Yuri Bear Storm

Oh shit I just realized... the Judgemens looking at those two girls in the nurse's office is literally male gaze.

This episode made me somewhat uncomfortable.

Cliffhangers every episode! Kuma shock every episode! What fate awaits our heroes?

I'm really, really kind of not enjoying this series. I don't know why. I guess I find the characters and plot to be lacking, althought I can't get my finger on why. The series' overall style also falls flat to me.

Probably because I'm not one to care about symbolism or such. I just want a good cast of characters.

Well namely

The major issue is the whole being shunned thing doesn't work, I get the symbolism but it doesn't work internally in story

Is Kureha being shunned cause she's a lesbian?

Not really sense EVERYBODY ELSE IN ON IT IS A YURI too -THE LILY OPENS!-

Kureha maybe its cause she's a blithering dingbat?

You really have NO reason to root for Ginko and Lulu since for half the series, their plan is EAT all the other girls until Kureha has no reason not to be yuris with them due to lack of options. Essentially they are no better then the two villians! and Knowing Why Ginko and Lulu do what they do... doesn't change that. Seriously Ginko has pretty much admitted that the only reason She didn't kill Sumika... is cause Yurizono beat her to it I'll give the series that while it does try to make the reasoning sympathetic, it doesn't try to make the actions sympathetic.

She wasn't being shunned because she was a lesbian. She was shunned because she was being openly lesbian, which is a big deal in a society where sticking out and not following social norms is a big no-no.

Ginko and Lulu ate girls of the invisible storm because they were planning to throw Kureha to the bears, but at no point has it been suggested that they did it so that they would be the only ones left. And Ginko didn't want to eat Sumika, she just let her die by inaction, out of jealousy.

And for what its worth, she owned up to that and more. Even though Mitsuko ate Sumika, in Ginko's mind she's the one who killed her by not saving her. Between that and other things there's plenty for me to be sympathetic for all these characters.

So much this.

Everyone is secretly yuri, even though there are probably no human males. It's a strange world.

Ginko's one tough cookie(war, bear traps, flames, gunshots? You name it, she'll survive it). And the final boss. There's no resisting Mitsuko's Will!

This is the second or third time someone said "No, this can't be!" at the end of the episode. I just find how they react funny.

edited 10th Mar '15 6:24:32 PM by Diamite

Called it. I knew Mitsuko would be alive... is she? She appeared outside wherever Ginko was, so she's still around in some form. Looks like the other girls realized they had bigger bears to fry than Kureha. Sexy has his priorities straight. Yurika makes her move and promptly gets shot. That's what happens when you demonize your own kind lady. Time for the final truths to be revealed.

edited 10th Mar '15 2:40:45 PM by Sterok

Alive like a FFX Unsent ghost maybe. She says she was killed.

A ghost called Deesiyah.

Yurizono's reappearance was probably just a metaphor for Ginko's own issues

A sexy metaphor.

Shabadadoo~

I might have missed something but like Frozenwolf I fail to see why I should sympathize with any of the bears. I mean they murder other sentient beings and eat the corpses of their victims, and while the ones we do see (Invisible Storm) might have been Asshole Victims it still doesn't warrant such a gruesome and painful death as a bear mauling, not to mention it is probably likely they've also killed others we have not seen nor heard about. So tell me, why should they be seen as anything else than girl-eating murderers? Sure, they might be a little better than the other bears but it is still not good. And the food argument doesn't work either, bears have a very varied diet being omnivorous.

It was arguably warranted since the Invisible girls were actually trying to kill Kureha. And bears eat people. It's just what they do and it is in fact the Sexy way. They don't seem to do it often, and I don't believe they kill anyone besides the ones we know about because...it's a bear mauling, we would know about it.

There's a big victims-become-victimisers theme in this show. The bears are required to be murderous Psycho Lesbians, and in return get shot by the humans. The humans are required to be complicit in a brutal, repressive regime that stigmatises any form of physical affection and leaves anyone who's too openly different to die, and in return they get eaten by the bears. It's no coincidence that every enthusiastic adherent of the system so far has been at least partially motivated by self-preservation and has ended up dead anyway.

Ginko, for example, is an orphan raised as a second-class citizen who was enlisted as cannon fodder for a state that despises her, and who desperately sought validation from it. Then she ended up in love with someone she wasn't supposed to be in love with, and had to wrestle with the poisonous, destructive definition of 'love' that's been drummed into her her entire life. She's sympathetic because she never had a choice about becoming a monster, and because she's trying to be less of one within the incredibly warped framework she's been given.

takinganikuharashowliterally.txt

Pretty much.

While it's still possible to read to much into an Ikuahara series, for such a central, recurring occurrence, you can be damn sure that there a multiple levels of metaphor at play here and that's the important part.

Something else that's important to remember is that characters in Ikuhara shows often do some pretty terrible things and are forgiven. Penguindrum's cast, for instance, has multiple sympathetic main characters who are attempted rapists.

Finally you have a student council that approaches this problem in the proper way...

Excluding people's not gonna deal with the bear problem -In fact all it does is encourage it... since ya know free easy food-

The Only way to deal with this problem is to blow the *****ers to kingdom come... then turn their corpses into cyborgs so you can hunt the rest of them down.

That sure is one organized student body. Now they're finally getting stuff done. Lulu gives her final goodbye while hunted. Cyborg bears are the best power source. Kureha sort of kind of accepts Lulu. Everyone is out for Kureha's head. Time for her trial to begin.

In this episode: a yuri laser cannon powered by a gay cyborg bear.

Also: Yakusoku no Kiss!

edited 16th Mar '15 4:18:08 PM by majoraoftime

Undead cyborg bear. Used as a power source for a lily laser cannon

In some ways I feel Kureha was lying about not considering Lulu a friend, if only to herself. I don't think she would have really gone out of her way to do what she did if she didn't feel some camaraderie towards Lulu.

You think? She immediately spelled out after she did it that she was trying to drive Lulu away to keep her safe.

And sweet holy hell, this show does not fuck around with its metaphors. That's... one way to show how society forces the oppressed to victimise each other, I guess.

Would that society would be so kind to do it as obviously as lesbian-powered anti-lesbian lasers.