kuma kuma kuma bear

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by M.B. Hare.

One of the odd things about this series is how it references its premise several times while also being completely uninterested in doing anything with it. Yuna was, as we saw in the first volume, a very disaffected Japanese teenager, someone who literally paid her parents to go away. This is crucial for seeing how she deals with people in this fantasy world as well, and also in figuring out how much of her narration is simply pretending that she can’t see the obvious problem. And yet, after Yuna’s original transport into the game, we’ve never really dwelt on who put her there and why it happened at all – it reads as “I needed an excuse for an isekai”. It feels awkward to have it both ways, but I suspect that’s what we’re going to have to deal with, because the series in Japan is up to the 18th volume and I don’t think has devoted one iota of its time to “why did Yuna end up here?”.

The bulk of this book has Yuna, Fina, Cliff and Noa going to attend the birthday party of Misa, the noble they’d met in an earlier book. Unfortunately, Misa’s family is currently on the bad side of a power grab by the other noble family in the town, and her party – as well as a party for adults held by her grandfather – is desperately required for them to survive. Also unfortunately, the other noble family knows how these sort of fantasy isekais work – Yuna even says they’re like she imagined nobles to be like. Their grandson is sneering and bullying, they employ thugs to break the arms of head chefs, etc. Fortunately, Misa and company have Yuna, who solves things by just popping over to the palace and asking the King if she can borrow the palace chef. That said, Yuna also faces the biggest crisis she’s had to deal with so far… attending a party in a dress, instead of her bear onesie.

As always, the main reason to read this series is to watch everyone’s reactions to Yuna, and her reaction to everyone. They’re in a new town this volume, so there’s even more “it’s a bear!” than usual. Yuna knows this is a normal reaction to someone like her, but still gets irritated by it. She is a very nice, overpowered person to have in your corner… provided that you do whatever she says, something that I suspect I am thinking about more than the author would like me to. Unfortunately, she does not seem to have learned anything from Fina’s blowing up at her last time. That said, part of the problem may be that she had less to do than usual here – this is a second volume in a row with little conflict, aside from the political power struggles. In fact, we’re due for something to happen soon. Yuna works best when she’s hitting things, I think.

Fans of the series should definitely enjoy this one, though it’s pretty clear that there’s no overarching plot beyond “whatever the author wants to do next”. If you don’t mind that, hang out with the bear some more.

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda.

Last time I talked about how one of the most interesting aspects of the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear series for me was the fact that it kept getting dark, despite being about cute girls doing cute things. Naturally, this new volume therefore has none of that, with no dark moments and very little real conflict at all. It is almost pure fluff. Fortunately, I am at a point right now where I need pure fluff, so this book was like a nice balm to my soul. If there’s any conflict in the volume it comes from Fina, who is still terrified whenever she has to be around nobility, and here is passed off the Ellelaura and the actual King. She’s convinced that she’ll do something to screw up and get herself executed, and spends the entire time in a froth. Yuna, of course, does not understand this at all, not even when Fina spells it out for her later in the volume. Yuna has no issues interacting with anyone, of course.

We start off with Yuna going into the mines to deal with the pesky respawning golems. She’s joined by the friendly adventurer party we’ve seen before, and also opposed by a rival adventurer party, whose leader is quite a jerk. (Yuna, amusingly, compares the rival party to the Power Rangers.) Unfortunately, most of the things Yuna does to defeat enemies would also cause a cave-in, so trying to get to the golem that’s the cause of all of this is going to need a bit more strategy. After this, Yuna manages to score mithril knives for Fina and her sister (who is seven, but it’s never too early to give a child a knife) and some mithril weapons for herself. The rest of the book is made up ,mostly of cooking, as Yuna finds one of Morin’s relatives in the capital who wants to be a baker and sends her to Cremonia to meet up, and then invents strawberry shortcake.

