The Bear Necessities: Yurikuma Arashi Episode 1 Roundtable

[Three Bears enter the room, with no Goldilocks in sight]‏

Bear 1: Er, testing, testing.‏ [taps mic.]

Bear 2: We’re here to talk about Yurikuma, guys. No eating allowed!‏

Bear 3: ……GAO.

[Bear 1 takes off his costume to reveal VESTENET, Bear of Beauty]

[Bear 2 takes off her costume to reveal ILLEGENES, Bear of Sexy]

[Bear 3 takes off his costume to reveal WENDEEGO, Bear of Cool]

YURIKUMAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! Today we’re doing something a little different at SBD. You may have noticed that despite our obvious bias towards the works of Kunihiko Ikuhara, we haven’t actually written anything on him up to this date. Well, that is changing today: we all got together and after copious note-taking and discussion scrabbled together a piece on Ikuhara’s recent offering Yurikuma Arashi (which is the name Funimation chose so that’s what we’re using from now on.) We can’t promise something on this scale for each and every episode of this series, but if things turn out well and we all have things to say we’ll do our very best to say them as eloquently as we can in the time allotted to us. Here we go!

wendeego: Okay, so what were your guys first impressions? Or second. At least for me. I got confused by plot elements the first time, so I needed a second time to fully understand everything.

vestenet: I watched it three times, so ha! But yeah, it’s a very difficult show, or at least first episode, to jump into‏. There’s no character or anything to guide the audience through this strange world, so we’re just picking things up the best we can from what we see and hear‏. At least with Utena, we had Utena, who had no idea what the duels were about and was as confused as the audience‏. In Penguindrum, we had the pathos of two brothers caring for their dying sister. Yurikuma doesn’t seem to have any time for anything besides jumping in headfirst and expecting the audience to bear the impact. It feels condensed, in that respect.

illegenes: Okay, okay, hold on, before we go into cons, we gotta give pros first.

illegenes: I personally felt overwhelmed by the episode, yes, but I think a lot of the show focused on visual direction rather than creating a cohesive plot and story. It was very abstract, and so while I’m confused, I also feel like there are a lot of directions the show could go in. It was more of a peek into Ikuhara’s mind, unfiltered and raw, than anything for me, at least.

wendeego: There’s definitely a lot of stuff going on in the episode. But first: what did you guys think of the bears? Are they connected to the walls somehow? Are they separate from them? I thought it was interesting that the gorigorigori sound ties together with the jackhammers of construction…

vestenet: It’s interesting that the walls that are supposed to keep out the bears have bear paws on them. You’d expect them to be human hands, no? There are also a lot of intermediary shots of the walls being opened, mostly at the Academy, but also during the court sequence.

wendeego: You could almost say that they’re title cards.

vestenet: There’s a specific scene in the show when Kureha looks for Sumika , and it involves three separate transitions of sliding doors (Ikuhara likes his threes). It’s the same transition that shows up when Kureha enters the classroom later in the episode when Sumika is missing, and in the “transformation” scene. In that sense, the walls and the things behind walls are important, and may be more intertwined with the bears than we might expect!

vestenet: It’s also worth considering that the walls and the court both have the same name.

wendeego: That entire court scene was literally screaming SEIZON SENRYAKU in my head. Not as shiny, but still.

vestenet: I think you could apply that statement to all of the episode. Yurikuma is a step back in terms of production compared to Penguindrum, but Ikuhara’s nothing if not a resourceful director. And even if the animation didn’t feel as smooth, the visual design was spot on. What do you guys think?

illegenes: While I agree that the animation isn’t as stellar as Penguindrum, it still has Ikuhara all over it. A ton of geometric imagery, if you ask me. Repeated visuals, lots of blatant symbolism, and Chieko Nakamura literally going all out. Even more so than Penguindrum, and that was visually stunning.

vestenet: I love that apparently a lot of the school’s design is inspired by Suspiria (an Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento). Actually, a lot of the episode feels like a horror film. People splitting off from the group, being eaten by monsters, etc. The school especially makes for an imposing character. The architecture isn’t as desolate as brutalism, but it’s all tall, flat walls with sharp angles, almost like an arrowhead poised to pierce the forest around it. The looming construction cranes in the background also make for a rough and unpleasant skyline.

wendeego: Yeah, there’s definitely a whole industrialist vs environmentalist theme I’m feeling here as well.

illegenes: Oh yeah, that too. I felt like kind of like Terror in Resonance–

wendeego: Which you didn’t finish-
illegenes: Okay, but I watched the first episode! [wendeego and vestenet snort] But yeah. Fair enough. Terresonance also had visual motifs in a sense that the sharp angles of the buildings exaggerated Japan’s fear of being locked in. I feel like that’s shared here, in Yurikuma Arashi, in contrast to the smooth and natural environment. Which ties into this consistent thematic sense of duality, if you ask me. Walls separating humans and bears, innocence and sexual desire, hatred and fear.

illegenes: I actually felt like a lot of the episode revolved around fear? The fear of being corrupted, not having lasting virginity. Fear of homosexuality. And fear of love, in a lot of ways. Fear being fueled by hate, and hate being fueled by fear. Yes, there are plenty of sexual connotations, but there’s still that fear of being ravaged. That yuri must be pure, women must be contained and that to be barren (as symbolized partly, by the cutting of the lilies) is to be cursed. This could all apply to adolescence in the end, I dunno. But so far, in this show, it looks like fear and hate are two sides of the same coin – the MC being driven by love, but by her hatred (and fear) of bears.

illegenes: Even the opening begins from the bears’ perspective saying that they both love and hate humans. This is constantly brought up in the show.

wendeego: This actually brings me to a question I wanted to ask both of you: do you think the bears follow human rules? Because if they don’t, why do they need to ask a court for permission?!?

illegenes: Well, I think that’s what the court was for? Because they do have rules. It would also align with the fact that they look human because they follow human society in some aspect, and have their own rules of doing thing.

vestenet: Yeah, but bears don’t have rules, because bears are just bears, so these bears aren’t bears but beings beyond bears.

wendeego: I was thinking that bears were governed by love, while humans are governed by the opposite of that? Kureha lives in a society where connection is forbidden, anyone who tries to reach out to another person is punished.

vestenet: You know, I was also thinking that bears are governed by…their stomachs.

