Yuri Kuma Arashi – 06

This rich, immersive episode took many a skip back and forth through time, and was a little disorienting at times, but it slowly, steadily built something revelatory from all the myriad pieces scattered about the past five weeks, all centering around the letter Sumiko wrote to Kureha, to have her open on her birthday. We learn why she wrote it, what its contents mean for the future of the characters who are still alive, and just how wide Koaru’s web of deception extends.

Sumiko never forgot a single detail of the day she met Kureha at the opening ceremony, or the night they protected the flowerbed from a literal storm, and the night they spent together afterwards, reading Kureha’s mother’s unfinished story of the moon girl and forest girl, which is a dead ringer for the Kureha/Ginko arc.

Sumiko treasures those memories. They’re good memories, happy and loving, and to her, it was enough. With the invisible storm imminent, Sumiko does what she feels she has to and sacrifices herself to it, placing her faith in Harishima Kaoru that Kureha will be spared. It’s the ultimate expression of the love Sumiko is so fond of saying she’ll never back down on.

Sumiko won’t let the storm destroy Kureha, even if it means she’ll be the one destroyed. Nor does she let Kureha in on her plan, because she knows Kureha will try to stop her. Her only accomplice in this plan is Kaoru, who assures Sumiko she will be Kureha’s new friend…and seems to be in quite the hurry to get that letter.

But since we know Harishima Kaoru to be one who cannot be trusted from the start of this episode, it really comes down to how exactly she’s going to screw Sumiko and Kureha over, not if. I also appreciate the fact that Kaoru doesn’t play by her own rules of abiding by social norms, as it’s revealed she’s sleeping with a woman (probably Yuriika) which opens a whole other can of worms with regard to whether Kaoru herself is being used or deceived. It’s a dangerous game.

Ginko certainly learned that when she got caught in the trap. Oh yeah, about that cliffhanger: Lulu has a “Bear Flash” bomb that allows her them to escape, and then she treats Ginko’s wounds through the night. This is Lulu at her loving best: playing the only role she feels she deserves in keeping supporting Ginko and keeping Ginko’s dream alive.

When the Yuri Court Judges show up in town and call a ‘bearly’-healed Ginko, telling her to go the flowerbed “if her love is the real thing”, I got the feeling that they might just be more invested in Ginko’s quest than their aloof attitudes in court suggested.

The flowerbed is the site of a creepy nighttime birthday celebration just teeming with dread, even though Kureha doesn’t sense it until it’s too late and Kaoru shows her true colors. Sumiko trusted her to be Kureha’s friend, but Kaoru has no intention of befriending the “Evil” Kureha. Kaoru explains Sumiko’s letter as a break-up letter, which she hopes will destroy the love Kureha is clinging to that’s keeping her visible.

With that, Kaoru and her minions set the flowerbed ablaze, just to facilitate Kureha’s psychological ruin. Kaoru is pretty damn villainous here, but what’s even scarier is that she has the look and tone of a true believer, who believes “love” is nothing but a weakness, with the outwitted and defeated Sumiko and Kureha as proof.

At the same time, knowing Kaoru herself is a lesbian lends a certain degree of self-preservation to the sadism on display; by feeding these two lovers to the storm, she detracts attention from herself.

But Kaoru’s triumph is short-lived and incomplete, as Ginko arrives in time to save Sumiko’s letter from the flames. By diving in, she is demonstrating the same potentially fatal gesture as the Forest and Moon Girls in Kureha’s mom’s book having to break through the mirror, break through themselves to get to the one they love.

After reading the story, Kureha told Sumiko she’d break the mirror. Sumiko did break it, by sacrificing herself. And now Ginko has proven her love by risking incineration to protect the letter Kureha’s beloved Sumiko wrote to her. It was a “false start” of sorts when Kureha read it in front of Kaoru, suggesting Kaoru would be her new friend. Now she reads it before a bruised and singed Ginko, and it’s almost as if fate and Sumiko won out over Kaoru…at least for now.

But of course, that’s not the only layer to this Lady Baltimore Cake. We also learn what Ginko’s grave crime was, that even Lulu doesn’t know about. Sumiko outright dying wasn’t part of Kaoru’s original plan, you see; she and her unknown accomplice (again, probably Yuriika) merely used that occurrence to their advantage.

Yurizono was the one who killed and ate Sumiko…but it was Ginko who arranged for it to happen, so she could have Kureha all to herself. She killed for the sake of her love, but then risked her own life for that same love. The latter will certainly ingratiate her with Kureha (who was going to apologize for being so mean before anyway), but the former will haunt her. The full truth may be the best option; no point in proceeding if she’s convinced Kureha would never forgive her.

This was another brisk, gorgeous, rewarding Yurikuma that was at turns both glowing with warmth and crackling with menace. That the story has gotten more straightforward hasn’t taken away at all from the show’s inherent appeal. On the contrary, it’s only becoming stronger as symbols and specifics converge and complement each other.

Oigakkosan’s Take:

Zane and I only diverge on two points this week. First, I took Kureha’s mother’s unfinished story as an autobiographical tale of how she met Yuriika and second, that Ginko’s crime was witnessing-but-not-stopping Sumika’s murder, rather than outright planning it.

