Literature / Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear

It's a good day to enter another world while in your pajamas.

"This is indeed cheating equipment for me, who is at maximum level...but it's so embarrassing."

— Yuna, when she first sees her future Iconic Outfit, the "Bear Suit"

Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is a Japanese Light Novel series written by Kumanano and art drawn by 029. Originally a Web Serial Novel which began on October 13, 2014 on the website Shousetsuka ni Narou, it was picked up for publication by PASH! Books in 2015. A manga adaptation was released in 2018 along with a manga spinoff called Kuma Kuma Kuma Beā 〜 Kyō mo Kuma Kuma Biyori 〜 in 2021. The series was adapted into a 12-Episode Anime by EMT Squared for the Fall 2020 season. A second season called Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Punch! aired in Spring 2023.

Fifteen-year-old Yuna prefers staying inside and alone in her fancy high-rise apartment, obsessively playing her favorite VRMMO, World Fantasy Online, to the detriment of everything else like socializing with others, going to school, and going outside in general. When a strange new update gives her a one-of-a-kind bear outfit that comes with overpowered abilities, Yuna is torn: the outfit is unbearably cute but too embarrassing to wear in-game. But then she suddenly finds herself transported into the world of the game, facing down monsters and magic for real, and the bear suit becomes the best weapon she has!

As there are multiple iteration of the series, beware of unmarked spoilers!

The series contains the following tropes:

• 12-Episode Anime: Both seasons of the anime adaptation run for 12 episodes.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: Prologue of both novel versions and Episode Two of the anime shows Yuna with advanced VR technology which isn't currently far off from reality.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The series' mithril blades have two types. They are the specialized-type and the magic-type. Both are quite sharp but magic-type blades can be poured with magic to make the blade sharper. Specialized-type mithril blades were blades that maximized the performance of the mithril.
• A Day in the Limelight: Side Stories give us the perspective of other characters not named Yuna, such as seeing things from Yuna's perspective.
• Adapted Out: Multiple characters were not shown in the anime adaptation. Special mention to the all female adventurer party that escorts Misana going to the capital city for the king's birth anniversary.
• Always a Bigger Fish: The student party Yuna was escorting accepted a Goblin Subjugation request, though they struggle to defeat even one without exhausting themselves. They later discover the cause of their mysterious intrusion into human territories: they're escaping the wrath of a much stronger monster, a Black Tiger.
• Ambition is Evil: Mireera's Commerce Guild Master plots and executes a plan to gather all the wealth in the village and escape with the ill-gotten money he got so that he could live the life he wants. Just a month more and he could have succeeded, if not for some adventurer of the Bear class arriving in town.
• Animal Motifs: Bears, if the title didn't tip you off. The universe even Enforces this: Yuna's magic and abilities are amplified exponentially if it's bear-themed.
• Arranged Marriage: The Foschurose sisters, Shia and Noire/Noa were pressured by a rival household to marry their son. Fortunately, they are being protected by their mother and Yuna as well. Yuna was offered one by the same noble as well when he realizes Yuna's true power only to be punched aside.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Yuna certainly believes so and this caused a lot of friction even before her first meeting with Crimonia's Lord, Count Cliff Foschurose. He turns out to be a Reasonable Authority Figure with a loving family but the likes of his subordinates like Enzo play this trope for all its worth with embezzling funds, decadent and wasteful lifestyles, and casually exploiting and outright murdering commoners to hide their illegal actions.
• Ascended Meme: One ability Kumakyuu and Kumayuru gain later on is based on the image involving a black bear and white bear performing a Fusion Dance to become a panda bear.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Due to its tough scales, Yuna has a hard time defeating the Black Viper. By attacking its inside (attacking it when its mouth was opened) damages the viper significantly; later, when she's brought its corpse to be dismantled the butchers mention the severe extent of the burns.