In general, the funniest parts of this series involve either a) Yuna getting belittled for wearing the bear onesie, or b) Yuna having no concept of social customs, mores, or ethics. We get both of those here, with the highlight being when Yuna gives Fina the mithril knife – for free – and then tries to give her another one for her sister, and Fina simply loses it, berating Yuna in the middle of the street about how much mithril costs normally, and that Yuna cannot simply live her life not giving a crap about the economy, giving away all this and expecting nothing in return. This is especially true of Fina, a very serious girl who is unfortunately saddled with Yuna for a best friend. Other highlights include Yuna visiting the royal family with her bears in cub form, and finding it very hard to get Flora and the Queen herself from letting go of them.

So yeah, nothing much happens, but it’s cute. This is what folks think every volume in the series is like. That’s not really true, but this is fine too.

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by M.B. Hare.

Towards the start of the Bakemonogatari series, when the protagonist, Koyomi Araragi, meets Tsubasa Hanekawa for the first time he talks about how he doesn’t have any friends as they would “lower my integrity as a human”. This is, of course, the sort of self-assuring bullshit that a lot of lonely teenagers go through, trying to reframe their social ineptness as cool reserve. Eventually, Araragi grows past this sort of attitude. That said, our bear girl Yuna may have a large number of acquaintances from all over the kingdom, but at heart she seems to think much the same thing about having friends, holding herself at a remove from everyone else and telling herself that she’s really a cool, somewhat selfish teenage girl who is not remotely a great hero. Mostly, I think, as she does not want to deal with potentially tragic consequences if she does end up getting closer to others. That said, I don’t think she can keep this up forever. Sometimes you just want to buy your best friend/protege a really cool knife.

As with a lot of books in this series, there are basically two main plotlines. The first has Yuna reluctantly agree to be a bodyguard for Shia and three of her classmates as they go into the woods as part of their classwork. Yuna is only to help them in a dire emergency. That said, once again we are reminded that, to folks who haven’t met her and seen her in action, Yuna is a small girl in a bear costume. (Later in the book, Yuna angrily reminds the other students that she’s the same age as they are – they thought she was much younger.) Needless to say, by the end Yuan wins over the other students AND defeats a hideous tiger monster. Then in the second half of the book Yuna helps Anz, the girl from the seaside city who wants to start her own restaurant, as well as the four young widows who Yuna rescued from the bandits who want to start over in a place with fewer memories.

I mentioned Yuna’s social ineptness above, and it’s never been quite as visible as it is towards the end of the book. The reader may recall that the four assistants Anz has were all raped by bandits and had their families brutally murdered a couple of months earlier. (Remember, cute bear girl series, really. It’s just like K-On!.) They’re there to help Anz with the restaurant, but Yuna decides to also have them help at her orphanage, which she feels is understaffed. One of the young women is CLEARLY distraught over being around children who are presumably the same age as her own children she saw murdered not long ago, but the story is still from Yuna’s POV, and the most we get out of her is a “huh, maybe I should not have done that”. Fortunately, it all works out well, but there is a reason why I keep highlighting the dark bits in this otherwise fluffy light novel series – they’re the most interesting, character-wise.

As the book ends, Yuna is off to battle a cave of endless golems, and we are briefly reminded that this is supposed to be based on a video game. I assume Yuna will win, but… the jagged edges that surround the big pluffy bear girl are why I really enjoy reading this series.

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda.

Apologies for the slang here, but as I was reading this volume of Kuma Bear, I kept thinking about recent discussion of ‘gap moe’. Sure, I’m certain there are some people who read this series for the cute girls doing cute things, or for Yuna being stupidly overpowered, or even for the food descriptions. But I think the best reason to read it is for those moments where Yuna’s deadpan, staid character is forced to actually react to things – usually embarrassment, but not always. As I’ve said before, her desire to not take credit for anything she does is starting to feel like a complex, and people are beginning to notice – even kids like Fina. That’s not to say it works all the time, as her Bear Tunnel shows us. What’s more, Yuna gets as uncomfortable with the rough, spiky parts of this world as the reader does, and would much rather try not to think about the whole thing – though she does help out in the end. She hopes by thinking of herself as dull and normal, it will rewrite reality.

