(Good) Yuri!!! on Ice

Series in one sentence:
All men in figure skating are openly gay or openly closeted.

Series in more sentences:
A young figure skater is graced with a visit from his childhood idol, the Freddy Mercury of figure skating, not long after failing the previous championship and having retreated to his hometown. As he managed to impress the celebrity with a video showing a perfect recreation of one of his old performances, he's offered his services as his coach.
 

The clip where the main character, Yuri, does a show and then jumps into the arms of his coach for an "almost kiss" was often shared at Facebook, but I was never interested in checking it out. The animation during the skating performance just looked so off to me.

But now that I've watched the entire first season, I understand how it caught people off-guard and the series is this loved. Figure skating isn't exactly the most exciting subject you can pick for your animated series, but they tried really hard to make it appear interesting.
During every performance, and they will show you every one of them, they have the character monologuing about why they're doing it and what they want. I can't say I care for all the characters and their strife, but it's nice to see they're not just empty background filling. Some characters and their passion are really lame, but well, it's still anime.
I enjoyed the two Yuris the most.

I think the thing people will mention first about this series is the very strange romance between Yuri and his coach. Or maybe the kind of people that like this series will say it's not strange at all, I don't know.
It's easy to notice that the coach has an obvious crush on Yuri, but Yuri dismisses and rejects all obvious advances, but at the same time does things like jumping in his arms like a schoolgirl, wanting to "sexually impress" him on the ice, and buying them both a damn set of engagement rings as "just a thank-you/we-are-one/wHatEVeR gift lulz". Fans have been shouting at these fictional characters to just make out already, and I tend to agree, all this fooling around is tiresome.
Though I will say that I don't understand what their bond is supposed to be, exactly. When you think about it, they're not a good fit at all. In fact, I think it would've been better if Yuri stayed extremely heterosexual throughout the series, as these two men really don't have any chemistry outside of the skating ring. The coach seems to bother him most of the time, and only when it's time to train or perform do they really seem to enjoy each other's company. I don't find that a good basis for a relationship, but maybe they'll switch things up in the 2nd season.

Also, this anime has an unholy, awesome intro. The choice of music and the relatively calm imagery, it's really unusual for an anime. I tend to skip intros, but I couldn't skip this one until a few episodes later.