Miscellaneous quotes

[viktorymaker]

"For his costume I used a combination of purplish red and gold to bring out the atmosphere of a legend. However, his everyday clothes are rather plain. Flashy colors wouldn’t really look like Victor, so I’m paying attention to give him a high-class feeling by using subdued colors. I also create more colorful clothes and have them checked by the director, but in the end what passes the check are the ones with simple colors…" (source)

"Victor has probably done a bit of everything so far, therefore I don’t think nowadays he pays too much attention to his costume actually (LOL). He probably leaves the job to a designer he trusts. He also feels like someone who would do proper maintenance for his costumes." (source)

"When drawing Viktor, I paid attention to making him gorgeous and glamorous." (source)

"15-year-old Victor used ‘boku’ as his pronoun in this interview." (source)

"Eyes and eyebrows are the most distinguishing, characteristic parts of our characters." "Viktor appears to be aloof, difficult to shake (...)" (source) "He's this unpredictable genius, towering above humans. His eyebrows make a straight line, so it's hard to guess his thoughts." (source)
"Viktor's aloof, hard to shake, and a bit of a natural airhead, which we showed through the shape of his eyes and eyebrows." (source)
"Viktor radiates adult-like confidence, but he's in his late twenties - so you can still see the child in him. He too sometimes can be quite childish, which shows for example when he fails to read the atmosphere." (sources)

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今回のサイン会での収穫は、サインはもちろんのこと、先生に感謝の気持ちを伝えられたこと、AOIの話で盛り上がれたこと、バンケット前からヴィクトルは勇利を認識していた&自分のファンだと自覚していたことが分かったことです。(source)
無視されたから認識したのではなく、演技とかって、好きな選手の好きな部分が似てくることがあるんですが、勇利の演技をみて「俺のファンなんだな₍ ₍ (̨̡ ‾᷄♡‾᷅ )̧̢ ₎₎」と思っていたらしいですよ^ ^ (source)

Translation: a fan that went to Kubo-sensei's sign session found out that Victor knew of Yuuri and knew that Yuuri was his fan BEFORE the banquet. Kubo said it wasn't because Yuuri ignored him after GPF either. Victor realized Yuuri was his fan after seeing the way he skated. sometimes a skater may incorporate similar style/elements as a skater they admire so when Victor saw Yuuri skate he thought "ah he's my fan"
(source)

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"Viktor was always winning by a huge margin. He kept surprising people, but I think even he was a bit stumped after his latest wins.Yuuri keeps surprising Viktor - both through his skating and in private. Viktor was drawn to him as a person, was influenced by him. Viktor was used to winning alone, but through the influence of other skaters, his interest in skating was rekindled. His competitive spirit was also roused by the two Yuris beating his records. And by returning, Viktor stopped Yuuri from retiring.

Viktor saved Yuuri when he was standing at the edge of the proverbial cliff, but Viktor needs Yuuri just as much. They met when Yuuri was miserable and Viktor felt he's losing the sight of something in his life; when they both needed change. They completed each other and what's more, they found a new path to follow ahead of them." (source)

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Q: Why is Viktor so cold towards JJ?
Kubo: He simply doesn't find him that interesting. (laughs) Viktor forgets JJ's name, but that's because he's the type to not bother with remembering things and people he holds no interest in. Viktor doesn't look down on JJ, and it's not like they don't get along. He really simply doesn't find him that interesting.
(source)

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Suwabe quotes (ilu suwabe)

"I’m pretty sure that the Victor method wouldn’t work with just any athlete. What he demands is very difficult. And I have the feeling that, should the person not meet his requirements, he would probably quit being a coach very easily."

"When you’re twisted around the finger of someone as carefree as Victor you have no time to worry about trivial things (LOL)."
"I think that, when Yuuri reacts in a way he did not expect, deep inside he feels thrilled. Sometimes he would think Yuuri has reached a certain level, but when he unexpectedly surpasses that level, or when he shows him a kind of reaction he never even imagined, it’s a great pleasure for Victor. Of course I think it’s limited to the cases where the surprise is something positive."

"He’s a carefree epicurean that often acts on a whim. It causes a nuisance to the ones around him, but for some reason they never completely detest him."
"He nonchalantly makes cutting remarks without meaning to be offensive."
"(...) There are still moments where we catch a glimpse of how he has trouble sympathizing with others, because as he’s too skilled he is unable to understand the feelings of the ones who are not as good as him (LOL)."
(source)

