Yuri Kuma Arashi – 10
Exclusion is serious business….
Welcome back to the Wall of Severance. This show feels like a session with a vintner, a zymurgist, a perfumer, or a distiller. There are many flavors and scents all coming into a clash to create a complexity they wouldn’t otherwise achieve alone….
The Door of Friendship
Ah, clever clever Lulu. Well, she’s only clever if she’s right about her estimate of the situation. It’s been a sticky point in the proceedings for quiet some time. Why has Kureha forgotten her past times with Ginko? At first I had figured that it was because those events were part of the trauma of losing her mother to a bear attack, and so all associations surrounding bears, promised kiss or not, were burned in her stages of grief. In the march of time, the ash left behind covered her heart, and all bears became the enemy. The more I think about that, the more I feel that this is but a part of the story. Kuraha had no memories of Ginko before she even knew of the Severance Wall, and therefore the Judgmens and their rules.
So, is she as clever as she thinks? Or is she only thinking of this going with her own experiences, her own sacrificed promised kiss? Lulu has come quite the long distance from selfish older sister, to selfless protector and proactive agent on Ginko’s behalf. All of that to get her love to notice her, to not give up. But in this episode she’s gone just a bit further, able to confess these feeling to Kureha.
Shattering the Mirror
If there has been one character that has probably achieved what I feel to be the underlying theme of this piece, it’s been Reia. Her capacity to imagine others with complexity, depth, and empathy; to taste and smell and appreciate everyone’s complex set of notes is a quality she has been keen to pass on. And the one way to achieve that is breaking the mirror. In other words, to challenge the preconceived notions you have about yourself and others. What is true love? Is it affection? With that in mind, can I amend my first statement? Does Sumika fit that bill? Perhaps to a lesser extent, but her actions did buy Kureha time.
I do wonder how the end of Reia’s story will match up with the end of Kureha’s. The Girl of the Forest and the Girl of the Sky took the hard path as far as they could by themselves, and it seems that Kumalia wants just a bit more, that one final push. Is a mirror a wall?
Ah’m Firin’ Mah Lazah!!!!!!1one
Because the net is closing in, fast and tight on the Academy grounds. The Invisible Storm has weaponized itself to the utmost. They’ve gone from a shadowy organization to full on paramilitary junta. And you know, anyone that can pass off, “We turned one of the dead bears into a cyborg and made it into a generator” is just….whoa, that is some scary stuff. But that’s really something anyone could have smelled on the wind for quite some time. This dovetails rather well into the shows most poignant theme, at least as I have come to see it. This is a lack of empathy, without remorse, without dignity.
But we all know that that isn’t just humans that ride the Storm. The bears are just as capable of cold blooded rationals. Just like the KMTG has harnessed the dead (not even gonna touch that metaphor…cause I don’t even….) to power the machine, we go back to how the dead influence the living, at least how a dead bears ideals can influence a living ones. We knew this was going to close in as well, with Ginko on the prowl to sate her own appetites, her gamble at being with Kureha ill spent and possibly gone for good. I for one trust Ginko to take her out much quicker than the KMTG, for the given value of “take out”.
And so we come back to Lulu and the idea of sacrificing something within, to achieve something greater. They’ve been taking a careful look, I think, on the idea of love being a zero-sum game. That for you to achieve that greatest of loves, someone else has to lose. Love, and life, has far more complexity than that, and I feel this show is extending that dialog. By challenging notions about ourselves and others, and even the idea of love itself, we achieve more complexity, and that allows for better choice. If you can achieve that.
I can’t wait to see how this trial turns out….
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
It is time for us to cyborgify skylion into an unlimited power source!
Now witness the firepower this fully armed and operational Yuri Laser! *clicks intercom* : you may fire when ready.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
So long as I get a cybernetic colon, I’ll be OK with any nefarious plans that are a by-product of the procedure. Well, for a short time. You’ve got a window, let’s just say that…
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
And that is why the control rods are made of pure LOLinium!
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Ah, part of the Rare Anime Girl Group. They like to form CatGirlIons when they lose their outer two electrons. Related to Beryl, Magna, Calci, Stronty, Bari and Radi. But not Ali.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
LOLinium… A new rare metal, by chance? 😉
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Yet again spammy has been terrible again. Like a Yuri Laser mercilessly causing collateral damage.
