(L+CR) Yuri Kuma Arashi

[Random Wanderer]

...What the frakking frak on a frak stick was that?

Actually, no, nevermind. I can already tell that this show is head-screwy, and I don't want one bit of it. Not my cup of tea.

You all feel free to enjoy it, though.

[bakaouji]

I liked the first half of Penguindrum as it functioned great as a dark comedy. There was a method to its madness and despite a lot of weird moments that made you go WTF, it still made sense in its own twisted way. The second cour lost me completely when it went full bore with its subtext and symbolism. IMO its funny bone shrank and it became increasingly maudlin with each successive episode as it lost something vital that made the show amusing.

I've got nothing against symbolism but when it reaches the point where it becomes garbled nonsense, then it loses its meaning. I don't want the answers to be handed down to me on a silver platter but I don't want to have to dig through six feet of impenetrable psychedelic balderdash to get to it either.

The first episode of Yurikuma displays all of Ikuhara's idiosyncrasies in their full extreme glory. As Hako already mentioned, unlike Penguindrum, this show is going full throttle with its heavy symbolism from the get go. The premiere didn't make a lick of sense (I doubt it was meant to). I guess this is what happens when Ikuhara decides to let loose. I'm sure there are people who are gonna argue that this is a work of art, and you know what, I don't think I have the confidence to prove it otherwise. However, I am interested in seeing what the Ikuharians come up with once they dissect and transcribe this episode down to its last glyph.

I may watch the show just to see the girls lez out but I'm probably gonna drop it once the novelty wears off.

[Elestia]

If you liked Penguindrum, I guess this would be your kind of show? Although, it's a lot more low budget with the same obtuse symbolism about being "invisible". May watch a couple more episodes for the yuri, but I barely got through Penguindrum and was dying to get it over with as soon as possible.

[cyth]

Let's list the weird parts:

Being Invisible vs. Buddy System
Invisible Storm destroys everything beautiful.
Bears can't help but eat humans, they also don't forgive those who destroy love.

So putting all of that craziness into a system of equations and making a projection, I'd saaaaay ... Sumika just wanted out of the relationship.

To digress, the show is visibly repulsive to watch. Weird color palette, jarring 3D objects, conservative animation with random high-rate bursts. I still don't know what I'm gonna do with it.

[Crossheart]

Ikuhara EHH??

.. no i mean, Ikuhara WTF???

no, IKUHARAAAAAAA!!!!!

[IceHism]

Ikuhara is already saving this winter season for me. Loved the first episode. Definitely looking forward to the later episodes. The aesthetics are completely my style.

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

You can watch Penguindrum and pick out all kinds of themes and deeper meanings, and the character arcs always make sense, but on the plot level there's a point where it's no longer clear what parts of the story are literally happening and what parts are abstruse metaphors.

And so far YKA looks like it's going in the same direction -- maybe even more so, considering Penguindrum at least started in the real world, whereas this is already halfway to the realm of surreal symbolism. I can already tell that the last episode is going to involve a complex philosophical debate set in a vaguely defined floaty place full of bear and lily symbolism.

Which is exactly what I want out of this show. All good anime should make you wonder, "What the hell were they smoking".

My issue wasn't the surreal symbolism, it was how the Ikuhara gimmicks were, in my opinion, needlessly in excess. As I said I know perfectly well what to expect from Ikuhara in general (and Utena is one of my favorite TV shows, ever). But here, instead of the show being interesting and fun I felt like he was slapping me in the face with the gimmicks, going "SYMBOLISM! LESBIANS! SYMBOLISM! LESBIANS! I AM IKUHARA!!"

To be honest at points I felt already bored with the gimmicks. I hope this was just for the first episode and he'll rein himself in for the next episodes... this episode felt like he was patting himself on the back and expecting me to pat back, if it makes sense? I'm not a fan of creators trying to make a show all about themselves.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

To be honest at points I felt already bored with the gimmicks. I hope this was just for the first episode and he'll rein himself in for the next episodes... this episode felt like he was patting himself on the back and expecting me to pat back, if it makes sense? I'm not a fan of creators trying to make a show all about themselves.

I'm not a fan of such creators either (is anyone, really?), but I think in your case it's a matter of expectations because you already know what the man is capable of. Also, everyone that goes WTF is corrected "well, it's standard Ikuhara, so ..."

I wish we could discuss the work, at least in the initial stages, without the man himself. It wouldn't be the first time an anime's enjoyment or its discussion gets ruined by people having certain expectations of their notorious creators. Then again in some cases even I can't help myself ...

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by cyth

I wish we could discuss the work, at least in the initial stages, without the man himself. It wouldn't be the first time an anime's enjoyment or its discussion gets ruined by people having certain expectations of their notorious creators. Then again in some cases even I can't help myself ...

