325. “The Most Brilliant Storytelling I’ve Ever Seen:” Courtney Milan and Yuri!!! on Ice

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Sarah Wendell: Howdy, folks, and welcome to episode number 325 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and this week I am talking to Courtney Milan. Of all the things that I could talk to Courtney Milan about, I think the very best topic – and I’m sure you agree – would be figure skating. Specifically, Yuri!!! On Ice. Yuri!!! On Ice, if you have not heard of it, is an anime that contains multitudes, and it has been making Courtney very happy for a while now, so I asked her to tell me all about Yuri!!! On Ice. We discuss what she loves about the show and how the narrative structure of Yuri has illuminated for her elements of romance storytelling that frustrate her as a romance writer.

Now, I have a couple of notes about spoilers and trigger and content warnings. First, we talk a bit about depression and sexual harassment at twenty minutes, thirty-five seconds in [20:35]. And there’s also a big spoiler in the part where we’re discussing the narrative structure, ‘cause there’s a big reveal in an episode of Yuri!!! On Ice, so if you would like to protect yourself entirely from spoilers, you will hear me break into the conversation and warn you about how far to skip ahead in your podcast playback. I will be telling you exactly how far to go forward so you miss the spoilery parts.

In this conversation, we’re going to talk about storytelling structure, methods of revealing multiple plots, and other anime recommendations for curious viewers. One of my favorite things, which I’m sure you know, is to ask people who take epic nerdy deep dives into things about the things that they love. It is really fun to listen to someone who is passionate about something talk about how much they like it, and I find this conversation so interesting. I hope you enjoy it too.

If you would like to find Courtney Milan, you can do so at courtneymilan.com, and she’s on Twitter @courtneymilan.

And if you would like to tell me about the anime that you love, I would love to hear it! You can find me at [email protected], or you can call and leave a voicemail at 201-371-3272. That’s 201-371-3272. You can ask a question; you can recommend anime; you can do whatever you want! Leave a message; tell us a joke. If you’ve got, if you have bad jokes, you know I want them! But it is awesome to hear from you.

This week’s podcast and podcast transcript are brought to you by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward’s Hate Notes, available now from Montlake Romance. From New York Times bestselling authors Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward comes an unexpected love story of secondhand hearts and second chances. It starts with a mysterious blue note sewn into a wedding dress. When Charlotte Darling takes her unworn bridal gown to a vintage clothing store to sell, she discovers a note stitched into the lining of a different dress. The note, handwritten on blue paper, simply reads, “Thank you for making all of my dreams come true.” The name embossed on the blue stationery: Reed Eastwood. Charlotte finds the note endearing and fantasizes about the man who wrote it. Then, thanks to a strange twist of fate, Reed Eastwood becomes Charlotte’s new boss. Charlotte is more determined than ever to uncover the story behind that tiny blue love letter. But that story is nothing compared to the one that starts to unfold between Charlotte and Reed. It’s getting hotter, sweeter, and more surprising than either of them could have imagined, from something blue to something new. USA Today’s Happy Ever After called Hate Notes “A must-read…an engaging, funny, and seriously sexy romance…” Hate Notes from Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward is available now from Montlake Romance.

Now, I have compliments, and I love this part! Okay!

To Lisa P.: Dinner with you is everyone’s favorite meal, no matter what you’re eating or where you’re eating, because you are that much fun.

And to Kelsey H.: You would be surprised and probably shocked to know how many people think of you, your sense of humor, and your understanding jokes when they need a lift, and it works every time.

Now, if you would like your own compliment or you would like to find a way to support the show, you can have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches. If you have supported the show with a monthly pledge, thank you. You are helping ensure each episode is transcribed, you keep the show going, and you make sure every episode is accessible to everyone. If you would like to join the Patreon community, it is super easy to do so! If you go to patreon.com/SmartBitches, monthly pledges start at one dollar a month, and every one makes a massive difference. Plus, you’ll be part of the group who helps me develop questions for upcoming interviews and suggests guests for the show as well.

I also like to thank the person, personally thank the Patreon folks, so to Deborah, Sarah, Kelsey, Rebecca, and Letisha, thank you so much for being part of this community.

Are there other ways to support the podcasts you love? Yes, and I have not put this into iambic pentameter, but I probably should. You can leave a review wherever or on whatever app you listen. Apparently these things are called podcatchers, which is, like, super cute? You can tell a friend; you can subscribe; you can just yell about it. Whatever works, but if I am in your eardrums right now, thank you for hanging out with me each week!

Our music is provided by Sassy Outwater. I will have information at the end of the episode, and I can hear you saying it’s not, it’s not the holidays yet, and also, aren’t you Jewish? But, hey, trust me, this, this album is awesome, and I play it ever year! If you’re, if you’re a longtime listener, you know exactly who this is.

At the end of the episode, I will have links, I will have jokes, I will have terrible previews of what’s coming up on the site this week – actually, pretty great – but in the meantime, let’s get started with our interview with Courtney Milan. On with the podcast.

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Courtney Milan: Hi, my name is Courtney Milan. I write romance novels and like figure skating and Yuri!!! On –

Sarah: That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Figure skating and romance novels.

Courtney: Yeah. Right. I’ve never written a romance novel, figure-skating novel, a figure-skating novel. That’s, that’s a sentence that just had too many novels in it. I’ve never written –

[Laughter]

Courtney: Let me start again! I have never written a romance figure-skating novel, so obviously, I’m clearly qualified to talk about romance novels and figure skating, but just not –

Sarah: Of course!

Courtney: – together.

Sarah: Do you think you might?

Courtney: I’m never going to say no, but honestly, this is one of those things. It’s like, so, one of my favorite tropes is, like, girl wears pants, and I’ve never written it because I just feel like I can’t live up to my favorites, if that makes any sense?

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely!

