10 Days – 10 Anime Boys: Day 4 – Favourite Male Dominated Cast

There are so many brilliant anime where I’ve noted the cast is incredibly male heavy and narrowing my choices down to my favourite male dominated cast was quite the challenge. I mean we have K, Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens, and even Baccano which we could consider. Ultimately though I think I already knew which anime was going to win out and after going through the pros and cons of so many titles, my first impulse turned out to be correct.

Favourite Male Dominated Cast

Yuri on Ice

While Yuri and Victor, with the second Yuri, hold up the centre of the story, Yuri on Ice was more than a one man show. Each of the characters had personality and purpose and the cast was a large part of what made Yuri on Ice a phenomenal viewing experience. Honestly, there isn’t a character in the line-up that I wouldn’t want to see as the main character in their own story yet they work so well with the rest of the cast, and to me that kind of meant that this cast had to be my favourite.

Reason One: Even characters who only have a couple of episodes, feel like they had a lot of thought put into them.

For example Minami, who appears briefly at a local skating competition Yuri has to pass through to requalify after his disastrous last year of skating, manages in two episodes to make his presence felt, show us his own personality and ambition, helps the protagonist learn something valuable, and is also just a bundle of fun. You could almost see a ‘Next Generation’ spin-off featuring this character as he chased his idol, Yuri, and pursued victory in the Grand Prix.

But he isn’t alone. Every skater we see in each of the competitions gets their moment. Usually it is on the ice where we see their thoughts and reflections as they perform but even small encounters before and after competitions help flesh them all out and make them feel like they are actually the lead characters in their own stories that are briefly intersecting with this one.

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Reason Two: Chemistry

I’m not just talking about Yuri and Victor here. There is great chemistry between the whole cast. They have history together in previous competitions, relationships, ongoing phone messaging, and all of them share the common goal of coming out on top. It makes the interactions a joy to watch, even from some of the more prickly characters like Seung-gil Lee.

Christophe and Otabek are both great examples of supporting characters in the cast who play a significant support role to one of the main characters with Christophe having a long history competing with Victor and Otabek reaching out to Yuri Plisetsky in the later half of the series. All of these relationships feel genuine and it is an absolute job to see.

Reason Three: I just want more of them.

Regardless of what these characters are getting up to I want to see more of them. It was hard not to turn this post into a Yuri and Victor gushing session but as they are only a small part of the cast I’ve tried to talk about everyone else. But I want more of those two. I want to see more of Yuri and Otabek. I want to see if Christophe keeps competing or if he is ready to retire and take a more back-seat role. I’d even love to see JJ can overcome his setback from this season and become a serious rival in future competitions.

Let’s forget the ice-skating for a moment: I’d love watching this cast just hanging out on a beach and I almost never say that as beach episodes bore me silly normally. But could you imagine that as a spin-off, “Yuri On Ice: Castaways” after a plane carrying the athletes went down and they all ended up on a tropical island. Yeah, I’d watch that.

Clearly I love Yuri on Ice and I love it for a lot of reasons, but the cast is a huge part of it which is why it is my Favourite Male Dominated Cast in anime. However, I’d love to know which anime you would have chosen.

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Thank-you for reading 100 Word Anime.
Join the discussion in the comments.
Karandi James

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