Why Was the Yuri On Ice Movie Canceled? Explained

After years of waiting, fans of Yuri!!! on ICE have gotten the worst possible news. Here’s why the Yuri!!! on Ice movie has been canceled.

Why Did Yuri on Ice: Ice Adolescence Get Canceled?

The 2010s was a magical time for anime fans who enjoyed watching boys play sports. But no sport anime was as beloved as YURI!!! on ICE, which follows an ice skater and his coach on their journey to win the Grand Prix championship. While the plot’s simple, fans adored the rising romantic tension between Victor and Yuri, the nuanced character development, and how unabashedly gay the series was.

So, when MAPPA announced Ice Adolescence, a movie that would have followed the deuteragonist Viktor Nikiforov in his early career, fans were ecstatic. The movie was initially due to be released in 2019, but was delayed. Since then, the official Yuri!!! on ICE Twitter account remained dormant, with the exception of periodic birthday announcements and posts about merchandise sales.

But on April 18, 2024, MAPPA broke their silence about the state of Ice Adolescence in a cancellation notice on their Twitter account. This notice reads:

“Thank you very much for always supporting “YURI!!! on ICE”.

Regarding the postponed release of YURI!!! on ICE the movie: ICE ADOLESCENCE”, we have come to the decision to unfortunately cancel its production.

We deeply apologize for not being able to meet the expectations of all those who have been waiting and have continued to support us throughout these years.

The production committee and staff have been in constant discussions to create and to deliver the movie, but due to various circumstances, we have had to make the difficult decision to stop the production.

We sincerely apologize to everyone who has been anticipating its release and thank you once again for your continued support.

YURI!!! on ICE PROJECT

MAPPA Co., Ltd.”

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So, there you have it. Ice Adolescence has been cancelled because of “various circumstances”. And while there are no firmer details than that, we can glean from an interview with MAPPA’s CEO, Manabu Otsuka, that it’s likely MAPPA’s high production workload that has led to the movie being dropped.

In an interview with Natalie.mu, Otsuka stated,

“When I accepted the job [as CEO of MAPPA], my first thought was to survive and continue to create. … When we thought about what we should do to achieve this, the first thing we needed to do was increase productivity. It’s quite difficult to catch up with the quality of Kyoto Animation and Ufotable in a short period of time, and trying to get there over 20 or 30 years is too slow for a junior MAPPA. Therefore, we needed to take a different approach from the studios that were ahead of us. So, I thought about how I could participate in the race with the top studios in the shortest possible time by producing a lot and gaining experience while maintaining high quality, and at the same time branding the studio.”

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MAPPA is set to air Bucchigiri?! and Oblivion Battery this year, and it’s currently working on Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 and Shinichirō Watanabe’s Lazarus. With such heavy hitters on the roster, it’s likely that MAPPA’s moved its resources to more profitable pastures. But we can always hold out hope that Ice Adolescence will one day see the rink.