Courtney: So I, I don’t know that I ever will, just because it’s, it’s like – you know, it’s for the same reason that I don’t write dogs in books often. I’ve only written one book that has a dog in it, and I, I just have to be really careful with the things that, putting too much of the things I love in books, because otherwise it just takes over.

Sarah: Right, and it’s hard to sort of separate your feelings objectively when you need to write them as opposed to portray them and, and then celebrate them –

Courtney: Right.

Sarah: – which is a totally different process.

Courtney: Right, exactly.

Sarah: So the entire world is in a massive dumpster fire inside a poop taco –

Courtney: [Laughs]

Sarah: – and you have been dealing with some heavy shit, which I know we are not going to talk about. You have been talking about and discussing Yuri!!! On Ice for quite a while, and then there was washi tape, and there have been T-shirts and lots of things ordered from Japan, and I’ve sort of been watching this going, okay, cool. Can you tell me about Yuri!!! On Ice and what it is and what you love about it?

Courtney: Sure! So Yuri!!! On –

Sarah: I mean, it’s a small question, right? [Laughs]

Courtney: No, it’s actually a very easy question to answer. Yuri!!! On Ice is a deceptively simple show about a sexy, popular, genius figure skater and the utter dork who wins his heart, and the funny thing about that sentence is that it is true on several different levels in ways that will not make sense until you watch the whole show. So there’s a couple of, so, so there’s, there’s a couple of layers to my like for the show, because I have, like, I sometimes tell people that I have two modes, like, off and, like, completely on, but it’s actually not true. I have three modes: off, completely on, and holy-fuck-bonkers, right.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: So it, it, it actually takes a bit to sort of unlock the holy-fuck-bonkers mode, which is what has happened here.

Sarah: Okay, that’s brilliant. [Laughs]

Courtney: And so, so, so I can tell you sort of like why it was, why it switched to an on first, and then I’ll talk about the holy-fuck-bonkers stuff, if that makes any sense.

Sarah: Please do!

Courtney: Okay, so the reason, the reason I think it’s just a show that is easy to like and easy to love is because it is a show that is utterly compelling, despite having relatively low conflict, and I don’t know if I can explain the appeal of, like, super-low conflict in this day and age, but, like, no, you’re never going to worry that somebody’s going to die, and you’re never going to worry that one of the characters is going to, like, completely, like, you know, screw over the other character or, like, you know, betray them to their worst enemy; there aren’t any enemies, really. And it’s a show in which the show runners have explicitly said they’re just, they’re just not going to write a world in which most of the negative bigotry and stuff that exists in our world, it just, it, it’s not a part of the show, and so, you know, there’s no question, like, people don’t freak out about the possibility of anyone being gay. People don’t freak – there, there’s no, like, weird racism. There’s no – I mean, like, it’s just sort of like, we’re just going to accept that people are who they are, and that’s what they’re going to be, and it’s totally fine, and all of the conflict comes from other places. And that is a really appealing thing to have in this day and age.

It’s also, I have to say, a show in which the two main characters are men, but which has strong female characters who are not treated as, like, sidelines or jokes at any point, and which has, which regularly tries to, you know, just treat gender norms as like, eh, whatever, gender norms. You know, we recognize they exist, but, like, why bother? We’re going to do some stuff that just, you know, like, is totally different, and nobody’s going to think it’s strange. So –

Sarah: And the female characters also have their own plotlines. Like, they have things that they are doing that don’t revolve around the male characters entirely.

Courtney: Yeah, that’s true for some of them. And, okay, yeah, I mean, like –

Sarah: Some of them, not all.

Courtney: – so every character in the show sort of has their own plotline that intersects the show to some degree. I think that the female characters are not treated any differently than the male characters. For a number of reasons, there are fewer female characters than male characters. Like, it’s a show about male figure skating, and, like, they show all the male figure skaters who are skating against Yuri, and so it is going to be male-dominated, but it doesn’t feel like it’s, like, you know, and that’s because women suck!

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: Which is, which is sometimes what can happen if you have, like, an entirely male-dominated show. That, that’s, I think, the surface explanation: it’s low conflict; it’s, like, it’s, like, low bigotry; it’s a very sweet show that is just delightful; and it was, it’s crafted with an enormous amount of love and attention to detail that, like, really, you can’t, you can’t, I can’t even explain how, how hard they have worked to try and make this feel like a real figure skating show.

Sarah: One of the things I really liked about the early episodes that I watched was that Yuri isn’t, is in the championships. He’s a, he’s competing on a global level.

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: And he’s a little embarrassed – yeah, he’s, he’s a little embarrassed that he hasn’t done better, and yet his whole town is like, oh my gosh, you did this thing! Do you know how amazing it is that you did this thing? And he’s like, no, I was just on this ice rink with all these pictured people who did the thing better than me, so no, I’m not aware of how awesome it is that I did the thing, and he’ll, and his whole town is like, dude, you did the thing!

Courtney: Yeah, it’s not actually the whole town. It’s, like, literally the whole world?

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: So I mean, okay, so, so, so this is, this is, the, the, we’re going to start shading into, like, the holy-fuck-bonkers level, but, like –

Sarah: I love this part! Bring it!

Courtney: So, so here’s the thing: Yuri is a Grand Prix finalist, and when he first introduces himself – I’m trying to figure out how to introduce the level of holy-fuck-bonkers I am about this, so how do we do this? Okay, so let’s just try it this way: so the, the first thing that Yuri tells you about himself is his name, which is Katsuki Yuri, and the second thing he tells you about himself is a lie. And it’s not – it’s, it’s more obvious that it’s a lie in Japanese than it is in English, but it’s a lie. So the second thing is, in English it gets translated as, I’m a dime-a-dozen figure skater, okay. And it, it does, that’s not actually what it says in Japanese, and the reason it isn’t translated from Japanese is because the actual thing he uses is the, the official designation he has as a figure skater in Japan, and that official designation, like, I’m trying to figure out, like, how to convey what that would be. Like, Japanese people who, figure skating is a bigger sport there, and also, this is not a designation that we have in the US, but, like, it would be like saying, I’m a dime-a-dozen first-round-draft-pick quarterback, and I just messed up my first Super Bowl, right? Like, you know when you hear that phrase that, like, you’re not a dime-a-dozen fucking quarterback, right? Because you were a first-round draft pick and you went to the Super Bowl, right?

