Why do we like formula writing so much?

[HGohwell]

I would argue that Yuri on Ice worked for me as a romantic comedy and a sports drama because it didn't check-marked the tropes. They didn't end up together, he didn't win.

I'm sorry to step into this but it does sort of speak to formulas and how you can't just ignore them - on most accounts from people who are both heavy into sports anime and figure skating, Yuri On Ice fails as a sports anime. The same way Kagegurui isn't great as a gambling anime. They're fun and no one is saying they're bad, but they really rank low on what those genre's have as their main goals. Many sports anime have the teams or players fail at the end, especially if they're looking for a second season or movie (as Yuri on Ice was). It's been noted by many that if YOI was a hetro couple it would have been ok and not got all the awards it did (I'm not sure how true that is, but I do think it swept the awards because of hype in a season of many outstanding anime).

Many of it's problems (reportedly) come down to the fact that the creator refused to compromise on their creation, wanted every character to have their moment rather than just the most important ones and do every skate scene they deemed important pretty much uninterrupted and that the people behind it didn't want to give out extra money on a series that isn't an adaption and is pushing boundaries with gay mainstream representation not knowing if it would be successful all culminating in it having a lot of pacing issues and the sports part of the sports anime being the part cut. There's a reason sports anime spends so much time training and explaining the game they're playing from basics - so you understand why someone wins and loses and how the game works, YOI gave up on that sort of thing and went straight into competitions very early and the most you could say from one routine to another was, well they were pretty. It was never really explained (that I remember) why Yurio won over Yuri, on a technical level. I don't know what Yuri has to do next season to win. Nor do I know in many of the other skates, why one character won over another unless there was something obvious like a fall.

As some people say, you have to be aware what the genre expects. Madoka still had magical girls (I will not write the essay on why Madoka is actually a standard magical girl show not some massive genre shift), every whodunit still reveals the truth at the end, romcoms have romanc, sport anime should have the sport front and centre and understandable (and plenty of sports anime manages to do this and build relationships as strongly if not more so than YOI so it's not an excuse) and a gambling anime should have stakes that matter (nothing matters to Yumeko and she never has anything serious on the line why should we care if she doesn't?). These sort of things are important.

[Jenny-Toons]

I’m not saying a generic “formula story” is good writing or the only way to write. You just need to have the bones of certain foundations to keep your house up and to make the flow feel natural. You can meet those requirements and be completely unique. Never doubt that.

(Sorry. I’m an architecture enthusiast. Please forgive my extended metaphor.)

Exactly this -- and honestly the same applies to Engineering (gotta do another metaphor XD)

Sure, you could build a circuit from scratch and it might work. But why remake a new circuit design when you already have several designs that have worked in the past? Even more, while working from those known circuits, you're able to find different ways to redesign it or make it efficient. Can't just build from nothing -- gotta have some form of base.

For myself, I find that the best writing is when the formula isn't really that explicit until someone has to sit down and see where the tropes are and what theme is being used. But because its become its own thing, you don't see the foundation.

Going back to the cake metaphor again -- a well-structured formulated story doesn't taste like flour or pure sugar or milk. It tastes like cake because it came together well enough to make cake.

[domisotto]

In my mind Yurio wins because he masters the artistic component that previously eluded him, while keeping the high GoEs he receives on the jumps that he really shouldn’t have at his age. I mean, look at Samsonov, I am scared that they fried the kid’s joints for nothing, pushing quads at 14.

Anyway, it portrays accurately that clean technical skate wins juniors, but you never know with seniors.

Yuri’s technical arsenal remains shaky. With a different judging/technical panel Yuri might have won.

That captures accurately the FS judging agony. There is simply no way this sport doesn’t leave the fans frustrated.

They could have given Yuri a different interesting loss, say used Zayak’s rule against him, but they stayed true to the specific sport they portrayed and explaining Zayak would have taken half an episode, heh. Falls in the current judging system is not a penultimate mistake as long as the jump was rotated.

Anyway, for me YoI will always remain a shining example of a well delivered story that far exceeded my expectations going in.

[HGohwell]

As I say, it's culmination of things backstage, perhaps if they'd been willing to stretch to 24 episodes it could have been a good sports anime and explained all these things properly, but as it is, it's mostly just using ice skating as a setting. Especially when the sports anime genre is full of absolutely incredible stories like Haikyuu that do interpersonal relationships, team relationships and explaining the sport so even laymen can understand what happened. It's fine story, but's it's one of those classification issues. When you call it a sports anime it has to stand up against different standards and some absolutely incredible pieces than a personal drama with a sports setting.

And, as I hope I've made clear, there's nothing wrong with that, but classification can be important. Like calling Harry Potter a romance, or Twilight an action thriller.

[domisotto]

I attempted to watch Haikyu, and I couldn’t, so dunno. Maybe I just like bad sports anime 🤣 imo they did a good job explaining the FS judging rules of the time (they had changed a great deal since release) and the Grand Prix set up.

[HGohwell]

Basically, in a more sports focused sports anime (and again, they might have managed this if it was longer) they would have broken everything down. They would have explained the differences between the jumps, the different steps sequences, how the rules and difficulty works, we'd see much more train (and failing and improving) and it would slowly build up from basics to more complex rules and techniques (this is why many sports anime will have a new but enthusiastic protagonist, so they can explain to you via them). We'd understand things like why jump fail due to things like under rotation and over rotation ect. These are the sorta things expected of a sports anime and that's the difference, exectation thanks to classification. Like I say, I'm not saying YOI is bad as an anime, just as a sports anime it misses the key elements expected.

