Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Yurikuma Arashi
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Grungehamster
Posts: 41 |
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Josei Next Door actually had an alternative explanation (or at least additional layer) to the role of religion in YKA, except it focuses on Eastern rather than Western faiths. Short version: the word Kare uses to describe the deteriorated value of those things not preserved in a box is "kegare" which has its roots in Shinto, which (much like the ancient Hebrew codes of Leviticus we are more familiar with in the West) identifies uniquely feminine sources of such impurity along with sources that are common to men and women (menstruation for example.) Oh, and death and childbirth both cause kegare; that has symbolic value considering Yuriika's relationship with Reia and how she uses the boxes in her office to memorialize Kureha's dead classmates. The concept of kegare is an important factor in all this.
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Grungehamster
Posts: 41 |
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Also, since Funimation and Crunchyroll did not sub episode 8.5, I assume it would fall under fair use to share the alternate credits and next episode preview for anyone curious. If that's wrong please delete this post:
Yuri Kuma Arashi 8.5 Credits & 9 Preview (SPOILERS) |
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Gabbomatic
 Posts: 74 |
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Ooooh thanks for pointing this out!! |
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Grungehamster
Posts: 41 |
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Happy to help. Saw you reached out to her on Twitter for a potential citation, so will just mention it wouldn't hurt to check her linked sources as well. The chapter from Building Bridges in Anthropology by Lauren Levine is particularly enlightening; so much of her perspective as a Westerner living in Japan noticing the particularities of people unaware of the basis of their behavior echo things Ikuhara seems to challenge in his works despite being acclimated to them as a native (then again I believe I've heard that he's received critical push back in his home country as lacking traditional Japanese influence and is effectively a Westerner based on style and content, but I'm probably incorrectly conflating things said about Murakami who is his muse in a lot of ways.) Trying to understand an Ikuhara anime has always been a treat just because it requires looking at a lot of international perspectives to consider all the layers it has intentionally or not. I suspect you already have reviewed jt considering the time you put into the Penguinlit stuff (where I initially encountered your work), but just wanted to mention it/possibly tempt other members of the boards to check it out. |
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Kaioshin_Sama
Posts: 1215 |
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If people seriously look at this show and see a masterpiece I'm not even sure what to say anymore. The community would be so far removed from my perspective that there's almost nothing I could say or anyone else could say for that matter that would have any sort of resonance.
That said I continue to wish for a perspective on this show that doesn't feel entirely distorted towards revolving around Kunihiko Ikuhara who everyone that seems to comment on the show of is clearly an unbashed and ardent fan of and who they feel can do absolutely no wrong ever period. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2245 |
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Untangling Ikuhara's works is a never-ending game for me; you watch the show, you mull it over, you dig through the TV Tropes page, you find what other people online have said about it, you watch it again to see what you missed, lather, rinse, repeat.
That's why I find these reviews to be a god-send. As an American, non-queer person, my understanding of how homosexuality functions in Japan is sorely limited, though I found a YouTube video (I think it's by someone called Rachel? A redheaded American lady, at least) that covered homosexuality in Japan, though I can't remember if it really touched on lesbianism, since that word is borrowed from English. As for this:
I find "masterpieces" vary from person to person; I may never "get" Citizen Kane or Dr. Zhivago (I know, I know, shame on me), but just as many people don't get Shadow of the Colossus. However, in this review at least, there was very little Ikuhara praising and much, MUCH more talk about lesbianism in Japan; hell, reading up on actual literature to enable you to better speak about a show's topics seems like a big step above and beyond for any reviewer, and I appreciate the context. If Gabriella's gushing about Ikuhara bothers you, I'd advise you to just ignore it in favor of reading the parts that talk about what Ikuhara's actually doing: presenting a show that's both criticizing the typical "yuri" portrayal of lesbians that their own audience (otaku) tends to love, and using the show to speak out on an issue that's seemingly largely ignored by Japanese society as a whole. However I end up feeling about the show, there's no denying that takes some serious guts. EDIT: It is deeply ironic that a user I followed posted a video analyzing Citizen Kane right after I posted this. Maybe I'll come away enlightened, so don't shoot me yet, film buffs! 