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: And that is essentially what he says about himself as a figure skater in Japanese. Like, I – and, and like, they’re at, as he says this, they’re showing a picture of the JSF website with his face on it, and he’s literally the only person listed in that classification. Right, so he’s, like, the best skater from Japan, and he’s telling you he’s a dime-a-dozen figure skater.

Sarah: Yep.

Courtney: So okay. So, so let’s set, so, so that’s, that’s thing number one. Like, he’s totally embarrassed about the fact that he completely flubbed the Grand Prix final, and the amazing thing about the show – and this is where we start shading into, like, the, the places where I get just really excited about it on a narrative level – is that you, you believe what he’s saying, even though you’re being shown something completely different.

Sarah: I like the conflict between how he sees himself and how the people around him see him, because they’re both right, and they’re both, like, they’re both contributing to the problem. And it’s a very simple narrative conflict that requires a lot of work to resolve when you’re actually telling and constructing the story, which is one of the reasons I really like it as an establishing narrative tension. It, it, it’s, it’s all about finding and constructing a balance in a situation that is completely –

Courtney: Right.

Sarah: – unbalanced all the time.

Courtney: I think the other thing is, I think it is just impossible to not be a little bit unhinged if you are that high level, right. And I, I, I don’t, I don’t know if unhinged is the right word to use, but, like, you know, I don’t think people who are, like, yeah, six, that’s pretty awesome, I don’t think they get to be number one. The fact that he, that Yuri thinks that he is, like, not as good as he actually is is, in fact, the predominant reason why he has gotten to be as good as he was and why he continues to get better, because he never tells himself, yeah, I’m good enough. And that’s an interesting thing, because it’s like the show is very non-judgy of him for that. It’s not like, oh, Yuri, you know, like, the real problem is that you just need to accept you’re, the fact that you are, like, you know, just not as good as other skaters.

Sarah: So Yuri is a skater, and most of the people in the story are skaters, but you mentioned that there’s a specific thing that really made you take, like, take the super-deep nerd dive. Like, this is nerd-diving to the point where you need one of those little pods that will withstand the ocean pressure? Like, this is deep nerd-diving, which is, like, my favorite kind. And I mean that with all –

Courtney: No, absolutely.

Sarah: – respect and affection, by the way. I’m not trying to say, oh yeah, you, you went off the deep end! Like, no! Deep nerd-diving in the pressure suit is the best kind! What is it about this story that made you go, okay, get me the, get me the, get me the deep-sea pod; we’re going in?

Courtney: Okay, so for me, the thing that made me take the deep-sea dive is, it took me a while to sort of like figure out what it was? But what it, what –

Sarah: This is my catnip! Why is this my catnip?!

Courtney: Nonononono! I knew why it was my catnip. I just, I just had to, like, spend a lot of time figuring out what they were doing, because they do something – oh gosh, I can’t spoil the show. Okay, so, what it comes down to is, the show is doing things narratively that fit into something that had been bothering me about writing romance, and so I kind of need to talk a little bit about where I was before I watched the show, and then sort of like what I’ve been thinking about and how this all plays in. So –

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Courtney: – I have to say, one of the things that I discovered, having written however many romance novels it is at this point, is that the more and more I write, the more I feel like I’m becoming a black moment skeptic. I don’t like them. I don’t like writing black moments. I don’t like what they do. Like, there’s, there, there’s what I’m do-, I mean, there’s sort of like the story, like, recognized narrative structure, and then there’s sort of like what I’m trying to do with the story, which is, you know, get a couple of people who are coming together and learning things about each other, and making them do things that are, that are essentially cruel, right? Like, many, most black moments are very cruel, and it’s like, you know, I can write them, and I can motivate them, and I can make it make sense, and I can do the grovel afterwards and all this stuff, but I, I just, having done it so many times, it’s like occasionally I can get one that’s like, okay, well, this feels like it works okay, but I’m, I just really am beginning to dislike them as a, as a construction. And I understand narratively the purpose they’re serving, right. They’re, they’re sort of like bringing tensions to a head; it gives you a chance to do, like, all this stuff; but I just don’t like them. I don’t like them.

Sarah: That’s cool; I don’t like ‘em either. This is great; keep going! [Laughs]

Courtney: So. So, like, and, and you know, I, it feels like essentially what you have to be doing, if you’re writing to a black moment, is you’re writing to a moment, you’re writing to, towards cruelty, and I don’t like that. You know, having done it enough, I just don’t like it, and I, I, I feel like there needs to be a better way, and there has to be something that can do something that has, serves an emotional narrative purpose in a way that is not the characters being cruel to each other, okay.

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: So this, this is sort of like the backdrop I had in my head going in to Yuri!!! On Ice, and that is like this, this, this feeling that just, like, every time I write a black moment, I like it less and less and less and less, and I feel like, you know, it’s not that, it’s not that I’m doing things worse; it’s that I’m, I’ve done it so many times that I just, I can see that every single way you come at it has its issues. So I, I, I have, I have had this on my, my, on my brain for years. Like, just, you know, and it’s sort of been growing and growing with every iteration, and it was kind of – so I guess I kind of have to get into, like, some of the other stuff that was going on in my life that has sort of been this ongoing pile of steaming dumpster fire. At the point when I watched Yuri!!! On Ice, I was about six months out of one of the worst depressions I have ever experienced as an adult, and the reason for it – and, like, sometimes depression just happens cyclically, but this one, this one was really sort of like started because I had an experience with the judge who sexually harassed me and emotionally abused me that sort of like pushed me back into that time period in a way, and I did not know what I could do about it or how to move forward or anything, and the idea of writing something that had any element of cruelty in it, or just to me, I just, I couldn’t. I couldn’t. I was, I was at this, I was, I was really at a standstill.

