Better late than never, here's my thoughts on episodes 5 and 6 of Yuri Kuma Arashi.

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First off, a minor thing: I guess black lilies of underhandedness aren't just a Mitsuko thing after all, contrary to what I was half-thinking in my last YKA post. Moving right along...

I've been taking bears eating girls as a metaphor for rape-murder throughout the series, but near the end of ep 5 was the point where it really got uncomfortable for me -- because by having Ginko and Lulu try to eat Kaoru to punish her for her two-faced treatment of Kureha, Ikuhara is pretty much insinuating through his narrative that victims of f/f rape sometimes deserve it.

Kaoru herself is such a waste of a cool design and seiyuu. I'm not exactly surprised she turned out to be a bitch in sheep's clothing (another one, albeit of a different flavour to Mitsuko) but I still wish she had a bit more substance instead of her real self being such a cackling cartoon villain.

Guess what? I still don't like Ginko, even though the narrative really wants me to. Maybe I'm not being entirely fair on her, but the fact remains that she rubs me completely the wrong way, and I don't buy her supposed oh-so-deep love for Kureha at this stage. I didn't feel at all bad for her when she was caught in the bear trap, either.

Something that bugs me about Ginko and Lulu is that I feel like if Kaoru or some other girl had genuinely wanted to be friends with Kureha (and not been conniving assholes like they were in canon) the bears would still have tried to kill them because only they are allowed to be Kureha's friends! It's not even like they're good friends to her in the first place; would it kill them to try actually talking to Kureha or being even a little bit mindful of her feelings (like, I dunno, giving her some modicum of space while she's obviously still grieving) instead of more-or-less shoving things on her by doing shit like moving into her house without her permission? But naturally, they're portrayed as being in the right.

Moving on to ep 6 now, I have something positive to say: I actually like Sumika quite a bit. I always thought she was sweet, but this ep made me very sympathetic to her; it was sad to see her basically sacrifice herself so the Homophobic Persecution Squad wouldn't target Kureha. I also appreciate that the Kureha/Sumika ship did eventually get to be fleshed out even after Sumika was stuffed in the fridge so early on.

While I mention the Homophobic Persecution Squad (yes, I'm going to keep calling them that because the show is totally unsubtle about the fact that's what they are) I'm a little unsure whether "invisible girls" are supposed to be straight girls or closet cases. I've been assuming the latter most of the time, and I think Kaoru basically pulling a Touga in this episode supports my case (and possibly Oniyama's response to Mitsuko's manipulation back in ep 3 as well). This does suggest another unfortunate implication, though: is Ikuhara trying to say that homophobic girls are all just closet cases that need a good fingering? Honestly, I get the impression he's pandering to his own horny male gaze with some aspects of this show...

Ginko saved Sumika's real letter to Kureha! How considerate of Kureha's feelings for a change! But the contents of said letter sure happened to be very beneficial to her! This scene gives us another unfortunate implication as well -- the idea that because Ginko loves Kureha oh-so-much (never mind that said love is far more told than shown at this point), Kureha therefore owes her friendship and love. I know they were childhood friends, but even so...

The above might not even be that bad if it wasn't for the end of the episode revealing that Ginko was involved in Sumika's murder. (Which I knew was coming thanks to seeing spoilers years ago, but for some reason I thought this reveal happened later? Oh well.) Because Ginko wanting Kureha all to herself to the point where she let Kureha's current girlfriend be killed out of sheer possessiveness and jealousy totally makes me want to like her and root for her love!

Not!

With that, I've hit the halfway point of YKA. I still like the design work and music, but the flat characters (now with at least a couple of exceptions, to be fair) and the fact I don't like Ginko are easily the biggest issues I have, along with the unfortunate implications I mentioned further up. I'm also not looking forward to what I'm worried will be outright rape apologism later on... *cough*yuriika*cough*

Flatness is especially damning for our main girl Kureha. Six episodes into a twelve-ep series, she still has no real character to speak of -- almost as if she's defined by being A Lesbian to the exclusion of any actual personality traits. It makes it difficult to empathise with her, even though I really want to, and I think that hurts the entire show; by rights, we should feel for her a lot, because grief over a loved one's sudden death is a powerful thing and what she goes through at the hands of the Homophobic Persecution Squad (especially in ep 6) is absolutely awful, but her characterisation isn't anywhere near strong enough to support that as much as it should.

I even feel like, between six eps of YKA and three eps of Sarazanmai (even two eps of Sarazanmai), the latter is already a better show simply because the main characters all have actual personalities and feel like something resembling people!

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I'm aiming to watch the rest of the series early next week.