A gay ice skating anime made me believe in love again

When I started watching Yuri!!! on Ice, I thought I knew what I was getting into. I’ve been a fan of sports anime for years, and a fan of anime in general for longer. Sports anime makes up a broad and increasingly popular swath of anime offerings, and as with any genre, there are certain conventions I’ve come to expect: a loveable underdog making a surprising comeback, detailed explanations of a game’s rules and strategy that somehow get me to care about sports, teams learning to cooperate and developing their relationships both on and off the court.