Yuri Kuma Arashi – 04

By the power of the moon, I will punish you!

Yuri Kuma Arashi aired right on my birthday, making it a wonderful (yet accidental) gift. I’m always down for crazy catchphrases being spouted by incredibly fashionable bear-ladies. But the time of the year makes it seem all the more special. Who wouldn’t love a little bit of Lulu as a birthday present?

After all those “kuma shocks” last week, it’s time to build up on some existing characters instead of having bears pop up all the time. Not that I mind all the cute bear appearances. It’s becoming more and more apparent that Lulu and Ginko are smarter than the average bear a little different from the other bears. Although they spend a lot of time debating about how they’re going to eat Kureha like the other bears, they also have some surprising sides to them. For example, most predators don’t nurse their weakened prey in bed and feed them honey porridge. They’re more like misunderstood good guys than bad guys. It’s a bit confusing, really, but Lulu’s backstory does give us a good idea about the duo’s true goals and why they went to the trouble of going past the wall.

She just wants someone to lick HER honey for a change

It’s nice to see the bear’s side of the story. The meteor shower from Kumalia was said to have turned the bears into feral, human-devouring beasts. But from what I can tell, there really isn’t much of a change in the bears before and after this supposedly momentous event. In fact, none of them even talk about eating humans. They’re more concerned with what humans will do to them if they dare to cross the Severance Wall. Lulu and Ginko want to go to the human world not because they want to eat humans – but because Ginko is looking for a kiss. Why would their actions change so much from wanting a sweet little kiss to something as deadly as eating? I’m beginning to wonder if this whole eating thing isn’t a trait inherent to all bears, but something that just happens to anyone who dares to cross the Severance Wall. Or maybe by becoming human girls, the bears end up getting their ideals clouded by lust.

Ginko has apparently met a human before, and didn’t go mad with a desire to eat her. So bears and humans have the potential to co-exist. I’m assuming this person was Kureha’s mom based on the necklace thing. Now Kureha is the closest thing Ginko can get to that after her passing away. That explains why Kureha is so particularly “delicious” to Ginko and why she’s so driven to get close to her. But this still doesn’t really explain what Ginko and Lulu really want. Are they there to eat or are they there to obtain the Promise Kiss? The former seems like a primal sort of love whereas the Promise Kiss is like the representation of “pure love.” With the way Lulu and Ginko sensually lick up all of Kureha’s honey in those naked YURI APPROVED court scenes, it doesn’t seem  all that pure…but I think the underlying message here is that Kureha’s love is real and so is Ginko’s and Lulu’s. So maybe pure isn’t the best word to describe love here since it gives an image of chastity. And this show is far from chaste.

She’s just playing House. Lulu is the mama and Mirun is the dead body that needs disposing of.

The Promise Kiss thing hints at explaining all the usage of honey (aside from being sexual metaphors and relating to what cartoon bears like Winnie the Pooh eat) without actually telling us what it actually means. Oh Ikuhara, you just explain your metaphors with more metaphors! But I still really enjoyed seeing the fairy tale-esque backstory of Lulu throwing away Mirun’s Promise Kiss at every turn. Like Kureha, Mirun’s love is true and so he never stops trying to prove that to Lulu by providing her with a Promise Kiss. It’s an adorable, platonic love but it’s incredibly powerful. Unfortunately, it’s one-sided. Lulu rejects her brother and then never quite grasps happiness afterwards.

By rejecting the Promise Kiss and kisses in general, Lulu is rejecting love in a way. She doesn’t let herself love her brother, and therefore she is never able to love anything else in life. Princes, her life in general, other humans…they all bring no joy to her. All that matters to her is helping Ginko. So she opts to live vicariously by helping Ginko obtain her Promise Kiss. How sweet and selfless. But then again, she still gets down and dirty and licks Kureha all over so it’s hard to take her claim of “giving up kisses” seriously. Is she giving up kisses or Promise Kisses? The latter is a symbol of true love, and this contradicts how she says she won’t give up on love. Why would Life Sexy even pose such a choice to Lulu? There were so many types of kisses spoken of this week it makes my head spin.

Wonder if the buzzing ever gets annoying

It’s also hard to take this fairy tale seriously as something to judge Lulu on because the current Lulu seems so different. She’s almost another person now. She fawns over Ginko like a lovesick schoolgirl (which she is) and seems more like a ditzy mascot than a conniving queen bee. Even her food choice – a very peasant-like rice porridge – suggests that she has moved on from her lavish past as a princess. Is this change for the better or for the worse? I don’t know. But now that she’s changed, that bee has stopped buzzing around her.

Part of the story-telling involved a lot of 4th-wall breaking as Life Sexy both narrated the story to us and got attacked by Lulu’s bee. It’s an interesting little touch to the story to see the bee try and sting anyone who gets too close to her. But when she lets her guard down, the bee calmly encircles both her and Mirun instead of separating them. I guess when you’re a queen bee ordering your loyal worker bees to dive into a volcano to get you honey, a buzzing bee is a pretty fitting mascot. I’m just glad Lulu is rid of that bee now, because she’s much more cute now that her waspishness has faded. Now she seems to realize what she lost by trying to kill her brother, and wishes to see him again somehow.

Next time just take the damn honey!

Don’t you hate it when they ask about the birds and bees?