Most of this book is devoted to the seaport Mileela, and the aftermath of Yuna wiping out the bandits and boiling the kraken. Returning to normal is not something that can happen as fast as the anime implied it. The town is still pretty much devastated by the last few months, the foreign ships don’t know that they can start sailing there again, and while they would like to ally themselves with Cliff’s city Crimonia, but there’s still that huge mountain in the way. Fortunately, they have Yuna, who once met common sense in passing but promptly went somewhere else. Now there’s a huge tunnel connecting the two areas. Problem solved! Well, except it needs lights. And air. And monster cleanouts. And guards. Yuna may be an overpowered bear girl, but cleaning up after her remains a very exhausting job.

Not sure this counts as ‘gap moe’, but the scene that intrigued me the most, as I implied above, is when Yuna is asking the innkeeper’s daughter Anz to run her new shop. Anz asks if she can have some help in the form of the young women Yuna rescued from the bandits last book – that is to say, the ones whose families were killed and were raped by said bandits. Unsurprisingly, they find still living in the town incredibly uncomfortable. It’s these sort of scenes that you really would not see in this cutesy bear and girls sort of book – indeed, the anime tries to gloss over this – and the fact that it comes up over and over again, ever since Book 1 (where, you’ll recall, Yuna in Japan paid her parents off to go away and leave her alone) just won’t let me go. That said… the majority of this book *is* Bear does OP things” “Bear hangs out with cute kids”, “Bear comments sarcastically on events”, etc.

We get setup for what I assume is the next book near the end, where Yuna is asked to guard a bunch of pampered royals as they journey to the forest to hunt some low-level monsters. It is implied that Yuna’s sharp tongue may be more devastating than any monsters, but we shall see. Till then, this remains a cute, if sometimes more disturbing than expected, book. (Oh yes, and LOL at Yuna accidentally walking around in the white bear outfit one day, which she compares to walking outside in her pajamas.)

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by M.B. Hare.

This series remains very off balance, though I do enjoy it a great deal. It sells itself as a slow-life adventure with an OP girl doing cute things with other girls, and that’s what it is about half the time. But once every volume the author wants to remind us that this world (and, it’s implied, Yuna’s past) can be dark and horrible, and it’s always tonally dissonant. Here we see Yuna stopping a gang of bandits. First of all, the bandits are really adventurers paid by the villain to be bandits. Secondly, they go above and beyond their pay, as they apparently kill everyone leaving the city who isn’t a young pretty woman, and then keep the young pretty women in their cave as slaves and (it’s implied) rape them. There’s a horrific scene where, on finding the villain has among the things he’s stolen a ring she recognizes, one of the victims attacks the villain and demands her husband back. It’s… it feels like we jumped genres.

There’s two main plotlines here. First, Yuna returns to Crimonia with Fina and buys a mansion, then converts it into a bakery. This is the more typical Yuna plotline, with lots of OP ridiculousness, lots of cute girls, and tons of bear accessories, bear names, and beat statues. (But still no bear puns. The series is doing a good job at avoiding that.) In the second half of the story, Yuna goes to the ocean in search of seafood, but finds a city under attack on both sides: there’s a kraken in the ocean making it impossible to fish or get supplies, and there’s the aforementioned bandit gang. Yuna cleans up both, though the kraken seems to give her the first hard time she’s had to date, almost exhausting her mana trying to boil it up in the equivalent of a cliffside hot pot. Throughout it all, Yuna is as matter of fact and blunt as ever… except when she realizes the ocean city has rice. And miso. And soy sauce. Then she gets really emotional.

Yuna’s mindset is the best reason to read this book. the anime softened her a great deal. It adapted both of these plotlines, but also had a final episode not in this book where Fina is lonely and Yuna has to learn how to read emotions. That’s not really here, and it’s not just a matter of Yuna being callous, but an actual deliberate character flaw. Last review I said Yuna was trying to avoid getting too well-known or famous, but after this book I suspect Yuna will try to deflect and praise or thanks thrown her way, and is desperate to not have people get too close to her. She also tends to think about this world in terms of a game – of course, it’s a world she was brought into THROUGH a game – and situations like the bandits and their captives make her remind herself this is a real world with real people. It’s something that needs a bit more reinforcement, I think.

