I’m Honestly So Grateful For The Creditless Stammi Vicino Duet From Vol 6 And The Official Bonus Manga

I’m honestly so grateful for the creditless Stammi Vicino duet from vol 6 and the official bonus manga because they confirm what I thought before but wasn’t certain of because of the credits which got in the way and because we only got to see like half of Yuuri’s exhibition.

And what I’m talking about here is that Victor and Yuuri switch roles throughout their ice dance.

And yes, I mean female and male roles.

We see that Yuuri starts off in the female role as he is the one being lifted

as well as supported by Victor in moves such as this one:

But as they enter the second half of their performance together, the balance suddenly shifts and

Victor becomes the female partner in their ice dance, now being supported by Yuuri.

And, accordingly, we soon see this:

I wish I knew a professional name for this move, but the point is that when Victor leans to the side, it is Yuuri that supports him through holding his arm and balancing him out. I’ve seen this performed in ice dancing footage I found on YouTube and indeed, Victor would be the woman here, while Yuuri would be the man.

Right before the sequence transitions to Yuuri running in St. Petersburg, we manage to see this:

You’ll notice that Yuuri is leading Victor and pulling him into that spin. Although they both spin, Victor is doing the feminine spin while Yuuri does the masculine spin. The best way that I can explain this is that the one being led holds the feminine role and the one doing the leading holds the masculine role, like in most dances.

All of this we’ve seen in the anime (although somewhat obscured by the credits) and it was enough for me to determine that they do indeed switch roles and it was a very conscious choice on the creators’ side. But one thing that I kept wondering about was: Why does Yuuri not lift Victor? Surely, if he can pole dance while holding Chris with only one arm, lifting Victor should not be an issue? I justified it to myself with the fact that Yuuri is shorter, so lifting Victor on the ice would be considerably more difficult for him than vice versa.

And then the official manga came and swept me right off my feet.

Because Yuuri was clearly lifting Victor.

And when I saw this, I thought: “Wait, why didn’t we see this in the anime?”

And then it hit me - this is the second half of the performance.

And suddenly everything falls into place.

Because Victor has less stamina than Yuuri, when Victor and Yuuri were choreographing the program, they placed the parts where Victor lifts Yuuri as early as possible. And because Victor wouldn’t be able to lift Yuuri in the second half, that’s when Yuuri’s chance to do a lift or two appears. Yuuri has more stamina, so lifting Victor by the end of the program when Victor would be more tired is not an issue for him, and makes perfect sense.

And I just love this so much because it may be such a small detail but it’s so consistent with what we know about the characters and I’m just??? Amazed? Because I don’t think I’ve ever seen such consistency and wholesomeness in anything in recent memory.

But even apart from that, this single panel proves that Victor and Yuuri truly are equal in their ice dance, and by extension in their relationship as a whole.

Which is awesome because it’s further confirmation that Victor and Yuuri and pretty much all of yoi itself is a huge middle finger to gender roles and heteronormative stereotypes (not to mention the real life ice dance/pair skate ISU rules), and I love it and will never stop praising it.