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「クマさん、登場」 (Kuma-san, toujou)
“Bear Appeared”
The fall anime season is still just over a week away (yes, the RC Preview will be out soonTM), but that doesn’t mean we cannot get a teaser for what’s to come courtesy of pre-air subs. While I suspect a few might not be finding Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear’s variety of season starting festivities to their taste, this one will undeniably have a good share of the market when it comes to comfy.
Given I’d normally link to the trusty RC Preview (it’s still coming!) for basic synopsis info, to help fill in some blanks Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear can be thought of as Bofuri’s spiritual successor. Take cookie cutter VRMMORPG setting, pair it with spunky moeblob, go through the typical slice-of-life fantasy isekai tropes and checkpoints, and swim in more money than you know what to do with. Of course, the moeblob Yuna (Kawase Maki) in this case exchanges a ridiculous armour set for a bear costume and goes full stock market NEET shut-in to Bofuri’s game newbie cuteness, but make no mistake, these ones share quite a bit of DNA and will be playing to similar audiences—I guarantee it.
While the above is easily enough to determine who winds up sticking with this show, I will say its strengths look likely to override a lot of the vanilla blandness. Yuna for example dispenses with the usual MC unfamiliarity and starting from zero aspect, representing an experienced player already knowledgeable of all ins and outs. It’s not much by itself, but it really helps provide something different to the type premise that damn near all “true” isekai use in some fashion (e.g. Death March, Isekai wa Smartphone). And while the jury is still out on the bear aesthetics driving the whole thing, I must it’s pretty entertaining in the fluffy kind of way. Bear summons tied up in bear mitts that also function as respectable hand puppets? Oh the diabetes all but conceives itself. Going to be interesting seeing how the series’ main twist on the VRMMORPG is worked in given how this episode went (spoiler alert), but I don’t expect Kuma3 Bear to trip all that much once it starts hitting the gas.
It’ll be a bit of a wait to see what Kuma3 Bear has in store next (it technically premieres on October 7), but without a doubt if you like cute and isekai this one will be worth paying some attention to. And if you don’t have a thing for bears, well, best learn to get over that and embrace the kuma.
I couldn’t bear not watching this lol
You sir, nailed it. 😀
You don’t know how hard it was to avoid going ham on the puns when writing this XD
unbearably cute :3
I don’t know if they’re down playing the isekai aspect of the story on purpose
or they’ll pick it up later, but this is definitely something I’m going to enjoy.
Also, apparently, she’s butt-nekid under the costume! Leave it to the Japanese
to induce such imagery!
Of course, we’ll have to wait to the official start of this series next season for
episode 2 — a long wait IMHO!
Given what I’ve read of the series, the isekai aspect is mostly just in premise and setup; after laying the groundwork this one becomes largely fantasy slice-of-life in the same vein as Bofuri.
As much as I enjoyed Bofuri, it became a little predictable.
Hopefully, Kuma³ Bear will address those shortcomings —
it’s off to a good start for a pre-air.
Is this closer to how the light novel version starts? I’m reading the manga and this is a completely different beginning. The viper is something that occurs later on after she has been isekai’d. Honestly I have no idea why they started the anime this way, it just confuses things.
Oh and mac65, she has bear themed underclothes in the anime.
Yeah, I saw that later. I was going by the page 16 panel, but later it
mentions she has bear themed underclothes. Guess the author forgot 🤩…
The manga’s great but since this is a preview episode, maybe when
the Anime actually starts, it’ll be more in line with the Manga or LN.
Will it be 100% SoL or will there be some tension later on. Either way,
it’s a fun premise that they’re really making work (even though it’s just
1 episode).
I believe they started like this to give the usual action prelude designed to whet the appetite and encourage one to keep on watching.
I fully expect the second episode will provide the necessary infodump and missing material considering even I know what was seen here isn’t representative of the actual story.
Bit of a surprise to see this one out so soon, so thanks for the heads up!
No problem happy to let you know!
I actually wasn’t intending on covering this until the official premiere, but the appearance of decent subs over the original “quality” variety changed my mind.
I like Yuna. She’s got spunk. Not what I expected going into this.
Kai was certainly not a bearer of good news, but for a one-off kid character he proved his worth. It’s likely Yuna would have likely lost her bearings if she went off alone.
Still, going off to fight with a gigantic snake with her bear hands and bearly breaking a sweat? Talk about power. No wonder the black viper met a grizzly end.
….
Why are y’all looking at me like that?…. You’ll make me embearassed
Aw, come on, bear with me for a bit. You know it was only a matter of ‘when’, not ‘if’.