So yes, there’s a bit more here than cute girls doing cute things. There were also some great lines in this – Yunqa’s deadpan delivery helps sell them well. Next book Yuna starts a trade route, and I may see that Yuna and Fina scene that wasn’t here.

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Will Holcomb.

Last time I noted that Yuna didn’t really seem to have a purpose after coming to this world beyond wandering around. She seems to find one in this book, but it’s not what you’d think: her purpose is to make sure that people DON’T start talking about how strong and awesome and wonderful she is. Yuna values her anonymity, bear suit aside, and wants to have a “slow life” that becoming a famous adventurer would absolutely not give her. The trouble is that she also can’t seem to stop getting into trouble and/or having to save people, and she really is a nightmarish OP powerhouse. We gradually, by the end of the book, see her gravitating towards the traditional slow life job – she’s going to open a store – and yet there’s no doubt that the store is not going to be what we, the reader, will be seeing as the books go on. We will be seeing Yuna continue to acquire a fanclub of little girls. No, a literal fanclub.

The majority of this book takes place in the capital, which Yuna and Fina do indeed head towards as promised. On the way she captures a gang of bandits (who have been kidnapping and raping women, thus keeping to this series’ “one tonally awful event per book” quota), she meets Noa’s older sister, an academy student who is far stronger than most of her classmates, and thus Yuna is used to take her down a peg or two; manages to convince everyone that potatoes are not poisonous when prepared properly, and the same goes for cheese; draws an adorable picture book for the princess which is basically a childish retelling of her meeting Fina; and, oh yes, defeats ten THOUSAND goblins, orcs, wolves, wyverns, and one giant wyrm. By herself. On the bright side, this does actually get her to drain her magic a bit, though it’s still not enough to actually injure or trouble her.

This probably reads like a short story book, and to an extent that’s what the books are; Yuna does adventures, about 3/4 of which are warm fuzzy things, and 1/4 of which is fantasy game violence. Yuna remains rather emotionless at the best of times, but her heart is still in the right place, as the reason she kills all those monsters is that Noa was worried about her dad getting killed by them. By the end of the book, she’s returning to Crimonia, but I get the sense that the book will take us wherever Yuna can meet more guys who judge her by her appearance and thus have to be beat up, and young girls who are in awe of her. Noa has fan club cards made at the end of this book, as I noted, and I suspect numbers will go up fast. Which is probably a good thing; Yuna functions best when around others, and by herself can get somewhat callous and mean.

If you want a nice combination of slow life, ludicrously overpowered hero, cute girls beating up sexist jerks, and bears, this is your ideal series. If those things aren’t for you, your mileage may vary.

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Will Holcomb.

There’s a lot less focus on bear in this second volume of Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, mostly because Yuna herself has gotten used to it – at one point she casually names something with a bear motif, showing that unconsciously she’s accepted that’s what she is now. Instead the focus is on Yuna and her general attitude towards everything. Yuna is, in both her own internal narration and dialogue, a grumpy girl with minimal emotional range, and we see lots of that here. That said, the point of the books is to show that Yuna, underneath that, is a caring girl with a heart of gold. Here she helps a nearby orphanage, employs Fina’s mother so that she doesn’t have to return to adventuring, helps save a village from a giant snake, and protects a newbie group of adventurers from a giant wolf. All in a day’s work for our overpowered heroine, who has a few moments here where she has to break a sweat and not simply overpower everything in her path… but only a few.

As with the first book, if the idea of OP heroes irritates you in any way, steer clear. Here not only does Yuna do awesome power moves to defeat strong monsters, including having an army of tiny bears made of fire march down the gullet of an enemy, she’s also learning cure and heal, so that she can be an all-purpose team all on her own, and also save Fina’s mom from her tragic ending. Other than that, though, Yuna doesn’t really have very many motivations in this book. The ending of the book indicates she’s going to the capital city of this world, and that might be a good idea, because she’s a bit unmotivated. We see her looking at several quests and rejecting them all as she doesn’t feel like doing them. It’s hard when you’re stuck in a rut only a few weeks after you arrive in your “trapped in a game world” world.