Sarah: Right. And it was not a place where you wanted to hang out, either.

Courtney: No. No.

Sarah: Not a mental space that you want to hang out in.

Courtney: Yeah. So I, I was, I was kind of, that was, that was, that, that sucked. We’ll just leave it at that. Right, so I’m in this space where, you know, I don’t like narratively what I feel like I, I, I am “supposed to be writing,” and, but I don’t know what the alternative is in terms of, like, having that narrative structure, and so when I hit Yuri!!! On Ice, there was a specific moment in the show, and maybe we should talk about it later under, like, a spoiler tag, ‘cause I really don’t want to spoiler anyone, but I feel like we have to talk about it? I can introduce the, the narrative element, because it happens in small ways, and it happens in, in, like, large ways, and I’ll talk about the large way at the end, but it happens in small ways as well, and that is this – and it, it took me, like, an ungodly number of re-watches to try and break down what was happening and understand narratively what they were doing, but, like, okay, so when you’re learning to write, people say, oh, you should show, don’t tell, right? And you know, then you get to write a little bit, and the actual rule, you realize, is something sort of like, okay, you have to know when to tell and know when to show, because nobody wants to be shown everything, and some things are, just work best when you tell, right?

And then there’s what Yuri!!! On Ice does, which is, it tells you a lot of stuff, and most of what they tell you is just, like, flat-out lies. So like that example that we had earlier with Yuri, when he first introduces himself saying that he’s a dime-a-dozen figure skater, right. These sorts of things happen in the show all the time. They have characters saying things and doing something that demonstrates that what they’re saying is a complete lie. There isn’t a character in the show who doesn’t have this to some degree, okay. So as a very basic example, there’s this Korean skater named Seung-gil Lee, and Seung-gil has a point in the show where after he has delivered a short program he’s giving an interview, and he says – he’s been, he’s been presented up until that point as someone who’s very calculating, very cold; they refer to him as expressionless and, you know, so forth, right? And he says in his interview, well, cheers from the audience never affect my performance, and as he’s saying it, the audience cheers another skater, and he turns to look. And it’s like, it’s one of those things, it, it happens so swiftly that you don’t even notice it, but it’s like it, it kind of makes it so entirely clear in that one second that what you’re being presented is not, in fact, what happens.

Sarah: So what you are, what you are being shown and what you are being told are establishing so much conflict.

Courtney: Yeah! I’m not even sure the word is conflict. I, I think the word is –

Courtney and Sarah: – tension – yeah.

Courtney: tension, yeah. It’s like there’s two stories that are being told: there’s the story that is being told by what you’re being told, and there’s this story that is being told by what you are shown, and they’re two entirely different stories, and they gradually, with almost every character, like, in some ways big and in some ways small, they, they come to a conflict where you realize, oh, the thing that I believed about that character because it was what I was told is, in fact, false. And this is true for every character in the show. It’s amazing!

And the thing that this allows them to do is set up a narrative structure that is – you know, I’m not going to say there’s no black moment, because there is something that is somewhat like a black moment, but it’s not, it doesn’t feel the same way, and I think the biggest narrative punch, the biggest emotional punch that you get, is something that is just utterly delightful.

So now I have to go into spoiler mode.

Sarah: Okay, folks, I said I’d warn you. From now until twenty-nine minutes and three seconds [29:03], you should start skipping ahead if you want to avoid spoilers.

All right, spoilers, bring it!

Courtney: Okay, so here’s the spoiler mode: in the very first episode of Yuri!!! On Ice, when you’re introduced to Victor, so Victor is Yuri’s coach, and Victor, from Yuri’s point of view, Victor shows up in his family’s onsen, which is a business that they own which is a hot springs, and Victor announces that he’s going to be Yuri’s coach butt naked, and Yuri has no idea why he’s there or what the fuck is going on, and all you know about him is what you’ve been shown on TV and what other people have said, which is he’s kind of a mercurial, genius playboy who, like, you know, just has been winning figure skating forever, and you have no idea why he’s there, and the best reason Yuri comes up with is, eh, he probably needed to find inspiration somewhere, and I guess this is what he thought would work? So you have no idea what’s going on.

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: But, you know, like, gradually, over the course of, you know, the nine months that they are together since he shows up in his onsen, they get closer and closer, and it’s pretty clear that they have an emotional and romantic relationship, and then suddenly we are hit with episode ten, which has to be the most fucking brilliant bit of storytelling I have ever seen in my life. My God, I’m just in awe. Like, so this is the point where you finally get an episode from Victor’s point of view, and Victor’s point of view is not at all what you were imagining. Like, a lot of stuff happens in episode ten. It is kind of amazing. Like, halfway through episode ten, you have this moment where Yuri asks Victor to marry him, essentially, and that is clearly not the high point of the episode, which is, like, fricking amazing. So the high point of the episode is at the very end. He’s sitting with a bunch of friends and Yuri says, oh, you know, I had no idea. You know, this is so weird to, like, sit with people and, like, talk to them before the Grand Prix final. At the last final I never talked to anyone! Like, I didn’t even talk to Victor, and Victor just loses it, because the thing that you don’t know is that Yuri, at the last Grand Prix final banquet, got drunk on champagne, blacked out, doesn’t remember any of it, and completely seduced Victor.