*plans to cyborgify skylion!*
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
That should be a human rights’ violation. 😀
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
we have chains of pure vampirium available.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
A metallurgist really needs to come by and check these metals out.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
I am still expecting Reia to appear out somewhere doing a Galactic Idol act singing songs with Yuriika as her manager…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
If she has any Phoenix Downs to help with a certain condition of hers, then I can see that happening. 😉
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Whoa, whoa, whoa!! Things are getting real. Everyone is packing heat. Okay, those girls were immensely rotten in the past thanks to their Invisible Storm gatherings. Now they’ve sunk to a new low. Using a bear with cybernetic modifications to do their dirty work is diabolical. Got to ask who is bankrolling all this folly. Because whoever it is, that person is one of low morals.
Lulu has been doing nothing but worrying about others and has gained hardly anything in return. Even her human form ended up being sacrificed. It would be a shame if she continues to go empty-handed.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 110 comments
yet seeing all mention & pics of i finally watch it give it was ep.1 dub & really total “speechless” on it.
(still having shocked “what” due to watching the flash)
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
And by “speechless”, is it in the positive or negative fashion? Just out of curiosity.
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 110 comments
let mix-feel about dub on sure give small vibe remind hearing panty & stocking as bears is one thing.
yet whole series good grief bit “lost in words” wait til more dub eps of it to arrive.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
“So are we friends?”
“lol no”
POOR LULU! Kureha, how could you wash her hair and save her and then just reject her like that? Lulu gets the short end of the stick all the time. At least she’s not a bear who dies the same episode she’s introduced and gets revived as a weird-ass cyborg….I guess.
It was nice of Lulu to do some ‘splaining – mostly about why Kureha lost her memory. I’m also glad the story Reia wrote has a happy ending. I thought Kureha was shocked because it showed everyone dying in the book or something equally horrible. But this is Ikuhara, so I’m not confident enough to start feeling hopeful for a happy ending. He rarely goes by the books, afterall.
I actually didn’t think much of the schoolgirls repurposing a dead bear as an energy source but now that you mention it…that’s super messed up. They’ve gone to the extreme end where it’s no longer self-defense, but a plan to total annihilate bears on sight.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Friendzoned! NTR’ed!
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
It’s the kind of messed up human nature we see in anime all the time. Anything seen as a threat they don’t kill right away on sight gets turned into some weapon used for their own purposes. Like the Doves in Tokyo Ghoul making weapons out of the kagunes of dead Ghouls.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Being Lulu is Suffering….
Ikuhara belongs to the same school of writing that Joss Whedon belongs/belonged to. “Don’t go for the death, when you can go for the pain”. or “Happy people being happy is nice, but it makes for very boring drama”. I don’t know if either are fans of SoL material….
IKR! What the Hell, Invisible Storm!
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
This bearly isn’t getting us hot lily sexx0rz. 🙁
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I really didn’t take Kureha’s statement as ‘rejection’ of Lulu. It had a feel like ‘this is what I have to say, but it’s not everything I really mean’. I do think that it’s right that they’re not ‘friends’, but even though Kureha says she’ll never forgive bears, she does return her to her side of the wall of severance, not kill her. It’s more of a mantra, and to me had more of a wistful feel to it.
*Everything* about the Invisible Storm is messed up. It makes you wonder if Ikuhara’s daughter got bullied or something.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
So, we have an example of “Good night, Wesely. Good work. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.” ?
Bullied? That’s like asking if the writer for The Rolling Girls has an alien daughter….
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Anime news: The Testament of Sister New Devil Gets 2nd Season, New Original Anime BD
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
…this is actually welcome news, as I quite like most of the show…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
There are two things odd about the announcement. First: It’s made before the final episode even airs. Second: The second season is placed in October, going against the usual split cour trend that’s officially become commonplace with a two season gap in between. Shinmai Maou no Testament is litterally at the start and end of the year. What I gather is (nothing official, though. Just hearsay) the decision to push for October was made because Summer will be saturated with ecchi anime with low chances of Shinmai standing out. To Love-Ru Darkness S2 is supposed to be among them.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Market saturated with latenight hentai. Or they could be production issues.
Or it could be because in Summer, it will be battling with:
Fate/Kaleid liner: Prisma Illya Zwei! Hertz
Oh sweet neko loli!
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Testament of LOLi New skylion.