As I said in my first post I also don't like it when a discussion is more about the creator than the show itself, and I wish I wasn't doing it myself. But it just goes to show that this episode was too much about Ikuhara himself, which is basically what I'm complaining about.

Hopefully the second episode will be somewhat restrained and will focus more on the actual story, characters, etc...

[ValvraveTruth]

An anime thats full of sarcasm and abstract stuff. It wont give many explaination, we can only guess its meaning.

It will be abit hard for those who rely on english sub or other because subbing cannot 100% reflect what the characters are saying.

[HandofFate]

Not sure who the creator or whatever is. Or care. Just gonna comment on the 1st episode itself.

Different than I expected.
I thought it was just gonna be an empty yuri show like Sakura Trick, but it actually has some kind of weird abstract plot to it.

Audio voice quality seems pretty pitch clear in this.

Some parts were hard to swallow.
Like with who died. or how.
We saw Sumika together with them, and next scene its just "oh yea she got eaten"

The last 5 minutes was weird.
I was kind of "woah, is this really happening?"
Like the promotional videos was a fakeout. And each episode was just going to feature a new pair of yuri girls, and at the end, they would get eaten.
But the girl lived...so no idea what happened there.

If it was that, I would be much more interested, right now, i'm just "oh okay."

Anyway, as a fan of the vore part, I be sticking around it for a bit more.

[ookamigirl]

The art was nice.
Story was weird.
All girls and bears pretending to be girls.
Apparently bears eat humans.
Yeah... too confusing & weird.
Skipping it.

[Kanon]

I didn't understand much but it had my two favorites things, lesbians and bears, so it was cool. I can wait for answers. In fact, the mystery is pretty appealing in itself, it's a lot of fun trying to figure out what exactly all of this means.

The "invisible Storm" is most likely done by an organization (dark student council or whatever) in charge of making sure nobody stands out, which Kureha and Sumika did with their lesbian relationship. Being invisible by "fading" into the rest of society is apparently very important in their world. Collectivism is presumably the key to not being eaten by the bears, or so people think. I'm assuming the truth is different.

[thundrakkon]

That was f****d up. I usually hate profanity, but this more than deserved it. Mixing yuri and cutesy human-eating bears... what could go wrong?

Then again, I have to admit that Madoka Magica turned me off the same way, and I never got past episode 3; yet, the anime community has stated it was a masterpiece (I might find out someday, just have no desire to relive those 3 excruciating episodes). Heck, maybe this anime will turn out to be a masterpiece as well, although I have a feeling I might not make it past a couple of episodes.

[Albel VII]

It's quite something that Penguindrum's first episode was actually rather tame compared to this.

I really wonder what's this eating thing actually means to the Kumarians. I mean, I understand that it's a symbol of some sort, but based on what we've seen so far, it possible that they just lick their victims all over rather than actually devour them. Although, I guess Kureha wouldn’t hate them with so much passion and wouldn’t want to destroy them if they left their victims alive. Anyway, I just hope they're not going to devour half of the cast by the end if they do kill humans.

Since "arashi" with a different kanji means "troll", whenever they mentioned how the invisible storm (toumei na arashi) destroys beautiful and gentle things, I couldn't help but to imagine an invisible jerk who's wrecking havoc for fun.

[Chosen_Hero]

WTF did I just watch? All I know is that I saw a looooot of yuri and that's were my knowledge ends.

Will keep watching for the fanservice.

[Kaengel]

Whoa.

Loved this episode. So much symbolism used in some wth situations. It's the kind of things that I like !

[Iron Maw]

Yeah... this maybe a little TOO much Ikuhara for me and we haven't even really begun truly dive into the weirdness.

Gotta to have a certain mindset before stepping in his shows.

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

I think I'm going insane. I've seen weird stuff before, but this... with the first couple minutes I thought the characters were drawn too "cutesy" to be cute. Then the OP started, and everything went crazy. I kept trying to say "what the heck", but I barely made it past the "wha..." before something else hit me even worse. A couple things were relatively predictable, such as one character's fate. But the rest was so completely out there I couldn't even begin to understand. And then there was the thing with the bear-girls and the girl with the honey-drenched lily... Excuse me while I find a wall to bash my head against.

Ah~ Ikuhara's baptism at work.

[Mitcher]

This was Fabulous Max~

Quite the weird episode, but still was enjoyable. The... bear thing was appealing, so I'll keep watching. Dammit Ikuhara, you got me.

Oh, I loved the opening.

[Grand Phoenix]

And I thought the latter half of Utena was confusing! This show is going to make me start going looking deep into the depths of whatever symbolism it's got going. Keep on keepin' on, Ikuhara, man.

I'll stick around for this, at least so I can try to figure out what the hell's going on (and the lesbians and bears; can't forget about those). Love the OP and ED, though.