Sarah: Oh my God! [Laughs]

Courtney: And Victor has been just, like, pining after him the entire time. And so then you go back and you rewatch the episodes, and you’re like, oh my God, this is not, like, you know, a world-class playboy, you know, just playing with Yuri. This is, like, a complete dork who has no idea what he’s doing being like, what the fuck? Why don’t you like me anymore? What did I do wrong? And it’s, it’s so fucking beautiful. Like, it’s one of the most amazing things that I have ever seen. So, yeah, I think I said at the beginning that this is a deceptively simple show about a sexy, popular genius and the dork who wins his heart, and it is, except the thing that you learn is that Yuri is, in fact, the sexy, popular genius that everyone wants, and Victor is a complete dork! So.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: It’s so fricking brilliant! I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s the most delightful thing I have ever seen, because it turns everything on end, and yet it’s like, sometimes you have these twists and you’re like, oh no, I don’t believe it. You go back; everything, it’s in there from the very, very start. You have these people making these comments to Yuri that are just sort of like, you’re like, why the fuck did he say that? And it’s like, oh, because he remembers that time Yuri got drunk and started pole dancing half naked! Right, got it!

Sarah: Right. Which is almost a twist on an amnesia plot.

Courtney: It is! It’s like, it, it is, it is. It’s, I mean, that’s essentially what it is. It’s one of those things where this happened, and I was like, how the hell? So this, at the point when that episode aired, this, this show was already ridiculously popular. Like, it had taken off like nobody’s business in Japan. Worldwide, it was already past, crashing Crunchyroll, you know, so people were already really into it, and you know, like, there were theories; there were, like, you know, thousands and thousands of words of theories in many, many languages about, like, what Victor was doing and blah blah blah blah blah, and, like, nobody guessed it. Nobody guessed it! Like, no one, no one person ever said afterwards, like, actually, I’m the one that guessed that, in fact. Like, no one had any idea. And yet, when you go back, it is all there.

Sarah: Wow.

Courtney: So it is like this beautiful story that is being – it’s a beautiful story without the stuff that you don’t know is there, and then you go back and there’s, like, this whole other story that is being told, and you don’t know what you’re being told, it, it’s been told to you, until everything’s revealed. And they do that over and over and over again. They tell you something, it’s a lie, they reveal the truth, and you’re like, fuck, that’s amazing. So it’s this, it, it’s enti-, it’s this little narrative structure that’s not, it’s not conflict in the sense of, like, you know, people say conflict is something that a character wants but cannot have, you know, or something along those lines. It’s not that. It’s, it’s, it’s an entire narrative structure that I don’t see a lot, and so I kind of went off the deep end because I was trying to figure out what the narrative structure was and how you did it and how it would work and all of this stuff, so that’s kind of my, mm, yeah. That –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: That, that was it. That was, that was it for me.

Sarah: Into the deep-sea diving pod.

Courtney: Yeah, that was, that was the point where I was like, okay, I am seeing something by a genius storyteller, and I want to figure out how they did that, because I, I think we need more of it, because it’s so delightful! Like, can you imagine fiction where the climactic moment, instead of, like, hurting you, it delights you?

Sarah: Yep! I love romances like that.

Courtney: So I’ve been thinking about it a lot and trying to figure out how this works in romance, and I’m still, I’m still not there. Or at least, it’s not that I’m, I’m not there; it’s that it’s going to take me a while to, to really sort of get my mind around it and, like, work it out, but this is one of those things that I’ve been thinking about. I think that this is something I, I personally want to do, and I personally feel like this is something that will bring my fiction to a different level? I don’t know if it’s a level that people will like, but I feel like it’s something I need to figure out how to do. It unfortunately makes me a much slower writer right now, because I’m try-, I, I feel like I’m learning, and I’m trying to learn things that I don’t know, and, like, understanding –

Sarah: Mm-hmm.

Courtney: – what someone else did and being able to do it myself are not the same thing, but hey.

Sarah: Have you seen a narrative structure like this in other programs? Other anime, other, maybe Korean or Japanese dramas, in other storytelling cultures, have you ever seen something like this?

Courtney: Well, actually, so it has a name, and let me look it up before I say it out loud. Yeah, it’s Kishōtenketsu, and it is a, a story structure that developed in China and sort of is very common in the East, which is not, it’s not the typical story structure that we have in the West. Okay, so it involves introducing a character and developing the characters in a way that does not involve changes, and then followed by an unexpected development, and then a conclusion that sort of wraps the two, develop-, the development and the twist together. So the correct answer is yes, I have seen it, and once I started figuring out that I was looking for a specific thing, then it was like, oh, actually, people have been doing this for ages! You’re just the idiot who only figured it out here in the year 2017.

Sarah: [Laughs] ‘Cause what you’re describing, the, the, the story being told simultaneously on multiple layers, revelations making previous scenes mean entirely different things, I’ve watched a couple of dramas in subtitle – I have a lot of trouble with subtitles –

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: – partially because of wearing bifocals, and –

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: – I get very optically exhausted, because I’m cross-eyed, and it has to do with how my eyes focus. Watching the screen and then focusing on the subtitles, and then going back to the screen –

Courtney: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – I can, I do not have any kind of endurance for that activity.

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: Somewhere there’s an eye doctor going, I have exercises for that! But watching anime, not – or watching anything with subtitles – not a good use of that exercise.

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: So I have a very limited endurance, but there was one show called Healer that did a lot of that, but it was also telling a story in the present and in the past based on one particular item in the story. Plus, you know, the hero was a courier with extremely high level fighting skills, and the woman that he falls for can’t watch fighting happen because it gives her a completely full-body panic attack, so he’s trying to protect her and also not let her see what he’s doing, and there’s all this stuff going on, and I’m thinking, you know, there’s a little bit of similarity here. This sort of multiple, multiple stories being told simultaneously with a completely different sequence to, I guess you would call them the beats or the –

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: – the major turning points in the story that I’m used to in a novel structure, which I’m very familiar with.

