01.27
In a surprise departure from its usual (and increasingly annoying) format, Lesbear Storm spends this week’s episode on trying to explain what the fuck is going on in this show. To no surprise, it does so in an incredibly silly roundabout way, because I am beginning to believe even Ikuni doesn’t know what the fuck is going on in Yurikuma Arashi and is expecting us to just buy into symbolism.
Lulu as depicted by Margaret Keene
So in a magical fairy kingdom ruled by humanoid creatures with fuzzy bearears and paw gloves, a spoiled princess is loved by all until the explosion of the Planet Kumalia causes the birth of her brother, the new prince. Faster than you can ask about wanting to build a snowman, our princess is abandoned and forgotten, locked in her room with her only visitor being the source of her ire, the Prince. The Prince just wants to love his sister, but the sister only has the desire to put him in a cardboard box and kick ‘im off a cliff to his death…which she does…multiple times. Not gonna lie, this part’s actually pretty funny.
CANNOT UNSEE.
Well anyway, despite being lost in the jungle, eaten alive by a Final Fantasy IV boss, and incinerated by volcanic lava, the Prince always comes back bearing (HAH!) a jar of honey. The Princess in return throws the honey away in recycled animation. This continues until the Prince drops dead via a bee sting sustained from acquiring said honey, leaving our princess the victor. And what does our princess do? Why sulk even more! She slaps some suitors (played by the Judgmens) around and embraces her own personal guilt over being unable to return her brother’s love through her own vanity. Then one night, a mysterious stranger appears with the jar of honey to return to the Princess. This stranger says she’s a criminal bear and is going to cross a giant wall in order to find someone she lost, the princess asks the stranger to come with her also hoping to find the same thing bringing us to the present day. You see that princess? That was Lulu, and the stranger is Ginko! As for Kureha, she spends the episode throwing porridge on the floor and ordering the other two to get out of her pink Psycho house….yeah not much happened this week in the main plot.
Boxing Day!
On one hand, this episode is absolutely necessary as it gives some (admittedly bizarre) backstory for Lulu and Ginko. The problem with this though is it creates some annoying continuity errors. In the first episode, it’s stated that the humans built their giant wall of extinction after Kumaria exploded, triggering the mass bear mutation. THIS episode suggests that the mutation had already occured, meaning even more fantastical forces are at play here, or it could just be the fairy tale nature of this episode and the presence of an unreliable narrator (Life Sexy, who also gets thrown into a box and kicked off a cliff by Lulu). Also the idea that Ginko and Lulu are here for reasons other than eating lolis was not made clear early on. I suppose you could go back to the previous three episodes and rewatch them with that in mind but I’m lazy and stupid and demand some sense of logic applied to my beat-over-the-head-style symbolism. OH MY! LULU GOT STUNG BY DESIRE! THERE’S A BEE CIRCLING HER! BEES STING AND MAKE HONEY! HONEY IS THE PROMISE KISS! LULU WILL NOT KILL BUT LOVE INSTEAD THROUGH THE STING OF DESIRE! WHAT THE FUCK AM I TALKING ABOUT?!?
SYMBOLISM SHOCK!
As for the main story (what little of it we get this week), its nice to finally have an episode where Kureha does not have a confrontation with a BOTW on the roof, fall down the same flight of stairs (they do use that animation this week, abeit with Lulu instead), and gets licked. Maybe this is Ikuni’s way of admitting the original concept of the show was unsustainable and from this point forward we’ll be exploring the releationship of the Ginko-Lulu-Kureha trio. Considering this show doesn’t have next episode previews, that’s hard to say if we won’t revert back to the formula next week, but at least Yurikuma Arashi took at least one step away from becoming stagnant.