• Batman Gambit: Even if the head chef of the Royal Castle is able to replace Gran's head chef after an attack makes him unable to cook for Gran's birthday party, Yuna still deduces that the Salbert patriarch would still attempt to sabotage things during the party by either claiming that the food tastes bad or doing something to contaminate it. Hence, she has the Royal Castle's head cook introduce himself to Gran's rival and mentioning his connections to the king. Knowing that his plans make Gran look bad by bad mouthing the food would not work once he knew who made it, the only option the Salbert patriarch was able to make is a strategic retreat and leave the party.
• Beach Episode: In later volumes, Yuna visited Mireera, a town by the sea. Later still, she brought her shop employees with her as well.
• Bears Are Bad News: You never expect a girl wearing bear pajamas to be THAT dangerous nor her adorable familiars, Kumakyuu and Kumayuru. However, they're extremely ferocious fighters that nearly drove to extinction the beginner-level predators around the city of Crimonia, and beat dangerous, legendary threats with ease.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: At the capital, Yuna runs into trouble trying to buy land for a second house. The Master of the Commerce Guild demands she shows proof she can pay the amount that even high-ranking nobles would struggle to raise the funds for... then Yuna proceeds to pull out a small mountain of currency that it's a testament to the skill of the capital's carpenters that the table didn't collapse from the weight of it all.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: World Fantasy Online once had a special event that lasted all of 30-minutes before being abruptly cancelled: an invasion of giant cockroaches. Yuna recounts that during that half-hour, there was the constant sound of screams and players logging in then out in droves. She's not too happy to learn the silkworms of her current world are equally as gigantic and disturbing.
• Big Eater: The Elfanica's Queen can stomach every food Yuna brings for her daughter.
• Cassandra Truth: Those who experience the wrath of Yuna "The Bloody Bear" tend not to be believed when they try to warn others. As common sense dictates, A girl wearing a ridiculous bear outfit shouldn't be that strong.
• Character Level: So far, only Yuna has been shown having access to this trope in this series.
• Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Yuna's self-proclaimed "trump card"/"special hidden technique". Every time there's a topic regarding her adventures or rumors regarding her that she'd rather not be added to her ever-growing notoriety, she will try to change the subject.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Bearomite spirit stone Yuna got from a mine after battling the (fake) Mithril Golem makes an appearance in the Dwarf Town visit Arc. That's over 10 volumes apart!
• Chekhov's Gunman: Named characters are most likely to appear in the later volumes.
• Compressed Adaptation: The anime, likely for expenses and limited run-time, cuts out or compresses a lot of events, turning several chapters worth of the manga into one episode. Some examples include:
  • The battle with Deborane at the Guild is reduced to a Smash Cut gag of Yuna knocking him out with one punch.
  • During Yuna's first trip to the capital, the female group of adventurers that were guarding Count Gran Farrengram and Misana are never given an introduction and are only shown in the background. Similarly, Yuna never encounters the bandits along the way nor does she summon the Bear Golem to transport the cage they're in.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: After Yuna learns that Lord Foschurose has allegedly cut-off the funding for Crimonia's orphanage, she decides to get back at him by refusing to sell him or his servants a cheap supply of a formerly rare and valuable ingredient: chicken eggs.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: If it wasn't for the Orphanage Director's desire not to upset the Lord and keep them from getting kicked off the land entirely in retaliation, Yuna would have alerted him to the unexplained, under-the-table budget cuts much sooner.
• Crapsaccharine World: A very light degree. The world is happy and bright and our protagonist is wearing a bear suit with two extremely adorable familiars, but there is still Corrupt Nobles, powerful dangerous monsters, poverty, rampant banditry and pillaging, and all the usual dangers that make "adventurer" such a viable and profitable profession—provided you can survive it.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Or Battles, to be specific. A pack of wolves? Turned to burger meat, skins, and magic gems. A Goblin King and his entourage? Look at its face in death after Yuna brings it into the Guild, his sword completely intact from how swift and effortless its demise was. A Black Viper which even the mid-ranked adventurers hesitantly accept the request to exterminate it and even Crimonia's Guildmaster (one of their strongest) doubts if he can take it on? Just a walk in the park. All of these are just the opening lines of Yuna's long, storied list of combat achievements.