Courtney: Right. Yeah, I, I think that’s, I think, I think that essentially what it comes down to is not every, the entire world does not use Western storytelling structure; go figure?

Sarah: Whaat?!

Courtney: I know! Weird!

Sarah: The devil you say.

Courtney: Yeah! So, I mean, I, so another, another great example, if you want something that I think is, like, really classically Kishōtenketsu is Your Name? Do not wait for J. J. Abrams’ version. Like, I don’t know what the fuck he’s going to do to it. There’s just no way that that, that’s going to turn out well. But you know, you can, you can, again, watch it in subtitle – sorry – and it’s, it is a romance. Your Name is a romance, and it’s beautiful, and the premise is that there’s a boy and a girl who are switching places. Like, they switch, they, they swap into each others’ bodies for several days and they don’t know why, and they don’t know what’s going on, but they, they, they communicate by, like, leaving each other notes on their smartphones and stuff and, like, trying not to, like, screw things up, and, like, the girl, when she’s in the boy’s body, is way more popular with girls, and it’s, it’s, it’s very, very cute, and then when you finally figure out what’s going on, it’s like, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of mind-blowing.

Sarah: Does that have a black moment?

Courtney: It does in a sense, but not – no. It, it, it does not have what I would call, like – I mean, it does have this narrative climax that resolves in this very interesting way, but I would not call it a black moment. The only time the characters are cruel to each other is in the beginning when they’re swapping bodies, and they’re like, what the fuck?! Why are you ruining my life?

Sarah: [Laughs] I think, though, that you’re on to something in the idea that there is a certain amount of exhaustion as a reader that I feel when I’m like, oh yeah, we’re heading towards, we’re heading towards the, the, the dark moment where people –

Courtney: Right.

Sarah: – are going to be cruel or someone’s going to be a turd for possibly flimsy reasons? I totally understand the, the exhaustion of that –

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: – and I love stories where there’s, there is enough tension and issues within the characters, the internal conflict that they have to reconcile within themselves, or just between two people without them being cruel to each other? That’s always been much more interesting to me, but harder to find.

Courtney: Yeah.

Sarah: So you think this, this, you think that Yuri!!! On Ice has a great appeal to romance fans from the get-go.

Courtney: Yes and no. Okay, I don’t want to, I don’t want to oversell this, because it, it is a romance in many sense, but it’s also a romance where many of the sort of like romantic beats are not shown on screen, and you have to surmise that they have happened from the character’s behavior, right?

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: And that’s, I think, so I don’t know, I don’t want people to think that it’s going to be, like, full-on romance-y, because it’s very much about Yuri skating. It’s a, it, like, the, the, the central story is Yuri wants to get to the Grand Prix final again so he can redeem himself from the la-, his last abysmal failure.

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: So that is the central story, and there are romance beats that clearly happen, and you are, they’re hinted at, but they don’t actually show you that they’re happening, right, and so you, you, you have to surmise that some things have happened from, like, Yuri and Victor have a conversation, and then you’re essentially shown them again, like, what is, what must be, like, three or four months later. Like, there’s, like, time skips, and between that conversation where you see them sort of like resolving to, like, be able to be more open with each other and, like, when you see them again, then they’re completely comfortable with, like, touching and hugging each other and so forth and whatnot, and so you know that stuff has happened over that time period, but you don’t know what it is, whereas in a romance, if, if we did that, like, if I as an author do that, people’ll be like, what are you doing? Like, I want to, I want to see the first time they hold hands. I want to see the first time – like, I want to see every single little one of those firsts, and you don’t get to skip them. But it’s very clear that things get skipped, and then later you have to work out that they happened by implication. So, so that’s my only caveat. I think it’s great for romance. Oh, my second caveat about it is that there is fat-shaming in the show, and if that bother-, if that’s really going to bother you, then you should be, be aware that it happens.

Sarah: Right. It sounds like, though, not showing those moments and, and engaging the viewer to interpret that they have happened is, like, aiming a very large arrow at the fanfic parts of people’s brains.

Courtney: Yeaahh.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: Like, if you ever had an inclination for fanfic, this’ll, this’ll, yeah, this’ll help.

Courtney: Yeah. I think if we went to Archive of Our Own, we would probably find that there’s a lot of Yuri!!! On Ice fanfic. In fact, we could probably do that right now.

Sarah: Yeah.

Courtney: Let’s do a comparison of Yuri!!! On Ice versus Twilight. Which –

Sarah: Oh geeze! [Laughs] That’s like, you just, you just took it to the World Series.

Courtney: Yeah!

Sarah: Okay, that’s fine. [Laughs] It’s boss battle! It’s like fanfic boss battle!

Courtney: I mean, so one of the things that’s weird about this is that Twilight kind of overlaps – well, whatever, I won’t get into that. There’s 4,922 works in Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer’s. So you want to know how many works there are in Yuri!!! On Ice.

Sarah: Yeah, go for it.

Courtney: 30,670.

Sarah: Thirty thousand?

Courtney: Yes.

Sarah: [Laughs] Oh my gosh!

Courtney: And that has been out since 2016? Yeah. As compared to Harry Potter, which is a hundred and eighty-nine thousand.

Sarah: Wow.

Courtney: So a hundred and eighty-nine thousand is more than thirty thousand, but Harry Potter has also been around a lot longer. So one-sixth of the works in Harry Potter. To be fair, Archive of Our Own did not actually come into existence when Harry Potter –

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: – was in its biggest swing, and so this may be sort of undercounted?

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: But yeah. You know. Like, if we wanted to – like, I, I, I cannot think of anything else that remotely has that kind of sway.

Sarah: So this has a Fandom with a capital F.

Courtney: It has a Fandom with a capital F.

Sarah: Fabulous! I love that. So it seemed to me that watching Yuri has also led you to follow ice skating much more closely. Is that the sequence of events, or were you into ice skating, watched Yuri and were like, oh, these two go together marvelously well?