[domisotto]

They did as far as I remember, highlighting the TES vs PCS, that Yuri is a skater’s skater from the start, the BV and GoE, etc, they did a lot of that in each episode, showing that little educational window when Yuri-chibi teaches.

They focus a lot on the plot important rules, the ‘on tired legs’ bonus, that was all the rage back at the time, and the quad/quad-combo elements that are big money-makers. In the skater’s monologues they explain mistakes they do. Falls, doubling the jumps, just sheer lack of skating skill or performance. I don’t remember if anyone pops, but iirc there was a popped jump at some point too.

but! FS has qualitative component (PCS and GoE) so you will never be able to get the ‘exact’ measurement, it is always average of a mark between the judges plus BV on each element.

They focus on that one quad that Yuri jumps and the emotional connection of Victor’s combo and Yuri’s eventually performing it to show how important he is in his life (the lead into the kissing sequence).

And they definitely explain the PCS a few times, strongly highlighting Yurio’s progress, with the significant moment when his coach calls out to him as “Vitya”, showing that Yurio transcended and overcome his problem.

Yuri, despite his emo mopping around at the start, is a leet skater, being consistently advanced by Japan into GP, and he had to have won his two stages to advance to the Final at the start of the story. It is also emphasized times and again that he has the skillset, but he lacks confidence, and he is inconstant in landing the jumps—it doesn’t matter which quad he doesn’t land, he just doesn’t stay on his feet (if memory serves, he only has one quad)

[HGohwell]

Look, you're clearly and fan and clearly into skating. I'm not going to argue. I've already acknowledge it could have been down to the behind the scenes issues.

My point was, when it comes to formula, when you tag something as a genre, people expect a certain standard. I watch sports anime regularly, I enjoy the genre, and many other people who watch sports anime regularly agree, as a sports anime YOI isn't great in a genre of giants but it is a perfectly fine, maybe even great, character story with a sports setting. There's a difference and that is how much you break down the sport and where the focus is. And when I say the technical details and difference between jumps, I mean things like the difference between and axel and a loop. Again, this is why they generally have a new but enthusiastic protagonist.

It'd be like watching a murder mystery and not being given enough clue and not having the detective explain it at the end, but instead focusing on the romance. It can be a fine story, even a great story, but it's not a murder mystery. You can keep telling me I'm wrong all you like with the technicalities of it, but that doesn't change that a lot of people who love sports anime agree it doesn't meet the standards of the genre. I'm only saying, it doesn't meet what's expected of this specific genre aka a complete breakdown of the sport so even a child could understand and slowly building that knowledge and the fact that you're having to keep telling me where they explained the rules and how it works, is proving my point that they didn't do a good enough job. The show should have explained these things and if they did, they should have explained them clearer or you wouldn't have to keep trying to tell me them. There's a reason very few truly successful sports anime come out of 12 episode shows.

I was simply making a point that genres have expectation, and formulas help you meet them, YOI didn't, all creators should consider those genre expectation when writing and tagging, this is why genre's are a thing, this is getting severely off topic.

[domisotto]

They creatively use the triplets called Lutz, Loop and Axel (with the remaining jumps being Toe Loop, Salchow and Flip)...

But that difference didn’t matter to the plot & everything that was plot-relevant was covered in Yuri. I am not sure how seeing Yuri perform all 6 jumps and every spin type, showed transitions etc would have helped the enjoyment? He skates his program multiple times, they call out each element, explain the mistakes he makes when he does... it is pretty comprehensive and makes the story flow organically, without requiring memorization of a rather large number of elements that compose each program. You don’t really need to memorize all of them to enjoy watching the competitions, I can’t see why you need it to enjoy anime.

Tbh, save for axel vs all other five jumps people rarely can tell which jump is being performed without the slo mo and a filed content, let alone judge GoE, because of how quickly the leet skaters move, how fast they pick off the toe.... if you can count rotations, it’s a double, if you can’t, it’s a triple, and if the skater is a blur that was a quad, heh.

YoI delivers a string story of an athlete who is just about to quit given a second chance by his idol.

This is something by far more relatable to me than a story of a newcomer untouched by failure. Yuri has baggage, emotions, there is a realistic chance that he will fail on each stage of his working his way back up the ranks and in his two stages of GP before the final.

The fact that he fails to win GP was great, because he wins something more important, the extension of his career, the memorable performance... vs just winking into oblivion.

The show also leaves him mid-season, opening the second half for a triumphant revanchist skate at the World Championship after Yurio and Yuri fight through their respective Nationals, and 4 Continents for Yuri and Europeans for Yurio (and Victor).

So those friendship, rivalries and lovestory can go on if the show continues.

[HGohwell]

Ok you are clearly no getting my point. These are exceptions of a sports anime. I'm not saying it's good or bad, I'm saying these are the expectations of the sports anime genre. That is literally it. Featuring a sport does not make you a sports anime.

I was simply making a point that genres have expectation, and formulas help you meet them, YOI didn't, all creators should consider those genre expectation when writing and tagging, this is why genre's are a thing, this is getting severely off topic.

I'm done.

[domisotto]

Yeah, I think I don’t get it, sorry.