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Calsolum
 Posts: 898 |
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just finished watching Penguindrum a few days ago and it wrecked my heart especially the endingspoiler[]. took a while for my heart to heal from the trauma and then i hear about this anime, well surely I've built up something of an immunity by now, time to get started on Yurikuma.
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HaruhiToy
 Posts: 4118 |
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Episode 9 review -- very interesting. So they didn't have a word equivalent to lesbian before western influence arrived? Invisible indeed.
One question that I can't get out of my head if anyone can answer. When Kureha shouts out "I will ruin bears!" is there some special significance of that phrase? It seems there must be. |
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Kaioshin_Sama
Posts: 1215 |
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The problem with these kinds of shows where people see genius and deconstruction to me is that it always just kind of feels like they are celebrating the things they are supposedly trying to lampoon or critique instead. I can't help but wonder if this sort of thing might just work better in a written medium where it doesn't feel like visually the show is inviting you to indulge in something and script wise it seems to be trying to say something else. I find surrealism if it's intended as some sort of critique on something works best as text where your own imagine can take form rather than a director that seems to like to embellish everything visually. To me this anime just doesn't work if that's the goal...like at all. The other problem is that I have no idea what the show is trying to say if it's trying to say anything at all because I'm just so taken aback by how cheesy and self-indulgent it all feels that it's really hard for me to care or notice. The whole thing in and of itself is just too much of a distraction and deviation from it's own point if it's supposed to be some sort of critique on gender perception and discrimination. |
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justsomeaccount
 Posts: 471 |
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The biggest unresolved question is: What the hell are bears supposed to represent? Being the main premise of the show and being this so heavy about trying to make abstract concepts to represent reality concepts (Wall of Severance for example), and I still don't get what the show pretends with separating things into humans and bears. Here's what we know:
Bears are other race apart from humans. You are only one if you get born as one, they can disguise as humans, and they, usually by instincts, feed from other humans (which according to this show and the image of bears fighting humans in a previous episode, it means rape), but the opposite never happens. They are almost like ghouls from Tokyo Ghoul except they don't neccesarily have to eat them (although that makes even more confusing that in the first episodes the judge who defended the bears said they needed to survive, because it seems it has nothing to do). Because basically they are the only ones who can be murderers, all this hatred towards bears was formed in the human society. Having in mind this special condition of danger from bears, any metaphor about representing a minority group automatically becomes offensive and misleading because it's like saying yes, they are a real danger that kill people inside, they have personalities but they are a danger. Because you get born as one you cannot say either "it represents a person sexually troubled" or something. But the show is too heavy on being about "THIS IS A COMMENTARY ABOUT LESBIANISM IN JAPAN" that if one of the main elements doesn't actually mean anything, then only the Pretentious word comes to mind.
Maybe it takes guts or not, I don't know, but that doesn't mean it has to be great only because of it. Terror in Resonance is a show that criticizes the hyper-nationalism of Japan and resentments and wish of revenge towards America, and it seems it was fairly polemic there, but the show itself isn't considered that good or even very cohesive with its thematics. |
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MysticMew
 Posts: 91 Location: Bremen, Germany |
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I am somewhere stuck in the middle about this show. At first I was somewhat excited since I loved Utena (never saw the other one), then after the first episode I pretty much had the same reaction as many other people... Walking around in a daze wondering what exactly have I just watched there?