Courtney: I have always been into ice skating, like ever since I watched the Olympics in Sarajevo when I was however many years old I was then. I think I was somewhere between the ages of six and eight; I don’t actually, I’d have to do the math. But so I have been really into figure skating since then, on and off because I have not had a TV all my life, and until figure skating started streaming and we started having YouTube – so I, I sort of like was into it, and then I didn’t have a TV for a long time, and so, you know, it’s hard to follow sports when you can’t access them. And so then I got back into it, like, sort of YouTube era when you could, like, get videos of people’s skates. And so I was already into it, but not like as into it as I was when Yuri!!! On Ice, Yuri!!! On Ice played, and then I started, like, being way more into figure skating afterwards, yeah. That’s the sequence of events.

Sarah: So has your watching of figure skating been – like, are you able to see more of the detail and more of the specifics of it because of your deep dive into the series?

Courtney: Yeah! So I mean, this is one of those things where, you know, the more you know about figure skating, the more you realize how much love and effort went into the show?

Sarah: Yeah.

Courtney: So as an example, Japan has two commentators at most of their announced shows, their, their live broadcasts, and one of the things you realize as you start, like, really, like, going for Yuzuru Hanyu videos is that one of the announcers is a, a, a former figure skater who they actually have as one of the, they actually hired that exact dude to play himself on the show as an announcer at the first Grand Prix final, and then, like, like, and then, like, at the, at the actual final, they have, you know, Oda Nobunari, who is another figure skater, and they have, you know, Stéphane Lambiel, so, you know, the degree of, like, actually trying to make this as much like figure skating as possible is just ridiculous. So yeah, this, I mean, it’s obvious that the people that were making this have been fans of figure skating for a really long time.

Sarah: I’ve also seen some images of, of background characters that were clearly based on real people?

Courtney: Eeee, yeah. I mean, so okay, that’s a little trickier. So the extent to which characters are based on real people, there are definitely characters that share characteristics with real people, but they don’t share all of them.

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: Okay, so as an example, Yuri, the main character, to the extent that he’s based on anyone, he was based on Daisuke Takahashi, who is a Japanese figure skater who quit in 2014 and just restarted this year as a thirty-two-year-old man, which is pretty awesome.

Sarah: That’s really incredible!

Courtney: But he is, like, a fricking amazing skater, but, like, some of the things that they say about Yuri, like he’s a skater with a glass heart, et cetera and so forth, are things that they said about Takahashi. So there’s that. And then there’s things like, Denis Ten was a skater from Kazakhstan, and Otabek Altin is also from Kazakhstan, and they do have – I should say had, ‘cause Denis Ten unfortunately died – but they had a handful of things in common, like Denis Ten had a motorcycle and so did Otabek, and it was just like a bunch of weird things that just makes it very clear –

Sarah: Ooh.

Courtney: – that they had some things in common. But there’s some things about them that aren’t the same, like I don’t think Denis Ten was a DJ like Otabek is.

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: So. You know, it’s, it’s clear that there’s some things that they are doing sort of like as a nod to figure skating, and then there’s others that are less so. So Victor has several nods to Johnny Weir –

Sarah: I have seen that.

Courtney: – and costuming.

Sarah: Yes, I’ve seen the, I’ve seen pictures of that, and I’ve seen, I’ve seen a number of figure skaters talking about how much they love the show!

Courtney: Yeah. I mean, that’s the other thing is that I think there are a huge number of figure skaters who have watched the show and who are really excited about it. So Julian Yee from Malaysia has talked about the fact that he feels like he’s very much a Phichit. He’s from, you know, southeast Asia and it, skating isn’t big there, but he’s successful.

Sarah: So if you’re going to recommend the show, how do people, in the States specifically, get to watch it? Where should we go if we’re like, okay, we’re in? We’re, we’re going to climb on board the, the introvert submarine with you and go deep dive. Where do we watch this?

Courtney: Okay, so the place – there, there’s two possibilities: you can watch it at Crunchyroll, which has the subtitles, or you can watch it at Funimation, which has the dub version, and people argue about which is better, and I’m not going to pass judgment because they all have their plusses and minuses –

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: – but if you do have some kind of, you know, reason why you wouldn’t be able to absorb subtitles, then I would say there’s no reason why you can’t watch the dub.

Sarah: All right, I’ll give it a try. Are there any books that you’ve read recently that you want to recommend in addition to Yuri!!! On Ice?

Courtney: The, the things that I have had read recently that I’ve loved: Alyssa Cole’s – oh fuck, why can’t I remember the name? Not A Princess in Theory; the one after – A Duke –

Sarah: Right.

Courtney: – in Disguise? No, a duke, A Duke by Default! Thank you.

Sarah: Duke by Default.

Courtney: So A Duke by Default by Alyssa Cole. I loved that. There is something about men making swords that is really great, and I think that Portia, who has to learn that, like, having ADHD just makes her different, but she’s still an awesome person, I, I like her so much. She was great. She was really great.

Tessa Dare had the Rogues Rush In, which was a Regency duet by Tessa Dare and Christi Caldwell. There’s something about Tessa’s writing that always makes me so happy. It’s like –

Sarah: Yeah, me too.

Courtney: – when I read her words, I always have this smile on my face! Like, and I, I have a really amazing resting bitch face. Like, when I’m not thinking about my expression, it is like, you know, come up to me and I will kill you is what it looks like. I mean, I’m not thinking that, but, like, you know –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Courtney: But Tessa’s, Tessa’s writing is so good that it, like, always just, it, it, it’s, it’s too powerful for even my resting bitch face. Let’s just say that.

Sarah: Yes.

Courtney: She always makes me smile. She always makes me smile, and it’s, it’s both the big things and the little things. The fact that I love the way she uses language, I love the dialogue, I just, I, her books are just, they, they, they are, they make me smile, and I don’t think I could say, I could give it higher praise in this day and age, that they, they can always make me smile.