• Death Row: Most of the punishments given to some baddies caught by Yuna. Special mention to a character named Enzo and his family. Makes sense, since that was the common punishment for sedition of the state back in medieval times, and is still used in many countries today.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear for its title.
• Despair Event Horizon: Heavily Downplayed. Yuna doesn't want to interact with the world when she knew that she accidentally shows off her underwear as she moves to dodge or parry in a contest against the knights of the kingdom.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: In the anime, the opening is sung by Fina (Azumi Waki) while the ending is sung by Yuna (Maki Kawase).
• "Double, Double" Title: The series Japanese title is just the word "bear" said three times in Japanese and one time in English. The official English title "The Bears Bear a Bare Kuma" is slightly better about this, but not by much. The mini-series that airs alongside the anime is an inversion of the Japanese name, being "Bear Bear Bear Kuma".
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: The first time Yuna tries out her Wind Blade ability on a wolf, the results are more far violent than she expects, leading to an unpleasant surprise. Because of this, she tries not to use it too often, unless a situation is particularly dire.
• Dual Wielding: Yuna have two daggers that she use in tandem when facing toughed-hide monsters.
• Embarrassing but Empowering Outfit: Yuna has this issue with her bear suit. She knows she looks ridiculous in it, but the stat boosts and powers it gives her are just too good to pass up.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Played-with. Yuna felt betrayed when Fina refused to cook pudding with her when the king arrived at her capital city bear house.
  Light Novel Volume 3 excerpt: Et tu, Fina? I thought.
• Facial Horror: A Kuma Punch is enough to cause a grown man's face to swell up dramatically. A handful will temporarily disfigure you beyond recognition.
• Fake-Out Twist: The first episode makes it seem like the scenes with Yuna-as-a-Bear are her playing World Fantasy Online. We see her actual World Fantasy Online avatar in the second episode, whereupon everything to do with the VRMMO is discarded entirely.
• Fantasy Metals: So far, only mithril has appeared. Later on, Yuna discovers Bearmonite, a mysterious but extremely powerful ore that is—you guessed it—shaped like a bear.
• Food Porn: Every time Yuna showcases her new recipe, we will get this.
• Foreshadowing: The increased activity in orc attack, one of which Gran experienced, in the birthday festival arc is a sign that's there is much bigger trouble down the line.
• Golem: Yuna can create golems out of any of the elements, but due to the power-up her Bear Armor provides, they tend to be bear-themed. There are more classic golems in the later volumes, namely earth, stone, and mithril.
• Go-to Alias: Yuna gave Yuuna as an alias to the king when she represented Shia's side against a rival noble's to hide her real identity. The reaction of those who knew her was like "Why did she named herself like that?"
• Graceful Loser: The unlucky D-ranked adventurer (Deborane v2.0) who fought Yuna to prove he is strong enough to be promoted to C-ranked and got beaten. He apologized and acts as Yuna's shield when somebody in the capital would bother her.
• Hammerspace: Itemboxes/Itembags are capable of storing large amounts of items without getting heavy or becoming larger than they are empty. However, items will still rot and decay inside them. Yuna has a super-powered version with none of the limitations or the downsides: the "Bear Box", accessed through her White Bear Glove.
• Hidden Elf Village: The hometown of Sanya, the elven guild master of the Adventurer's Guild in the capital, is one. Also have a World Tree like tree that protects and hides the village.
• Hidden Purpose Test: Downplayed. Toya was testing by a dwarf to see if he is able to use a mithril sword. After failing and running away, Yuna tried this test and with a delayed cut, passed it with flying colors even though the dwarf thought she couldn't do it due to her wearing weird clothes and small hands.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Mireera's Commerce Guild Master ordered a group of adventures to kidnap Yuna and take everything she has. She beats them down and learns of the other group of criminals hired to blockade the road to another town, which the villagers linked him to the incidents and sealed his fate.
