The Yurikuma Arashi anime from Funimation is, like so many of Ikuhara Kunihiko’s works, a fairy tale. Like so many of his previous works, in this fairy tale the fairy ex machina is the tale itself.
Tsubaki Kureha has met – and forgotten – a childhood friend who is a bear. Ginko has never forgotten her childhood friend and seeks to become a girl to be with Kureha. Surrounding this bastard child of The Gift of the Magi and every outsider story ever, is a series of repeated, variably meaningful images and a story that is never quite sure if it believes in itself or not.
Because there’s no coherence in the story in and of itself, there’s a lot of time to just enjoy the random bits of imagery and wonder what it means to Ikuhara, since it’s almost never given any meaning in the context of the story.
Buried as we were in overuse of “Yuri” imagery, some with overtly sexual connotation, some completely lacking anything of the kind, all those lilies ceased to have any meaning, which was sort of interesting. Lily petals, whole lily flowers showering down upon the heads of characters and yet, it had almost no connection to the narrative.
There were two standout qualities of the series for me – first and foremost, seeing animated versions of Morishima Akiko-sensei’s art made watching this series worthwhile. Additionally – and I have thanked her personally on Twitter for this – I really appreciated Yuriika, an honest-to-goodness, Evil Psycho Lesbian character. She was my favorite and her death was utterly meaningless, as befits someone who is so pointlessly obsessed.
I do not feel that this series was compelling, in the way Utena, or even Mawaru Penguindrum was, but the ending was not predictable, none of the loose ends were tied up and everything we experience in the body of the story turned out to not be true, so that has to count for something. ^_^
Ratings:
Art – 8 Two great tastes that tasted deeply odd together
Story – 7 Once upon a time…oh fuck it.
Characters – 7 Uncarved blocks, one and all. Just remove everything that isn’t a bear
Yuri – 14 million
Service – 7 Much higher than I’d like
Overall – 7
My final thought on the end of Yurikuma Arashi is this: There’s something right/not right about “Ave Maria” becoming a Yuri anthem.
lete and real and in our hands and on our shelves. At last!
manga. Now for us to have and watch and enjoy whenever we feel like it. The combination of Riyoko Ikeda’s timeless writing and Dezaki Osamu’s sharp eye for dramatic visuals have changed the way we view anime forever.
Squee. You may not remember why you liked it, it was so long ago. You may have made up stories in your mind about how good or bad it was. You probably forgot the dinosaurs and some of the worst Monsters of the Day ever. But when you watch the original anime and re-meet Usagi, Ami, Rei, Makoto, and Minako, you’ll remember all over again why you love them. ^_^
It’s silly, it’s stupid, it’s full of painful gags and a duck that looks like a platypus, dumb service (especially for a shoujo manga) and made-up violence scenes that are pretty bloody (especially for a shoujo manga). But it has Yuri and if you can just take your brain away for 20 minutes at a time, it’s actually enjoyable in it’s own way. Urara and Momoka aren’t a real couple, but that’s pretty much a relief. ^_^
The Puella Magi Madoka Magica movies came out in theaters in the US and on DVD, thanks to Aniplex being so willing to keep up the high-saturation level of the series. They were an interesting alt-story to the Madoka TV anime, and had great visual impact…and, even if the story didn’t play out as positively as the TV anime, that was a good thing, too. This series is showing surprising longevity in Japan, so I’m not entirely sure if we’re saying goodbye to it just yet.
Rewatching this series was a real eye-opener for me. I had forgotten just how Yuri and BL this series was, and wow, does the action and art hold up well. As much as Tomoyo was the Yuri torch-bearer to generations of Yuri fans, she can barely hold a candle to her mother, Sonomi. This is one of the best “magical girl anime made for girls” series ever, really.
Riddle Story of a Devil was was a “Yuri” anime because we were told it was, but there was some interesting sexual tension and random partnering to make up for the lack of affection. The action was good, the plot full of holes, but as a modern version of Seraphim Call-like character scenarios tied up by a ribbon story, it was entertaining. It’s not timeless, but we looked forward to it being on air and enjoyed the heck out of it while we watched it. That’s a good enough reason for me to include it on this list. ^_^
I know you know that I didn’t much care for the anime. But setting that aside, it was a fairly significant series – a Yuri romance anime, nuthin’ else but Yuri. No gimmicks, no pretend drama, just straight up “Story A.” While I did not care for the thigh-staring, and the creepy male gaze of the camera, there is no doubt that Yu loves Haruka, Haruka loves Yu, they love each other. The end.
I toyed with making this my number one choice for the year. Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san was, to me, the most enjoyable advertised-as-Yuri anime of the year. It was silly, and actually funny in places, and light-hearted and goofy. There are any number of potential pairings and a few actual couples, but the anime kept the Yuri mostly in the imagination of the leads…and I enjoyed it. From the insanely adorable opening theme, right to every stupid animal pun, Inugami-san to Nekoyama-san made me smile.
I watched Book One of this series back in winter 2013, and marathoned Books 2-4 over the past few weeks and I have to say…this may well be one of the greatest animated series ever made. It blasts through the Bechdel Test and the Friedman Addendum…and it’s an awesome ride all the while. Legend of Korra has everything I’ve ever wanted in an animated series – amazing characters, great action and lovely animation and a female lead who has a life and family and friends and complexity and morally ambiguous bad guys. The stories are well written, the dialogue sounds human. And in Book 4 we got something else. We got the ‘ship we’d been keeping one eye on the whole time. We got Korra and Asami.
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