01.21
Yummy!-kuma Arashi
Love Bullet Yurikuma Arashi (literally “Girls-lovebear Storm”) is perhaps the ultimate Kunihiko Ikuhara experience. Everything he has made in the last 20 years has been building up to this. Sailor Moon’s monster-of-the-week format; Utena’s abstract art and delicate cathedral like aesthetics (complete with spiral staircases); Penguindrum’s pursuit of survival against the threat of utter annihilation; it’s all here, and in ridiculously OTT quantities. Because of this, its almost a borderline self-parody of Ikuni works since we’ve come to expect all of this from Ikuni and yet are constantly getting smacked in the head by it here. Why then should we watch this? What makes this so special that Funi felt it necessary to make it part of their mass-shopping spree of title licenses this season?
Well let us begin with the story…or at least what little of it there is (not a surprise really as Ikuni was never the best with plots). HERE THERE BE SPOILERS FOLKS!
I haven't seen mass murder this adorable since Watership Down!
In the near future or maybe an alternate history, the planet Kumalia blew up sending fragments all over the universe but mostly the Earth. This has had an extremely negative on the worlds bear population which now seeks to eat every human they can find, which in this case means Japanese lolis, since men apparently do not exist in the Yuribear universe save for three characters we will discuss later. To protect themselves from the bear menace, the government has built the Wall of Extinction, a giant pink thing that apparently does…something…I honestly don’t know…Ikuni!
HOWEVER!
The bears have figured a way around the giant wall through some unexplained magic power. They’ve transformed themselves into humans and infiltrated one of the human schools, which is of course all-girl, because loli tastes good I guess. Our story focuses initially on two of them, Ginko Yurishiro and Lulu Yurigasaki but later episodes show they were beaten there by two other hubears: Mitsuko Yurizono and Konomi Yurikawa. As you can see, there is a bit of a naming convention here but it only extends to the bears at the moment. The known human characters by comparison have names that don’t go Yuri- etc. This is clearly meant to be an intended sign by Ikuni.
Cue Blumenkranz
So why are these bears here? Well they all want to eat one girl, Kureha Tsubaki. A modestly attractive lass, Tsubaki gets dragged into the mess when KUMA SHOCK! Her lover, Suzumika Izumono, ends up being the first victim of the bears and their hunger for loli flesh. This will not stand, and Tsubaki returns to her home (which happens to be the Psycho House painted pink) where she proceeds to shoot the same statues of bears with her rifle over and over again because reused animation. But then, an eerie phonecall draws her to the roof of the school where she encounters that weeks assailant before a PS1 level cgi effect kicks her into easily the most bizarre and out of place moment in the show, the court of extinction. This is where the aforementioned male characters exist, the aptly named “Judgemens” Lifecrazy, Lifesexy, and Life…beauty (seriously Ikuni you missed the perfect opportunity to make a TLC joke, Gatoh would have done it). Basically they grill Ginko and Lulu about why they want to be Yuri intead of Kuma before saying “Go be yuri!” and letting them link honey off of a white lily that is suspended over Tsubaki’s naked comatose body…which somehow has magic powers to reset the universe or something.
That's not a subtitle...its a caption,
This is all in the first episode. Its also the next two. Ikuni frequently has a problem with sticking to rigid story conventions but its really bad here. Basically the format of Yurikuma Arashi goes down like this…
- An announcement of bear attacks. (*KUMA SHOCK!*).
- The revelation of this episode’s “bear-of-the-week”
- Tsubaki goes off to pout at her house/fire guns
- Mysterious phone call animation (its the same every week)
- Encounter with a bear on the roof
- Extinction Court
- Ginko and Lulu turn into crazy cosplayers.
- …..MAGIC!!!!
There are some differences though. Various clues are sprinkled around the episodes as to what the hell is exactly going on here and by episode 3, Tsubaki comes out of her coma during number 7 but still the formula remains largely intact. What we do get though is there are tons of bears at this school all competing to either devour her whole (Konomi, who wants to chow down on Tsubaki after she gets jilted by her ex-lover Mitsuko) or advance to second base (Mitsuko, who reveals that she is the one who ate Izumono in order to take over as Tsubaki’s new lover). In all of this, Lulu and Ginko surprisingly don’t do much, instead acting as visibly annoyed observers on the periphery while various other bears get in their way. Its like Utena if Utena didn’t do shit and instead it was the Anthy show for whatever reason.
"I just wanted some Sugar Crisp but nooooooooooooo...."
The repetitive nature of the show is also not helped by the sheer metric ton of reused animation. This is a problem with Ikuni dating back to his days making Sailor Moon at Toei, when budgets weren’t so much tight as non-existant (seriously anybody who tells you Sailor Moon ever had good animation is either a moron, a fanboy, a nostalgia beer-goggles wearer, or an ANN writer). However, he’s surprisingly never gotten over it despite there being less episodes here and a studio with a couple more dollars involved. Episode 2 is arguably the worst in this regard since it at times feels like a clip show of the first episode. That’s not artistry, its laziness.
My baby shot me down.
So what is the allure of Yurikuma? Frankly, I have no idea. The show is only really good for the initial WTF factor and once you have to actually watch it seriously, it kinda settles down and falls apart in the process. I’m sure somebody will like this show for various reasons I cannot figure out, in which case more power to you, but for me, this is gonna be a rather short attention span series.
Lord Dalek Declined!