• The Horde: The birthday anniversary arc has one which is composed of 10,000 monsters, summoned and controlled by a vengeful court magician who was banished for his heinous experiments.
• Hub City: Despite a lot of cities and towns named, Crimonia is effectively the center of the story. The seaside town of Mireera and even the Royal Capital, just to name a few, are just temporary visits for business or pleasure. Her Bear Houses in those places are acting as Warp Whistle points.
• Hypocrite: Enzo tries to claim that the orphanage is lying about the lack of funds to get more money. When the Lord points out several of the projects he is supervising aren't progressing, he immediately replies with suggesting that they would proceed faster with a bigger budget.
• I Choose to Stay: Yuna has zero plans to ever return to her original world. The only thing she said she might miss when she did a survey about leaving her life behind was that she's a billionaire in the real world. Everything else? She already has in spades.
• I Never Told You My Name: How one of Shia's classmates, Cattelya, deduces that she has known Yuna before the overnight class assignment where Yuna served as a chaperone. Despite Shia, who was given an additional assignment of keeping her knowledge of Yuna a secret to the others, claiming that she only had met Yuna when the students was introduced to her before they headed out, she just happened to know Kumayuru's name, when the only bear that Yuna mentioned by name at this point was Kumakyuu.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The web novel always has Bear in its chapter name except for side stories that aren't from Yuna's perspective.
• Impossibly Delicious Food: The reaction everyone has to Yuna's food, to the point where she's known as a mysterious "Legendary Chef". Even the head chef in the Royal Castle can't believe it's that good, to the point where he eventually asks for Yuna's recipes, as he believes his are vastly inferior.
• Instant Fan Club: Noire creates a secret Bear Fan Club with herself as the President and having Fina be Vice President. Her goal is to have 10,000 members.
• Interclass Friendship: Noire sees Yuna and Fina as her friends who are technically commoners. Later, Misana also treats the two as close friends.
• Jerkass Has a Point: When Yuna flat out refuses to meet with a lord and gives her reason being the idea all nobles are corrupt, spoiled idiots who will kill and enslave commoners based on their mood, the Guild Leader flat out says she isn't wrong but Lord Foschurose is an exception. To be fair to him, he was being honest.
• Kraken and Leviathan: A Kraken is a major obstacle in Yuna's path for Japanese-like food.
• Lighter and Softer: While the series as a whole is very lighthearted and comedic, the anime cuts out a lot of the unexpectedly darker parts of the original like the full extent of Enzo Roland's crimes which include kidnapping, imprisoning innocents, and rape. The shots and direction also go well out of their way to avoid showing or minimize the amount of blood and gore while the manga would show things like monsters being cleanly decapitated but spilling blood nonetheless.
• Logical Weakness: Iron is a great conductor for electricity so when Yuna encounters some Iron Golems, she uses Lightning-enhanced Bear Punch to destroy the cores of these golems without denting them out of shape.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Yuna helping out a struggling orphanage leads to Lord Foschurose learning that someone has been embezzling funds meant for the orphanage and other public works, which leads to uncovering a massive string of corruption and crime from one of his subordinates that had escaped his oversight.
• Mood Whiplash: Cliff's Side Story about his corrupt subordinate, Enzo Roland, and how he effectively condemns his whole family and estate to collapse by arresting then executing all of them. Also in Misana's Birthday Arc in both of the novel adaptations.
• Mugging the Monster: Numerous people have a constant bad habit of Underestimating Badassery when it comes to Yuna, with many antagonistic characters having the first impression that she's a weakling that just coasts by through bribery and manipulation. Every time they try to act on their assumptions, Yuna utterly curbstomps them, and often ends up catching wind of the sources behind the attacks, eventually bringing down various corrupt nobles and criminal organizations because they made the mistake of doing things that revealed their true selves to her.
• Multi-Melee Master: Yuna can punch monsters and beat them to pump. She can also use knives/daggers and also have a lot of history using swords in her VR days.