In the picture book’s case, I’d placed more emphasis on the Sky Goddess’ warning that to ‘break the glass for love risks death’ and less on the fact that the star pendant is said to belong to the moon-girl’s mother. In hindsight, Zane probably has the truth of it but I wouldn’t be surprised of Reia’s story blends her own experiences with what she witnessed or gleaned from her daughter’s own adventure.

In the case of Ginko’s crime, I don’t feel like we have enough context to assume either way. Sure, I agree she’s guilty of not stopping the murder/eating for her own selfish love but Ginko wasn’t around long enough or connected enough with Yurizono or Sumika to be able to put them in the same spot at the same time and seal the deed.

I’m not even sure Ginko knew Yurizono was a bear at that point, which would make the death-scenario impossible to have plotted.

Ultimately our differences are unimportant and I appreciate that Yuri Kuma can generate different reads in the first place. Water cooler arguments about twists and turns are part of what make a mystery show fun to follow. A big part, really.

Still, my favorite parts of this week were how much it made me suspicious of Yuriika without actually showing her. We see her office and a tall seductress who is probably her, but no face and she isn’t involved in any scene. (except to talk vaguely while looking at Reia’s photo) Maybe that conspicuous lack of presence was the hook?

Who knows and really I don’t even care what the answers are. The trip — and it is trippy — is the best part. YURI APPROVED!

Yuri Kuma Arashi – 05

When Lulu decided to join Ginko on her grand journey to the other side of the wall, it seemed like the most noble thing in the world. And indeed, the episode opens with Ginko waking Kureha up with a gentle lick to the face…and Kureha shockingly licks back.

But we’re only seeing what Ginko wants to see. In reality, progress is slower than frozen honey: far from thinking of them as anything resembling friends or lovers, Kureha sees them as nothing but intruders and pests.

Of course, this isn’t just because GInko and Lulu are bears. Kureha doesn’t want any friends anymore, ever. Sumiko was The One, The Only, friend she ever needed or will need. To befriend anyone else is to dishonor her memory and “give up on love”; not to mention it would be super-scary.

So when her teacher tells her to face reality—that Sumiko is gone, and must be replaced by new friends in order for Kureha to fit in—Kureha outright refuses, and in doing so may well be sealing her fate. But Kureha doesn’t seem to care anymore.

This week we delve a little deeper into Ginko’s past with Kureha and her mom; the photo already shows us that a young Ginko in bear form was adopted by the two at some point. We learn how that happened, in one of the series’ most striking images—a flashback eleven years to  snow-covered battlefield littered with dead bear soldiers, and Ginko close to joining them.

Suddenly, the warm hands of a five-year-old Kureha are upon her, telling her they’re friends and she loves her—and that’s pretty much it. From that point on, Ginko has loved her back with everything she’s got, and no matter what happened between that day and the present one, it wasn’t enough to destroy that love, or Ginko’s determination.

However, through the loss of her mom and Sumiko, Kureha has forgotten that fateful encounter. It’s up to Ginko to try to get her to remember, but she can’t just out and say it, or she and Lulu will lose their human forms.

And all Kureha wants to remember is Sumiko. Making friends will only create memories that will cause her memories of Sumiko to fade with time. When her classmate Harishima Kaoru tearfully apologizes on behalf of the rest of the class for excluding her, and begs her forgiveness, she has none to give. Kureha’s a stick-to-it kind of gal; if the class is going to start something, they’d sure as hell finish it.

Back home, Ginko and Lulu continue to flail about Kureha’s house against her desire for them to be there. Revealing aprons and a smorgasbord don’t interest her in the least.

Yet Ginko continues to see and hear what she wants to, at least until the fantasy fades away and she sees and hears what really is: Kureha wants nothing to do with her, and if an approach exists that will make her remember, Ginko and Lulu haven’t cracked it yet.

While the bears pull out all the stops for Kureha in vain, Kaoru and the class does the same in helping her replant the garden in preparation for her birthday. And where the bears fail, Kureha’s class get her to lower her defenses a little by killing her with kindness.

Then the pretty, laid-back flutes and harps are replaced by a harsher electronic theme as Kaoru and the class reveals it’s all an act. Of course it is. And Kureha’s instincts were correct. They’re still fully committed to making her invisible by naming her the Number One Evil. Kureha’s teacher may have been willing to exercise some patience with her, but her peers aren’t so understanding.

Ginko and Lulu catch on to all of this, and go to Yuri Court to argue their case. The defense attorney is all for them protecting the girl they love, but the prosecutor believes they’re only using Kureha as an excuse to eat girl after invisible girl. When Life Sexy asks Ginko what her true goal is, she confesses: she wants Kureha, all to herself.

It’s something Lulu must have suspected, but that doesn’t make it hurt less to hear it out loud. Ginko also brings up a “serious crime” (killing Kureha’s mother, perhaps, which is why she has that star pendant?”) from which there’s no going back. Life Sexy approves their Yuri, and off they go.

Ginko and Lulu confront and threaten Kaoru late at night at the garden, believing they’re in control. But that, too, proves a fantasy, as at the end of the day, the surge of passion that overcomes a charging bear at its seemingly terrified prey will make that bear blind to the trap set before it. Ginko gets snapped up in that trap, and Kaoru bears a predatory grin of her own.

In obviously immense pain (and immense trouble), Ginko calls out, not for Lulu, who’s right there, but for Kureha, who last time we checked wanted nothing to do with her. With that brutal SNAP of the trap, her grand mission is in tatters. Sure, it’s a cliffhanger, but one I’m fully invested in.