Sarah: I read, the other night, her novella in the Dukes Who Did Something to Christmas anthology.

Courtney: [Laughs]

Sarah: They did say, the Dukes Who Did a Thing Involving Christmas, I read that the other night, and I went to sleep in the best mood. It was just so adorably sweet and delicious.

Courtney: I, I haven’t read that yet. I, I have it waiting on my Kindle, but I have not read it yet, and I am really excited about it because there’s, I mean, first of all, a lot of awesome authors, but also, I don’t know, it’s one of those things that I’m saving for when I –

Sarah: Yeah, it’s high grade. It’s very, very high grade. Very high grade.

Courtney: Yeah, it’s awesome. So since we are talking about Yuri!!! On Ice, I am going to recommend a Yuri!!! On Ice fanfiction? And –

Sarah: Please.

Courtney: – this is, I have to say, one of the most brilliant things I read in all of 2017. It is a fanfiction called Blackbird, author is sixpences, and the premise is – and don’t freak out at the premise; I will, I will let you, I’m, I’m going to spoil something that’s in the first chapter – the premise is that Victor is posing as a Nazi, but he’s actually faking –

Sarah: Uh-huh?

Courtney: – he is actually a spy working for Russia because he hates the Nazis, and Yuri is working in the Japanese embassy, but it turns out he is actually also a spy. They both hate Nazis. There are no Nazis that are good. There’s no such thing as a good Nazi in this fic, so getting that out of the way. And they end up –

Sarah: Oh!

Courtney: – working together to defeat Nazis, and then it goes, the story goes on past the end of World War II. It’s, like, fricking amazing. It is amazing. And if you ever want to read, like, an actual Nazi romance that is not about Nazis and is like, Nazis: actually the worst! And, and they’re gay and, you know, I don’t always like Yuri!!! On Ice fanfictions where they recognize homophobia, since the show doesn’t put it in, but in the context of Victor and Yuri fight Nazis together, it actually does make sense.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this episode. I want to thank Courtney Milan for hanging out and nerding out with me, and I hope you enjoyed that as well. If you have anime that you want to tell us about, we would love to hear about it! You can email us at [email protected], or you can call and leave a message at 1-201-371-3272. That’s 1-201-371-3272.

If you would like to find Courtney Milan, she is at courtneymilan.com, or you can find her on Twitter @courtneymilan.

[jingle]

Joining me for this portion of the outro is Zeb, who is scratching, so that’s the noise you just heard.

This week’s podcast and transcript are brought to you by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward’s Hate Notes, available now from Montlake Romance. From New York Times bestselling authors Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward comes an unexpected love story of secondhand hearts and second chances. It starts with a mysterious blue note sewn into a wedding dress. When Charlotte Darling takes her unworn bridal gown to a vintage clothing store to sell, she discovers a note stitched into the lining of a different dress. The note, handwritten on blue paper, simply reads, “Thank you for making all of my dreams come true.” The name embossed on the blue stationery: Reed Eastwood. Charlotte finds the note endearing and fantasizes about the man who wrote it. Then, thanks to a strange twist of fate, Reed Eastwood becomes Charlotte’s new boss. Charlotte is more determined than ever to uncover the story behind that tiny blue love letter. But that story is nothing compared to the one that starts to unfold between Charlotte and Reed. It’s getting hotter, sweeter, and more surprising than either of them could have imagined, from something blue to something new. USA Today’s Happy Ever After called Hate Notes “A must-read…an engaging, funny, and seriously sexy romance…” Hate Notes by Vi Keeland and Penelope Ward is available now from Montlake Romance.

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Are there other ways to support the show? Always. Leave a review wherever you’re listening or however you’re listening, or just grab random people and tell them about the show – I’m sure that’s going to be excellent word of mouth – or just hang out with me each week. If I’m in your eardrums, thank you very, very much.

Our music is provided by Sassy Outwater – thank you, Sassy! – and I can hear you saying, Sarah, it’s not Thanksgiving yet. I know, but there are more six songs on this album that I love, so I’m starting the holiday music a little bit early. This is my favorite holiday album from Deviations Project, not the least of which because of its name. This album is called Adeste Fiddles. This is probably my favorite track, although there are others that I love. This is “Three Ships.” You can find this album at Amazon or wherever you get your funky music.

Coming up on the site next week, we have so much rad stuff. We have a new edition of Lit Wicks, where Amanda pairs scented candles with backlist titles for a completely immersive reading experience, and if you, like me, are a little surprised by how early it gets dark this time of year, lit candles make a wonderful difference. We have a guest review over the weekend; Hide Your Wallet, Part II, where we share what books we’ve learned about in the past few weeks; we have a new edition of Romance Wanderlust; plus reviews, Gift Guides, a special Rec League from a request from a mom who wants to introduce her daughter to romances, and of course every week we have Books on Sale every day and Help a Bitch Out on Tuesdays. We hope that you will come hang out with us!

And now it is time for the bad joke. It is my favorite part of the podcast. Well, I mean, I like a lot of it; I like most of it; having a podcast, super fun, but the terrible joke I really enjoy. Here comes the terrible joke:

Have you heard about the importance of eating dried grapes?

You haven’t? You have not heard about the importance of eating dried grapes?

Well, it’s all about raisin awareness.

[Laughs] So I’m pretty sure that the eye roll I got for that one when I, you know, tried it on my family, pretty sure the eye roll was, like, registering on some very sensitive scientific equipment. Thank you to Hangry_Gunner for that terrible joke. Raisin awareness!

If you are celebrating Thanksgiving this week, Happy Thanksgiving. I am entirely grateful and thankful for your being here and for hanging out with me and enjoying the podcast. Thank you for listening.

On behalf of Courtney Milan and all of the animals currently in my office, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you here back next week!

[festive music]