• Not Afraid to Die: The boy who guided Yuna to his village which was attacked by the Black Viper would likely sacrifice himself to give the adventurer who he recruited time to escape so that said adventurer will spread the information about the Black Viper.
• Non-Indicative First Episode: The first episode of the anime doesn't make any sense in context of the rest of the series. The first episode makes it look like the entire series takes place in a VR game. The second episode, which takes place before the first, establishes that Yuna has actually been physically transported to another world that just resembles a VR game she plays, and her avatar in the game looked completely different. Thus, the "real world" scenes in the first episode are completely out of place.
• Obsessed with Food: The King and the Queen of Elfanica always go out of their way to get a taste of the delicious food Yuna makes every time she visits for Princess Flora. Justified as she's introducing foods and snacks that are lightyears ahead of what qualifies as "top-quality food" in this world, and as royals they of course won't tolerate not having a bite.
• Older Than They Look:
  • Yuna is actually 15 years old, but due to her slim appearance and always being in a bear suit people mistake her for preteen.
  • Elves tend to be much older than their youthful appearances let on, such as Guild Master Sanya, her family, and everyone else in her hometown.
• Only One Name: Commoners have no surnames or similar equivalent.
• Only Sane Man: Notable for a background character in the manga and light novel. After his first fight with the Bloody Bear, an adventurer in plate armor and a helmet concealing his face warns people not to mess with Yuna, only to grumble when they fail to listen. He pops up rarely and is never listened to.
• Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Yuna meets a dwarf in her base city and later in the capital. The former created a mithril dismantling knife (for Fina) and the latter created the two combat mithril daggers for Yuna.
• Our Goblins Are Different: The series has goblins but they're just pests more dangerous to livestock than people. Students at the royal academy regularly fight them as a practical test and with the exception of a Goblin King, your average adventure ignores them in favor of more exciting quests.
• Parasitic Horror: The tree that protects the elf village was under attack by a parasite when Yuna and her companions arrived there.
• Really 700 Years Old: Elves in the series tend to be this. Sanya even treats 10 years like yesterday.
• Rejected Marriage Proposal: Rutum tries to have Eleonore's daughters to marry his son. (First, he targets Shia, then Noire) Eleonore only rejects him every time.
• Restaurant-Owning Episode: Yuna takes some time to, in her words, "act like an owner" to her various establishments.
• Right Behind Me: After Yuna deals with an evil loan shark's hired goons, the loan shark attempts to claim having connections with the local Adventurer's Guild Master in order to weasel out of trouble, only for said Guild Master to show up right then, having followed the thugs after hearing them talking about attacking Yuna earlier, and naturally she's never even met the man. The loan shark attempts to amend his claim to knowing the king...only for the king, having come on unrelated business, to show up as well and order the man arrested for his poor attempt at criminal fraud using the king's name.
• Royal Favorite: After visiting the castle a second time (after she kills The Horde of monsters), Yuna is able to enter the castle anytime she wants. It is no surprise when she always seems to have some cutting-edge, impossibly delicious food to show-off to the most powerful people in the land. Did we also mention she could just waltzes in the castle and request for something that will mostly be accepted?
• RPG Mechanics 'Verse: Although the world is real, characters and things still have measurable stats that Yuna can see, and she has a Heads-Up Display in her vision.
• Running Gag:
  • Some foolish adventurers always seem to mock Yuna and her Bear Armor, believing her to be a newbie with a silly gimmick at best and some ignorant fool making fun of the profession at worst.
  • We always get a reaction of people seeing Yuna's Bear Armor for the first time.
  • People's reaction when knowing the power of the Bloody Bear.
  • Everyone's reaction eating Yuna's newly invented food recipes.
• Sand Worm: Faced a lot of these when travelling towards a dessert town.
• School Festival: Later volumes bless us with a school festival episode.