One interesting thing (in both good and bad ways) that was done here is the local lord of the Town, who Yuna meets in this volume. He’s a nice guy with an adorable daughter, but Yuna, having read far too many light novels in her old life in Japan, immediately thinks he’s going to be cruel and arrogant, with a snide, privileged son. This turns out not to be true… however, the lord *is* negligent, as we see when Yuna discovers kids begging on the street and a run-down orphanage losing its funding. Yuna is understandably furious, even as she fixes the problem all on her own (because of course she does). That said, it turns out the reason for all this is an evil aide and his evil family. The aide is REALLY evil – as in “kidnapping young girls, raping and killing them” evil. It’s tonally awful in a book that is supposed to be “cute girl in bear suit is awesome”, and I didn’t enjoy it, mostly as the lord, who was negligent in not noticing this, is very quickly forgiven. (The first book also had that mindboggling “so I paid my parents off till they abandoned me” moment, and it was just as jarring.)

Putting that aside, though, the book delivers what its readers want, though I wish Yuna’s stoic emotionlessness didn’t sometimes carry over to the actual prose. It will be interesting to see what a larger city does for our favorite bear.

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Seven Seas. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Will Holcomb.

First of all, despite expectations, there really aren’t many bear puns in this book. Even the title, which I thought was one, is “くま　クマ　熊　ベアー” which is simply ‘kuma’ in hiragana, katakana, kanji, and ‘bear’ in katakana. It’s ‘Bear Bear Bear Bear’. The author, Kumanano, translates to “I’m a bear”. and the heroine, Yuna, appears on the cover wearing a bear onesie with bear gloves and bear slippers. I’m telling you this up front because if you’re already annoyed, best not to read this. It is absolutely saturated with bear. Despite what I had thought, Yuna CAN remove the bear suit if need be… but she’s as powerful as a 15-year-old human girl when she does. WITH the bear suit, provided to her by the God who runs this world, she’s ludicrously overpowered. Which tells you at heart this is sort of for fans of Make My Abilities Average and its ilk. Do you like teenage girls beating up jerks and monsters? You’ll like this.

Yuna is a young girl who likes to game, sleep, eat,and not much else. She hasn’t gone to school ever since she found she can get rich working the stock market. Her parents briefly protested… so she paid them enough money to leave her forever. And they left! (I mention this because it jars very much with the overall tone of most of the book, and I am wondering if it will ever come up again.) Then one day, Yuna gets an upgrade to the game she’s playing, along with special equipment… the set of bear items. Then, she’s asked if she enjoys real life (no), if she has people who’ll miss her (no), and anything really important to her in reality (money). After this… again, try to contain your shock… she finds herself transported to a fantasy world that’s very much like the game she had been playing. In a bear onesie.

I spent a whole paragraph talking about the first 5 pages or so because the rest of the book is exactly what you’d expect. There’s stats (though not as many as Yuna would like, and all bear related), there’s guilds, there’s killing wolves and orcs, there’s mana gems, there’s jerk guys who look down on Yuna just because she’s a cute young girl in bear pajamas… this lasts until she beats him so much he needs medical attention. There’s also a cute girl risking her life for her family who Yuna essentially adopts as a little sister. Originality is absent here. That said, it reads quite well, and I was never bored, despite the same old things happening. The weakness may be Yuna, who tends to react with little emotion to much of anything, and thus can come off as a bit mean (shades of Potion Girl) or callous. That said, this book also lacks a lot of the bad habits of light novels, possibly as it has a female lead and is written for a female audience. There’s no descriptions of breasts, Yuna shows no signs of getting a romantic harem, and there’s no slavery. I appreciate that.

This is run-of-the-mill OP isekai, but unlike some others I’ve reviewed recently, its gimmick (bear) is handled very well, being funny and never really irritating. If you like bears, or just like young women walking around and being cool, this might be a good light read. Oh yes, and the illustrator also does The Devil Is a Part-Timer!, so if you like their work, also check it out.