The Fall 2019 Manga Guide

Reborn as a Polar Bear: The Legend of How I Became a Forest Guardian

What's It About? 

One minute Kumakichi Kumada is climbing a mountain, the next he's a giant polar bear in a fantasy world. Correctly assuming that he's died, Kumakichi sets out to make the best of his new life, trying to get used to his new strength and figuring out how to use it. When he stumbles across a young wolf girl being set upon by human knights, he decides to help her out, and the next thing he knows, all of the knights in question are dead. Apparently Kumakichi isn't any old giant polar bear – he's a forest guardian! Now that he's saved the girl, it seems only right that he begin his guardian duties by taking care of her and her younger sisters. Good thing he's mastered a wide array of survival skills, because these poor girls need all the help they can get. Reborn as a Polar Bear: The Legend of How I Became a Forest Guardian is based on a light novel by Chihiro Mishima. It has art by Houki Kusano and was released in September by Yen Press. It is available both in print ($14.99) and digitally ($6.99).

---

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Unless it involves an otome game, the “reborn” subgenre of isekai is probably my least favorite. That's possibly because it doesn't seem to play as much with its tropes as other subgenres do, although that could simply be because of the titles I've been reading. Sadly Reborn as a Polar Bear does very little to shake up my view, because while it isn't uncreative, it also doesn't do a whole lot to make it stand out, and of the things it does do, some of them feel at least a little ill-advised.

Of these, the harem aspect feels the most clumsy. I do applaud the attempt at making a cross-species romance, which is a bit spicier than we sometimes get, and there's nothing to suggest that our human-turned-polar-bear isn't going to at some point evolve into a guardian beast who can take on a humanoid form. (In fact, that'd be kind of interesting.) As of this volume, however, he's simply a giant polar bear impressed with his new genitals who becomes the object of lust for at least two of the wolf girls. Given that the girls are more what we think of as beastfolk – human with animal ears and tails – this feels a little uncomfortable; the fact that one of the girls is very much younger than him just adds to the potential ick factor. More at issue for me, however, is the fact that all of the potential romantic interests right now are sisters, and being one of several sisters, it kind of feels like bad form, at least on the girls' part.

That aside, there are hints of a more interesting story in here that just hasn't started yet. The knowledge acquired in his previous thirty-odd years of life has given the protagonist the varied skill set he needs to help the wolf girls to live more comfortably, and he's able to build them a house and cook real meals, paws notwithstanding. He's really keen to look out for them, not just because he has a crush on the oldest sister, but also because he feels like they've been given a really raw deal by the prejudice wolves face in this world, and it's nice to see him get into the guardian role, although it could complicate other issues later. The combination of a more basic fantasy story with elements of a DIY and foodie story nature is fun, and that could also develop into something more as the series goes on.

All of that requires, of course, getting through this first, firmly mediocre volume. With less than stellar art, some questionable story elements, and just a kind of “same old, same old” feel, as well as the suspicion that a lot of the source novel is being skipped over, this one feels like it's strictly for the fans of its specific subgenre.

---

Faye Hopper

Rating:

Reborn as a Polar Bear is an…odd read. Mostly because of the ways it distinguishes itself from the tropes of light novel isekai genre and the ways it doesn't. For one, this is a story about a fundamentally kind, benevolent polar bear who gives aid to the marginalized and, inadvertently and deliberately, rattles the status quo to its bones. That's a common isekai premise; the protagonist of these things is usually some manner of great exception who society can't help but take notice of, but they're usually not this…caring. This focused on genuine acts of kindness and altruism.

Nor are they usually a polar bear, but that's only superficial. And if the manga were just a series of random polar bear acts of kindness, I would probably hail it in a heartbeat as an exemplary pillar of the genre. But it's not that, either. Plot-wise, it's a traditional isekai through and through: There's a fantasy world with tensions between different factions, an aptitude for combat on part of the main character and an uncomfortably sexual undercurrent to the Polar Bear's relationship with the main tribe of wolf-girls. That's exactly like Skeleton Knight and Combatants Will Be Dispatched! and all the other fantasy isekai I've had to read for review, even down to it opening with the wolf-girls being attacked by soldiers and our stalwart polar bear having to rescue them. And yet, there's something about it, a tonal quality that makes it distinct from the isekai legion of similar series. Maybe its simply the disconnect between its various component parts. For instance: The volume ends on the potential implication that our polar bear hero succumbs to his animal impulses and turns to the dark side, with a flashforward to a group of adventurers finding him with scars etched across his eye. That might be foreshadowed by a couple scenes of him being surprised by his capacity for violence, but purely in terms of tone it is such a wild, giant leap. Most of the manga is him wanting to build a house for the wolf-girls and hanging out with them in a cave. How you get from Point A from Point A is a baffling puzzle I'm still trying to figure out.

Is Reborn as a Polar Bear worth reading? Well, I'm still trying puzzle it out, frankly. I certainly don't think its great; the art is awkward, bare and simplistic, its tonally dissonant and I'm really not sure the potential tragedy angle fits with the kind of story Reborn Has a Polar has been up to the next volume tease. If you like light novel isekai, it might be worth a look for sheer curiosity's sake, but if you're sick of the genre its weird edges certainly won't cure you of that. The reality is its just, slightly, odd. And for me, in a genre as stale as light novel-based isekai, I don't think slightly odd is enough.