Reader Note: Please listen to Dean Fujioka’s – History Maker, the opening theme song for the animated series “Yuri On Ice,” while you read this issue. It was a huge inspiration in the writing and the art work.
Artistic Note: There’s a lot of symbolism here, again, this was a very inspired issue, so we wanted to walk you through it so we can appreciate it together.
Broom fliers express themselves like a combination of aircraft stunts and extreme sports, such as motocross or BMX. They do tricks with their body and broom together and separately, during their routines.
The base colors for the issue represent the song he’s flying his routines to and the accent colors represent the routines.
Midnight flying through the flames, in panel four, are a representation of him rising from the ashes anew. This is not the end of his life, but a beginning of a new one.
Midnight’s silhouette in front of the moon, in panel seven, represents him being a shadow of his future self and being cast on the moon is symbolic of a memory that will always be there in memory. All of his broom flying friends and colleagues need only to look upon the same moon as him to remember the great times they had.
In panel eight, he says he’s going to teach his kittens how to fly. Midnight is giving up his past to be able to live his future to the fullest. This is the reason he’s posing this way.
The locker scene, in the last panel, is a representation of hanging it up. The gold medal represents how good he was and how hard it must have been to leave. It also shows that he did not leave out of vanity or discouragement. When someone leaves from the top, it is willingly and usually for the right reasons. However, he does not give up what he’s been doing, only why he’s been doing it.
