what kind of sexiness could come out of it.
http://boards.4chan.org/a/thread/149656132#p149658777

Q: How about Victor Nikiforov?


Kubo: People might get mad at me for saying this, but when I was thinking of a place that embodies good skating and a lover-like (playboy?) character.... I thought of Russia. If you talk about great Russian skaters, everyone will think of Plushenko, right? It's not like we were modelling Victor off of him, but we're not denying the similarities either. If people decide that 'these two are similar' then that's just another way for people to enjoy the show. Victor's appearance was modelled off of John Cameron Mitchell from the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch. When I went to New York last year to see the musical, they had the original cast there (John Cameron Mitchell) and his sex appeal was so amazing that I had to base Victor off of him. Victor is a kind of dreamboat character I haven't drawn much of up until now, so I wanted to make him the most attractive guy of my manga career. Suwabe's reliable dreamboat voice is wonderful, isn't it? At the auditions, others thought his 'Amazing!' line was really good, practised or not (laughs). Also, I heard that Suwabe is the kind of person who takes his roles very seriously, so I thought that was fitting for Victor's character as well.
http://boards.4chan.org/a/thread/149656132#p149659641


On Yuri Plisetsky
Kubo: To watch the Grand Prix Final in 2014, I went to Barcelona and saw Russian skater Yulia Lipnitskaya in plain clothes. She was wearing leopard print over black, with leopard print luggage. The handle of it was gold and had a really ORA ORA kind of fashion sense to it (laughs). When I was looking over my research material for the visuals, I thought, 'It'd be cool if there was a male skater like this', and that's how Yuri came to be. Even though that was the basis of his character, he was easy to draw and characterise. I felt that Uchiyama's slightly relaxed voice was a great fit for his personality. When I heard his audition tape I wanted to tell him to stay in that relaxed, can't-be-bothered voice (laughs).
http://boards.4chan.org/a/thread/149656132#p149660081