I didn't get it. At all. Next episode didn't help much but by the time the first reviews came around some things already started to clicked at least and the reviews did the rest. I am very grateful for Gabriella's reviews really. Despite studying literature, symbolism was never quite my thing. Utena in comparison is far mire enjoyable to me because you have a "front story" that at least makes quite some sense and the symbolic elements really only start to matter as you go further in and got comfortable with things. Yurikuma goes right for it and that leaves the average viewer without all that background knowledge totally irritated since the "front story" makes absolute no sense without interpreting it. To me Yurikuma by now is something I can acknowledge for its artistic value, it's a fine example that anime can do something like this (and much like Utena could easily be references to all these outside of our community that still hold false impression about anime in general). It's not really for an evening session where you just want to enjoy some anime. If you do not pay full attention all the time, you end up missing a lot of stuff (and even then, you probably still do). I've grown to like it but I still heavily prefer Utena's style of symbolism over this. If I have to end up making a rating for this at the end I think I'm stuck somewhere at two polar ends (granted they are not THAT far apart anymore than in the beginning), one for simple enjoyment and one for execution/artistic genuis. What surprised me about this episode was how anticlimatic and fast Yuriika's role ended, considering how she was pretty much set up to be the equivalent of Akio in many ways. I really didn't expect that. |
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VORTIA
 SubscriberPosts: 941 |
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My understanding was that bears are the public perception of a reviled and vilified female libido, one unrestrained by societal expectations. They're dangerous because they eat (corrupt) good girls and because they're sexuality is intolerable to society. |
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SquadmemberRitsu
 Posts: 1391 |
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I'm actually kind of surprised with the direction this show is taking in some ways. At this point in Penguindrum, there were all sorts of plot threads dangling and it still wasn't quite clear which direction the show was heading (Although I have to say they did a great job of wrapping things up in the end).
With Yurikuma it's not in any way predictable but at the same time I can, at least for the most part, understand what themes are being explored and where all the characters stand. As much as it will pain me to not wake up every Tuesday morning with an episode of Yurikuma to watch I can't wait to see how Ikuhara wraps things up. The endings of Utena and Penguindrum were hardly what I'd call predictable yet they still both made perfect sense from a thematical standpoint. And hey, once this is all said and done we've still got the English dub coming which is the perfect excuse to watch the show again. Even at their worst Funimation have never made anything nearly as bad as Sentai's Penguindrum dub so the standard for quality isn't too high. But I hope they know what they know what they're dealing with. Too much messing around with the script could ruin it but at the same time they have to do something because unedited Ikuhara dialogue sounds super awkward in English as Penguindrum taught me.
I'm perfectly fine accepting opposing viewpoints but I haven't heard any decent criticism coming from you. Just a whole ton of incoherent vitriol.
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Grungehamster
Posts: 41 |
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I won't pretend I understand fully, but Ikuhara gave an interesting response in the starter guide: Q: What was the reasoning behind your use of bears in the story? A: In reality, bears are creatures that absolutely must not intrude into the human world. When they do intrude, they make us fear for our lives. And yet, for a very long time, humans have also created teddy bears, and bear mascot characters, and they’re adored by many. I wanted to express the idea of that gap [between reality and fantasy]. There have been plenty of other shows in the past that have depicted terrifying grizzly bears, and there have been plenty of other shows that depicted adorable teddy bear types. I thought that depicting both ideas at the same time would be interesting. A duality between how the people idealize a creature and how they respond to actually encountering one. The duality of the public response to this sort of stuff is a pretty interesting element when considering yuri and kuma as two sides to the same lesbian coin (roughly "closeted" and "out", but there is definitely a lot more nuance beyond that.) I'll be honest: I have no idea if this show will be a masterpiece or not. I love Utena, but while I appreciate Penguindrum a lot more now than when I first saw it I still feel it suffers a lack of polish. Seriously, unless the " supposed to be 3 cours" rumors are true, the lack of pacing, introducing elements too late to foreshadow them properly (boxes), and story elements that have zero relevance symbolically or to the plot (Mario) are all big sins that should have been fairly easy to resolve. Currently I'd place Yurikuma in last place of his three shows, but strong (if bittersweet and enigmatic) finishes are what Ikuhara excels at. There has been a fairly consistent rise in quality starting at episode 4, and while I highly doubt this will be as good as Utena it is on track to beat out Penguindrum provided it doesn't crap the bed with the ending. |
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thofheinz
Posts: 98 |
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What startles me is this show's resemblance to late medieval English mystery plays: it seems to be an allegory for a theory.
The fact that it can allegorize a theory without being savagely and unrelentingly boring is a tribute to its artistry, but it's been a long time since I slogged through literary studies on my way to a Ph.D., and I don't want to go back. It also fascinates me that Ikuhara seems to be working his way to an ideal world in which his sex and gender do not exist. My belief: he is a lesbian trapped in a man's body. |
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