• School Uniforms are the New Black: The students of the royal academy in the capital wear their school uniforms while adventuring and fighting monsters. Justified as they're made of incredibly durable materials and are several steps above the kind of basic armor you'd find at the shops.
• Secret-Keeper: Due to Yuna trying to hide her powers, only Fina is aware of what Yuna is capable of. Well, mostly of Yuna's capability. Later her secrets were shared to most of the capital adventurer's guildmaster family members and Fina's family minus Gentz.
• Secret Test of Character: Letobell, a merchant Yuna got known about, secretly tests Yuna by asking for the price of her books. She surprises him by saying the payment will be in the form of his grand daughter's smile which made him laugh.
• Shout-Out: When Yuna's Bear Golem sinks back into the dirt, it makes a thumbs-up like in the The Terminator.
• Spanner in the Works: Downplayed. Yuna messed up a noble who is a rival to Eleonore in many ways without knowing it. For one thing, the noble hoarded some iron ores/ingots to sell it at a higher price when the main producing mine got a golem problem only for Yuna to destroy the Mithril (fake) Golem which made the mine safer to mine and stabilizing the price of iron. Also the noble is a relative of the corrupt noble Cliff killed when that orphanage was in trouble. Not to mention said noble wanted to hoard all the glory to himself when there was a threat of 10,000 monsters that should have attack the capital and Yuna just decimated The Horde?
• Strange Minds Think Alike: When trying to come up with a name for the restaurant, everyone's idea includes Bear in the title. Fina walks in later and Yuna asks her for her name idea. She includes bear in her name as well.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: A regular skinning knife is useless on the Black Tiger, due to its hide being able to repel proper swords.
  • The tunnel Yuna makes through the mountain range to get to the fishing town is initially presented as one of her usual amazing feats, but chapter 98 of the light novel series has Yuna face a number of Surprisingly Realistic Outcomes with regards to the structural, environmental, and economic realities of operating such a tunnel. While it's a fine shortcut for her own use, Milena points out that seriously treating it as a route for commerce requires a number of adjustments for both safety and productivity. Chapter 102 further explores the economic and social impacts the tunnel will have on the town, which Yuna hadn't considered.
• Take a Third Option: After their head chef was attacked, Gran and Cliff considered serving lower-class food or to cancel a party entirely—a very grave decision for a noble, as these events are a reflection of their power and wealth. After asking Yuna for help, she waltzes into the Royal Castle then personally asks King Folloht if she can borrow his head chef.
• Take Over the City: The Salbert patriarch plans to take over the town/city of Sheelin. Thankfully, there was a bear at that time to foil it, although his downfall can also be contributed to a son who is too spoiled to understand the concept of Pragmatic Villainy and decides to take matters in his own hands by kidnapping Misana.
• This Was His True Form: Subverted Trope. Most people don't realized Yuna when she stops wearing the bear outfit. They feel weird seeing Yuna wearing anything but her bear outfit.
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Well, throwing knifes I guess?
• Title Drop: In the anime when she is registering her job class.
  Yuna: Kuma, kuma, kuma... bear?
• Trapped in Another World: Yuna got transported to another world and there are no clues on how to get back. Not that she minds, though!
• Turtle Island: At the arc Yuna and the gang enjoy a beach vacation, she visited one.
• Underestimating Badassery: Oh look! A girl wearing a bear outfit. Time to teach this girl a lesson for daring to insult the noble profession of adventuring!
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Yuna's close companions eventually grow numb to all the fantastic and impossible feats she pulls off.
• Virtuous Bees: The bees in the Bee Tree, what is described as an ancient tree that has become the foundation of a gigantic mega-hive. They are not hostile though and those who gather their honey are trained professionals.
• Warp Whistle: The Bear Transfer Door acts as this for Yuna. Her Bear Houses at various settlements and cities house them or are situated near the hidden entrances.
• World Tree: Subverted but there is a tree that the elves were using as a barrier-maker to protect and hide their village from unwanted entities.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Everyone's reaction on Yuna's evolving list of common-sense breaking achievements.