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Suwabe: I have voiced a lot of characters so far, but Victor is quite unique even among them. The reason is that — even if saying it like this might sound worse than it is — as a character he couldn’t completely “fit” inside me. To be honest, I have the feeling that my mind couldn’t completely overlap with his until the end. It feels like a three-point shoot that you don’t think will be successful but it is, like you can’t picture it in your mind, your shooting form is not correct but it still works. I read the script, I read the storyboard by Kubo-sensei, I read the dialogues and stage directions, I watched the footage — even though it still wasn’t complete when we recorded the voices — and tried to create an image inside my mind, to shape the person called Victor Nikiforov. I would then go to recording, but it often happened that during the test run I was told “no, not that way”. It happened a lot that I was torn about how to portray him. For the whole time, until the last episode, I wasn’t sure about how I should express his feelings. After all the work was over, looking back on the anime there were scenes where I remembered what I was thinking when I voiced them, but honestly I don’t feel like Victor has stayed inside me. Of course it’s my voice, so I was definitely the one who played him, but somehow I can look at it from a completely neutral point of view. I always had this very curious feeling when I was watching the broadcast. I’ve said it in various interviews too, but during recording it was like a tug of war between the direction — the director and the sound director — and I, fighting over how to portray Victor. It was like my idea of Victor versus their idea of Victor, sometimes I’d win and sometimes I’d act like they said. We created Victor this way, and maybe this continuous wavering is what made him a person hard to understand. I must admit that I don’t think I have completely grasped Victor’s image. But at the same time, it’s not like I don’t understand him. What I feel about playing Victor is a very subtle sensation that I myself find difficult to express with words.

Kubo: I think that’s a good thing. In YOI Victor is trying to be a coach for the first time. He’s a person with a long career behind him, that for the first time tries to teach his techniques to someone, not sure that he’s doing it right. It’s like there is an external pressure requesting him to be as good as he has been so far. I guess it’s also what people would seek from someone like you, Suwabe-san. It’s what happens when you have a long and successful career… But if you leave that career and try to do something else, you might feel anxious and not know what to do. You lose your balance, but at the same time you think about what you can do. It’s not like I purposely created the story to have you portray that, but I’m very happy that somehow, as a result, this wavering feeling was conveyed through the way you played Victor. Thank you very much.

Suwabe: I felt that it was a real challenge each and every time. Every time I would think, “so, how will it go today? Will it be ok or will they tell me it’s wrong once again?”. It’s interesting because it was always like a match. Victor may be a top athlete but he’s still a human being, so I would try to decipher him like I would interpret the thoughts of a normal person, and I would think “ok, let’s do it this way”, but actually those where the times I would most often be told “no it’s wrong”. And when I had a chance to ask you about him, I remember you saying that, in a way, he’s like a sprite of skating.

Kubo: Yeah, I said that maybe he’s an elf, an ice elf. We don’t see anything about his background or his family, and actually I didn’t really create him to behave like a typical Russian person. In my mind he might have been found in the crater left by a meteorite fallen somewhere in Russia.

Suwabe: Sounds like someone with superpowers (LOL).

Kubo: Like we can’t even tell whether he came from outer space or somewhere else (LOL). He might be the type who hasn’t been a human for a very long time, including his past existences. And while thinking things like that, creating the actual story I would be like, “Victor’s personality might be like this.. no, Victor would definitely say this..”. Even though I was the one drawing him, I myself was looking for his image the whole time, and rewrote the storyboard many times because I’d realize “Victor would not do this, let’s change it”. It’s like I was feeling my way.

Suwabe: If we only simply talk about how I created Victor’s state of mind, one of the scenes I had a hard time with — even though it’s a bit weird to talk about it during episode 6 — is the one at the beginning of the last episode, when he’s crying after talking with Yuuri at the hotel. Normally when you cry your nose and your facial muscles are going to move to an extent, but during the test I was told “that’s not needed”. They told me to act the part completely ignoring any kind of physical change related to crying because he is just angry, he isn’t sad nor has any other complex feelings, he’s just mad at Yuuri. So basically what the directors told me is that it’s really what he says, “I’m mad!”, just that. And I was like, oh, I see. We got to this point, and still I come upon things like this.

Kubo: I guess what I tried to write in the storyboard was conveyed properly. I’ve actually seen someone cry like that, a man, in front of me. And I was looking at him thinking, ah, this person cries like this, with just teardrops dripping from his eyelashes. He was speaking just the way he normally speaks, the only difference being the teardrops dripping from his lashes, and I made Victor cry that way.

Suwabe: It’s like a newborn child, like someone who isn’t conscious of his feelings or his physical movements… that’s so scary. I was surprised to see that even in the last episode his feelings would still show new kinds of nuances. Normally when I play a human character, I mean, what you would consider a normal person, I guess what they are thinking based on their actions and what is happening in the story, but in Victor Nikiforov’s case I had the feeling, while playing him, that his feelings and any guesses would go in totally different ways. That’s why he was a very difficult character. There was a part where he had a monologue, you know, like in a certain TV series (I’m not sure which one he’s referring to), where it’s like the story progresses with his monologue. But even though it was his monologue, I’m not sure I would say that he was 100% baring his true feelings… I’m not sure how to interpret that.

(...)

Suwabe: I said that Victor is not human, that he’s a sprite, but in a way we could say that, paradoxically, his complexity is what actually does make him human. It actually makes him real, non-stereotyped. I feel that I was able to walk close to a man called Victor Nikiforov, and I’m very happy to have been involved in this work. Now I can say that I’m glad I said all those “amazing!” at the audition (lol).

(source)