Yuri On Ice Sequel Cancelled Due To “Creative Reasons” Instead of Business Ones, According To Producer

By Elijah Gonzalez | October 7, 2025 | 2:00pm

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Yuri On Ice Sequel Cancelled Due To “Creative Reasons” Instead of Business Ones, According To Producer

While there are plenty of anime production mysteries we’ll probably never get definitive answers to, one of the great enigmas in the modern anime scene is what went wrong with the sequel to Yuri!!! On Ice. This breakout anime became a cultural phenomenon for both its portrayal of figure skating and its emphasis on LGBT themes before its follow-up film, Yuri!!! on Ice the Movie: Ice Adolescence, got stuck in development hell for the better part of eight years before getting cancelled last year with little explanation. While it doesn’t provide anything in the way of definitive answers, we got a hint as to what went wrong thanks to the comments of a producer from the series.

In an interview with Animehunch, series producer Hideo Katsumata was asked if he could share any insight into why the project was cancelled, to which he responded:

“I can’t talk about the details, as that includes some very private matters. But if you ask whether it’s a creative or business issue, the reasons stem from the creative side. The main reason is that it couldn’t be made due to creative reasons. Since it was an original animation, the people involved—including the creators and the animation studio, MAPPA… among the creators, on the creative side, a situation arose where it just became impossible to proceed with production.”

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While the answer is vague, a key takeaway is that, according to Katsumata, the problems with the project seemed to stem from “creative reasons.” Unlike most anime, Yuri!!! On Ice was an original series, one helmed by industry legend Sayo Yamamato (Michiko & Hatchin, Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine). She co-directed the series alongside Jun Shishido and co-wrote it with Mitsurō Kubo. The cancelled film was also to be directed by Yamamoto with co-creator Mitsurou Kubo on board as well. Essentially, while there is obviously room for creative issues to arise during an adaptation of an existing work, there is arguably more room for friction when it comes to creating an entirely original piece.

To be frank, many have long assumed that part of why the film was never released is because it would almost certainly continue to focus on the implicit queer relationship at the heart of its story, where its protagonist Yuri implicitly developed romantic feelings for his coach Victor. To put it mildly, LGBT topics remain controversial among the type of people (old, conservative businessmen) financing and overseeing most anime productions. While 70% of people in Japan support gay marriage, it still isn’t legal in the country, in large part because of the right-wing Liberal Democratic Party’s vice grip on the nation’s political system.

Even when anime become popular because of their queerness, as happened with Yuri!!! on Ice, the companies in charge frequently try to downplay these elements, as happened when Bandai Namco Filmworks, the company behind Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, attempted to gaslight viewers into believing the ending of the series, where the protagonist very clearly marries another woman, was up to interpretation.

It certainly doesn’t help the situation that the CEO of MAPPA downplayed the importance of Yuri!!! on Ice to the company, despite the fact that it became a global sensation that literally crashed streaming services due to its popularity and put the then-nascent MAPPA on the map. Again, it’s important to indicate that Katsumata didn’t say Yuri!!! on Ice was never completed due to internal conflict over its depiction of queer themes, but it’s honestly hard to blame many fans for jumping to that conclusion.