[illegenes groans.]

vestenet: Okay, but in all seriousness, the most resonant thing the episode did for me was its conflation of loving and eating, and it seems to be following a thread in which love is a frightening prospect where we consume and are consumed. illegenes: Agreed. Also….what’s the purpose of having three males in the show?

wendeego: Aren’t they asexual or something?

vestenet: Well, they look and act like males, so there has to be a reason for that.
wendeego: But yeah, it’s weird – everyone else in the show is female. Even the police!

Fabulous MAX?

illegenes: It kind of reminds me of Loveless somehow. The way society is run in Yurikuma is similar; in Loveless, everyone starts out as a young boy or girl that is pure, but once they engage in sexual activity, they grow cat ears officially become adults. There are some anomalies of course, but the story doesn’t make them important. In Yurikuma, everyone is a female (except for the males) and becomes involved in a homosexual relationship or gets taken by the Storm.

wendeego: Wait, there’s a storm in Loveless too?

illegenes: No, no, they both share the idea that you are ‘changed’ by an event that is natural and happens to everyone, I guess.

vestenet: Okay, so basically, the male question is still shrouded in mystery. We can get to that later in the story. But what about the Storm? Which is worse – getting erased by the Storm? Or getting eaten by bears?

wendeego: Hmm… I would definitely say the Storm is scarier. I was thinking that the storm hunts down people who try and connect with others, and since there are only women around, any woman that tries to love another is erased. In that sense, the Storm is kind of like the Child Broiler, and the bears…are kind of like Momoka. Sanetoshi has yet to appear!

illegenes: But then why it that people board themselves up against bears? Because it’s preventable? Whereas the Invisible Storm is inevitable and will break down the attempts to stay in a pure, yuri relationship? To me it seemed like the Storm fear seems more like a resigned one, because it’s unpreventable. Kureha and the others seemed to have this expression, as if they were saying “Oh, the storm is going to come anyways, all flowers will end up dead after blooming, so why not cut them off first.”

wendeego: I think people board themselves up against bears because they have the wrong idea? They’ve been raised with this belief that bears are evil and they never question it. Ikuhara actually takes steps to encourage the audience to see the bears in a negative light, but I think he’s faking it. like he makes it seem like Sumika was eaten by the bears but….I don’t think she was.

wendeego: I think something entirely different happened to her, and the bears are trying to help. Or at least doing something that will indirectly bring Sumika back.

illegenes:  Hmmmm…I don’t know. I still feel like the bears are both foe and friend. They certainly have their own agenda.
vestenet: Yeah, I agree with Natasha here.

wendeego: The challenge from the bear court to Kureha is pretty much the Princess of the Crystal’s challenge to the Takakura brothers.”Find the penguindrum and we can bring your sister back to life! If you want to save Sumika, come up to the roof.”
illegenes: Hmm. I feel like you’re bringing in the Penguindrum allusions hard. Honestly I think like this is more Utena than Penguindrum, with the adolescence thing going on.

wendeego: Maybe? But then again, Ikuhara looooovvess repeating himself.
illegenes: Oh yeah, there’s definitely retracing his thematic steps, but they’re always a little different in one way or the other.
wendeego: To put things in perspective, Ikuhara’s most notable project in between Utena and Penguindrum was Nokemono to Hanayome, a manga done in collaboration with artist Asumiko Nakamura. Some of the elements it included: a man in a bear suit, terrorist children led by a kid wearing a rabbit mask, an abusive bishounen/father figure…and a prototype “child broiler” room of dead children with the aforementioned man in a bear suit *eating said children.* There are elements here Ikuhara clearly recycled in his work on Penguindrum, but I can’t help but think they might find their way into Yuri Kuma Arashi as well. Or am I off base?

vestenet: I think bears aren’t all bad, but there’s still something that needs to be changed, both for them and for humans.
illegenes: Agreed.

wendeego: Yes.

vestenet: And the answer isn’t likely to come from humans or bears, but some collaboration between them. Some act of friendship. Something neither yuri nor kuma, but yurikuma.

illegenes: Is love the only hope one can know as a human being, without being consumed by fear and hate? Or is that too, something that is perishable and disposable?

vestenet: Indeed. Can you truly love another person without inevitably devouring them, or being devoured by them?

wendeego: I think that’s a good question to end this session on…..any last thoughts guys? Any theories? Mine: Kureha’s mother is tied to the Sankebetsu Bear Incident in the same way the Takakura parents were intrinsically tied to 95.

vestenet: The Invisible Storm is actually a pink washing machine.

illegenes: One of the bears is actually Kureha’s mom, and we are suddenly Neon Genesis Bearvelion.

wendeego: I guess we’ll have to wait till Monday to see if these daring…er, predictions, will be recognized. Tune in next time to…

vestenet: YURIKUMA!

illegenes: ROUNDTABLE!

GAO!