Yuri Kuma Arashi Episode 1 (First Impression)

Berry’s First Impression

Just…where do I even start?

The softcore porn scenes, the adorable killer bears, or the fact that I didn’t understand anything that happened? I don’t know…I knew that this show looked stupid, and now that I watched it, I know that I don’t want to bother with it anymore.

I guess I should explain the setting. There was this explosion in space, and pieces that looked like shooting stars landed on Earth. The alien bears or whatever all of a sudden started attacking and eating the humans for no reason at all. They just did because they were hungry or something. And so the humans built a giant wall to protect them (this premise is starting to become popular) to keep the bears out and protect themselves from them. Then one day at an all-girl school (because this is yuri, it just has to be an all-girl school), the bear alarm went off because there was a sign of a bear’s presence.

This brings us to the characters. The blonde is named Kureha, and for some reason she really hates the bears. She randomly has a shooting rifle in her locker. She and a cute glasses girl are in love with each other. Then we get new students. Two girls that look pretty normal, except they’re not. They’re two bears disguised as human girls, and for some reason they’re attracted to Kureha and want to eat her.

There’s something called the Invisible Storm where it target’s pretty things and things people love. Kureha and glasses girl don’t want to give up each other’s love. One example of a pretty thing being destroyed are some flowers in the garden being completely destroyed. The two, and another girl from their class, decide to not let the Invisible Storm to get the best of them so they try to fix the flowers. They all decide to meet next morning to fix it, but then police are there because a student was attacked and taken. The glasses girl. Obviously Kureha is extremely upset. She later gets a call from someone saying to meet them on the roof if she wanted glasses girl back. Kureha gets her rifle, goes to the roof, and gets attacked by two bears and stumbles into some other world, I have no idea.

Then we see the two girl-bears from before, Lulu and Ginko, in bear court or something. Apparently eating humans is a sin, and they were in court or something. But then they were “Yuri Approved” (whatever the fuck that means), transformed into half girl/half bear and softcore porn scene happened. Kureha wakes up in the infirmary and glasses girl is still missing. Gray-haired girl from before goes out to get Kureha something to drink, and comes across the girl bears eating someone, who I’m gonna guess is glasses girl.

I don’t know what is up with the bears. Why bears? Why space bears? And if you were going to make bears eat people, at least make them scary. Because these bears are just adorable, and I can’t take anything seriously. They should be terrifying grizzlies or something, not cute little bear cubs. And they don’t even give a good reason for the bears suddenly eating people. It’s just because. That’s it. I’m not sure where the show is going to go from here. They had the wall up and never had a bear attack until now, so are there going to be more attacks? What even happened in the part where the bears “ate” Kureha? Why was she naked? Why was it sexual? Why was there a flower and what did it mean? Why oversexualize everything? WHAT’S HAPPENING.

This show is really…unique. The bears make their bear sounds in the end of their sentences, there’s these three bear guys named Life Sexy or whatever in bear space court, there’s an unnecessary amount of sparkle noises randomly thrown in. I just don’t get it. Can’t say much about characters since Kureha was the main one, and the bear girls were just “Grrr I’m hungry, grr grr” the entire time.

Guys are really gonna get a kick out of this show, if you saw the opening you’d see why. Who cares if the plot is weird and stupid, the girls are naked and wet. Also, they’re really forcing the yuri down our throats. Like they randomly say yuri throughout the show, and the girl with the gray hair has yuri in her name, I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Like yes I get this is a yuri show, SHUT UP I GET IT ALREADY. Goddamn…I didn’t have any expectations for this show and I don’t know what else to say. I just didn’t get it. I’m just gonna pass on this show. Also, it doesn’t help when the subs suck.

Eva’s First Impression:

If you found yourself to be completely lost and confused, it’s okay: that is perfectly normal whenever Ikuhara Kunihiko is behind the production.

