Helen: Kureha Tsubaki lives a quiet, invisible life but recently she has been having tumultuous dreams about bears, the end of the world, and her classmate Ginko Yurishiro. In the real world Ginko appears to be absolutely smitten with Kureha, but as she starts to put the moves on Kureha another girl from Ginko’s past appears and she learns that Ginko’s reality may be even stranger than her own dreams.
Kunihiko Ikuhara’s 2015 yuri anime was a strange, surrealist fairy tale that involved promises, secrets, and many, many bears disguised as human girls. As with his previous projects, Ikuhara collaborated with another creative, this time mangaka Akiko Morishima, for the anime and Morishima went on to create the manga version of the story. I do think we can call this manga her story (“Ikunigomakinako” looks quite a bit like Ikuhara’s twitter handle and I think that “story” credit is more a nod to how the overall/original project was his idea than to suggest he is the writer) and Yuri Bear Storm the manga is weird in many different ways from the anime.
For starters, Kureha and Ginko feel like tweaked versions of the characters we first got to know in the anime. Kureha comes across as much more reserved and Ginko feels a bit like a manic pixie dream girl — she even pulls a “see, you’re beautiful without your glasses!” on Kureha (Kureha also seems much more interested in Ginko from the get-go).
The story also seems much less surreal and more “traditionally weird” instead. A surprising amount of change in tone is due to the lack of strange, carefully planned backgrounds and other details in the setting that aren’t present in Morishima’s manga (although, some fans may think that it is “weird” that Kureha and Ginko now go to a co-ed school). I do miss the backgrounds, they were fabulous, but Morishima is hardly the first mangaka to skimp on drawing backgrounds unless absolutely necessary.
The anime is what I would describe as “100% literal and 100% symbolic”, an odd mixture of tones and themes (which made me love it) that fans expect from Ikuhara but is a style that I don’t see many other people working in, including Morishima. Here we seem to be dealing more in symbolism than literal strangeness, as Ginko reveals to the reader that she sees the entire world (except Kureha) as bears but it’s heavily implied that this isn’t the truth of the world. Ginko is instead dealing with some heavy delusions that her mother instilled in her. I was surprisingly disappointed by this revelation, because unlike the anime where it can be at times hard to figure out what is “truly” going on this much more straightforward explanation felt rather blah and cliched at first.
In fact, if anything Yuri Bear Storm the manga feels like a cliched embrace of Class S yuri tropes that the Yuri Kuma Arashi anime played with and defied. There are two more volumes to this manga so there is still plenty of time for the story to throw in some unexpected twists and revelations, but ultimately I’m disappointed that we have finally gotten one of Morishima’s works in English and that I didn’t like it. I’ve been hoping for years that some of her works, including this one, would get licensed so now I will have to continue hoping that another property gets brought over as well and that I enjoy it more.
Helen’s rating: 2 out of 5
Rai: For the last 3 to 4 years, Yuri Kuma Arashi has been my favorite yuri anime. So naturally, I was overjoyed when I heard about an English translation of the manga, which is officially called Yuri Bear Storm. But after finishing Volume 1, I had a different feeling than I expected. I wasn’t enchanted by the manga; I was baffled by it.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s just, so far, the manga adaption is not like the anime. At all. This was surprising considering the manga and anime are both written by Kunihiko Ikuhara (who also directed the anime and sometimes goes by the pseudonym Ikunigomakinako). The manga still has the bears, queer girls, and a ton of absurdity. However, it approaches things much differently, and, while it is still strange, it’s not out of control. The anime, in my opinion, is a whole other level of weird. Kunihiko Ikuhara is known for making extremely surreal works. With the Yuri Kuma Arashi anime, he and his staff took his concept of cute kuma, lesbians, and metaphors… and ran with it.
While the manga still has these elements, it felt much more down to earth. At least, at first. Instead of utter bear insanity, the manga follows the daily life of Kureha and Ginko. In the beginning, Kureha is very quiet and doesn’t interact with others in her class. But then Ginko comes along. She recognizes what a great person Kureha is and helps her open up. As time goes on, they start to develop a close friendship and maybe even some romantic feelings. It feels kind of like a typical yuri story (Girl Friends, anyone?).
There are, of course, also… a lot of bears. Like the anime, bears are an important motif in the story. However, the bears in the manga are a little more ambiguous. In this version, Ginko believes she is a bear. The problem is… we don’t know if she is just in her mind or if it’s actually true. Volume 1 ends without fully answering this question. Another major difference in the manga is Ginko’s character. We see a lot more character development on her part and see more of her personal thoughts, including her feelings toward Kureha. I liked this because I was able to understand why Ginko loves Kureha so much, and it makes the yuri in the story a little more believable.
The character Lulu, who is another bear (?), isn’t exactly the same either. She’s still Lulu (and my personal favorite character), but the circumstances surrounding her are different. She provides a lot of laughs in the manga, though, and I’m always happy to see more of her.
So, what are my overall thoughts? It’s honestly hard to say. I think someone who hasn’t watched the anime will enjoy volume 1 of Yuri Bear Storm more, mostly because they won’t be nitpicking it the entire time. It’s just as an anime watcher – especially one who LOVES the anime – I have a lot of bias. To me, the manga almost feels like the first draft of the Yuri Kuma Arashi anime – and I guess in some ways, it is a first draft since it was written by the same person.
Don’t get me wrong; I still enjoyed the first volume. It was interesting to see everything portrayed so differently and in a way that is more straight-forward. It was also nice to read it without being completely lost the entire time, though some parts (mostly the end) are still confusing. I enjoyed the art as well. The character designs are great, and they really pop thanks to Akiko Morishima’s handiwork. The manga’s art still has fan service, but it’s not as extreme as the anime, which I liked. On top of this, I am always happy to see girls in love, and I liked how Kureha’s and Ginko’s relationship has more time to develop without too many distractions.
But at the end of volume 1, I felt like there was something more to be desired – namely knowing what is happening with all of the “bears.” Overall, Yuri Bear Storm is a distinctive yuri story. Although it starts out with many common staples of yuri (the girls’ relationship in the beginning, love triangles, guys getting in the way), the story has an underlying mystery and plenty of other bear-related stuff going on. It’s just… it will leave you with different questions than the anime does. Still, I am excited to read the next volume to see what happens and hopefully get all of my questions answered.
Rai’s rating: 3 out of 5