There are a lot of elements that I love in Ikuhara Kunihiko works, his signature stamped everywhere in almost every sequence, the artistic similarities that he had featured in his past productions, but my my favourite part of all, is his use of symbolism. However, unless you understand the symbolism, the odds are that you are probably not going to understand anything until it is given an explanation. This is why I didn’t want to pass up on Yuri Kuma Arashi despite the fact the shoujo-ai/yuri is outside of my comfort zone.

After patiently waiting for Funimation’s Subs, I can finally say: This is far from my cup of tea.
And that is precisely why it took me a while to write up this entry. I found it to be a bit uncomfortable to watch. After watching Revolutionary Girl Utena and Mawaru Penguindrum, I know almost every little detail matters, SO GOD HELP ME WHEN I MUST LISTEN, OBSERVE AND PAY DAMN CLOSE ATTENTION WHILE TAKING NOTES.

There is actually lot to think about, but little to make sense of. Since this is only the first episode, I am going to keep it simple with the things we do know.

The world is presently divided. Humans created the Wall of Severance to drive the “bears” from their world, and today two bears successfully managed to infiltrate their territory, disguising themselves as Humans. Then there is a space called the “Extinction Wall” between the Human and Bears that is forbidden for both parties to cross.
Then there is the Severance Court that describes itself as “The Land of Enlightenment”. I am going to start off with discussing with this particular location due to it’s intriguing circumstances. It is supposed to be a place where both Bears and Humans are accepted, but this is where it gets interesting.  There are three bears that we know run the place: Presiding Judge, Sexy Life, Prosecutor: Cool Life, Defense Counsel: Beauty Life. I am very curious whether or not there will be a pattern to these characters. When Lulu and Ginko were being judged, Cool Life took on the role of declaring the Bears guilty while Beauty Life claims that the Bears’ had a legitimate reason to infiltrate because they were hungry. Sexy Life then accepted the Defendants’ Argument making it “Yuri Approved”. I find it is something to be concerned about how it will unfold in the future. One of the questions that crossed my mind was, how often they will punish the bears for “eating” humans, and what will the punishment be? This is particularly important as Lulu and Ginko claimed: “I will eat them even it’s a crime, I won’t let anyone wreck my love.” I have no doubt in my mind that they will pay for their crimes in time, but for the time being the question that will be hanging is: For how long will they be able to use the excuse that “they were hungry” to dodge the punishment?

Next is the The Invisible Storm. I have a couple of theories in my head already given it appears the keyword to pay attention to is, “Invisible.” This particular matter has been subtly mentioned about two, maybe three times this episode. When someone has been attacked by a bear, they would then blame the victim being alone and not invisible. I am very curious of what invisible actually means in this story and what it represents. It has been brought up during the Judgement where the bears had to choose: Be Invisible or a Bear who eats humans, and they chose to be a bear.

If you didn’t know already, Symbolism is Ikuhara’s middle name. SYMBOLISM IS EVERYWHERE. Which was it that was smacked in our faced?
The white lilies of course! …Amongst other things…
White Lily: Classic Symbolism & Meaning: Symbolizes Chastity and Virtue, represented Virgin Mary’s purity and her role of Queen of Angels.  

With the lilies presenting Chastity and Virtue, I more or less expect the Bears are supposed to be the Vice (immoral and wicked), which looks extremely likely right now considering the Bears don’t give two shits about committing crimes.

I am a huge fan of Ikuhara Kunihiko works, so I am quite conflicted on what to do.
This is definitely not going to be any sort of fluffy yuri/shoujo-ai series. There is a sense of discomfort and uncertainty of how to progress with this show. Should I or shouldn’t I watch it? Is this for me? How far will it go? I think in order to see how this story will progress and unfold, I need to at least watch the next episode or two to find out whether or not this is something I can either write about every week or stomach watching.

Bottom-line: This show is not for everyone.

Possibility of Blogging: Moderate
Possibility of Watching: Moderate