By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Lorin Christie.

I admit that I am sort of ready to give up? Not on Kuma Bear, mind you, it continues to be fine, if somewhat obsessed with its ongoing parade of children adoring Yuna. But look, this site gradually morphed into a thing where I only review light novels on it a few years back, and the one thing that’s been hardest for me to learn is that not all light novels need to have a full review. This especially goes for the slow-life ones that end up going on forever and ever, like this or Smartphone. And as readers have figured out, there are only so many ways I can say “boy, Yuna sure hates people praising her” or “gosh, this series loves to tease yuri fans while pointing out how not gay everyone is”. (Actually, this volume seems to be leaning more towards everyone staying single forever – the series’ almost complete lack of men doesn’t help.) But let’s roll up our sleeves, because I did see one thing this time I can talk about.

After the battle against the orochi in the Land of Wa, we get the traditional post-arc cooldown. Yuna is gifted a mansion to reward her for her efforts in saving the country, and the mansion being filled with hot springs leads to to actually accept the reward for once. She then grabs Fina, Shuri and Luimin and brings them over there for a lakeside barbecue as well as going around the shops, eating Wanese food and dressing up in kimonos – all things Yuna is strangely familiar with given she’s not supposed to be from Wa. On returning home, she decides to write a new volume of the children’s book series, and spends the rest of her time giving out souvenirs and candy. But there’s a competition in a country Yuna hasn’t been to yet, and Shia’s part of it, so Yuna and Noa go to cheer her on.

There were two interesting points this time around. First, Yuna’s love of natto, and the fact that the natives of Wa were baffled that she knew about it, almost caused her to give away her otherworldly origins. Yuna’s backstory, to everyone but Yuna and the reader, is wrapped in mystery, and she wants to keep it that way, partly because I think she doesn’t want to remember it very often. We do see her wish that she could invent Coke and anime so she could go back to being a shut-in, but I think Yuna’s grown past that now. The other interesting thing is the fourth picture book, where Yuna continues to rewrite her own reality to make it more palatable. Not only is she a literal bear in this series, but she also smooths things out and makes them more narratively easy to understand. The author has already been doing this with the novels themselves – it’s been a long time since we’ve seen a whiff of the sexual assault that plagued the earlier books. Yuna is not quite a self-insert, but the line is vague.

I’m not sure what will happen next, but I do know that what we’re getting next is another short story collection. Till then, this continues to be for fans who hope that when they grow up Fina and Yuna will marry. Keep hope alive, I guess.

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Lorin Christie.

Sigh. So not only does this volume retread a lot of ground I talked about last time when I was reviewing Kuma Bear (Yuna is a big softie but hates when people call attention to it), it’s also a huge battle volume, which means that 2/3 of it is made up of fights that I also can’t really review very well. It is nice to see Yuna having to think about various ways to try to defeat the fire orochi head, whose strengths actually block Yuna to a degree, and seeing her try some stuff that, back in Vol. 2 or so, was an immediate win move end up doing nothing whatsoever. She’s having to think on her feet and be clever, even though a lot of this is just “I can do things everyone else can’t because of the bear costume”. And we get a flashback showing how the orochi was first sealed, which is interesting if you’re invested in the fox spirit. Which… I wasn’t really. So yeah, still struggling.

Sorry, cover art fans, but Yuna spends barely any time in the white side of the suit this book – this is powerful, punching things Yuna through and through. Everyone realizes that the orochi’s seals are breaking, especially now that Mumulute shows up and it starts to really try to break its binding. The answer is to just fight and actually defeat it this time, but the orochi has four heads and its huge body, and even Yuna can’t duplicate herself. So Shinobu and Kagari also get involved, and unfortunately Shinobu is injured and has to be sent to the penalty box (the penalty box being Yuna’s home, where Fina is called over to nursemaid her). As for Sakura and Luimin, two of the latest girls to revolve around Yuna’s “10-year-old girls seem to dog me” orbit, well, they can at least try to stop it waking up for as long as possible. Still, in the end, it takes a bear. A bear who really, really does not want a reward.

So, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Yuna hates being praised and deflects attempts to credit her for anything, saying she just wants to live a life where she’s not viewed as the hero. That’s getting increasingly difficult, and it doesn’t help that Kagari (who, by the end of this book, is also in the body of a little girl – The Author’s Barely Disguised Fetish is always the weakest part of this series) is doing the same thing. On the bright side, I did enjoy seeing Luimin and Sakura bond immediately, to the point where they vow to travel the world together once they grow up, and it might even eventually be yuri if I thought the author was ever going to do anything of the sort, which I don’t. And we got to see Fina pouting and hitting Yuna with her fists like an anime cliche. That was cute.

We’re only a little behind Japan now, which has Vols. 20 and 20.5 out. Next time should see the start of a new arc, and no doubt new things for me to complain about. But I’ll read it. Yuna is as Yuna does.

By Kumanano and 029. Released in Japan by PASH! Books. Released in North America by Airship. Translated by Jan Cash & Vincent Castaneda. Adapted by Lorin Christie.

Well, I got my wish. Sort of. Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, like My Next Life As a Villainess, has a problem. It has cultivated a large yuri audience it absolutely does not want, but it cannot afford to piss that audience off too much as they’re one of the big reasons that it’s a success. It doesn’t help that Yuna has accumulated a “harem” of underage girls, which yes is the main draw of the series (the moe aesthetic, I mean), but also makes the yuri a bit creepy. Still, here at least we do have Yuna straight up saying that she isn’t interested in men. Unfortunately, she says it to a girl her own age who has expressed attraction to her, and Yuna’s response is “just because I’m not interested in men doesn’t mean I’m interested in you”. Honestly, as with many other series of this type, Yuna seems to be fairly asexual in general. But hey, a bone thrown to the fans. Now back to beating people up with magic bear powers.

As everyone predicted, Yuna’s discovery from the cliffhanger to 17 ends up being the Land of Wa that the author has threatened us with for so long. She heads over there on her bears, and finds it pretty much is just Japan in a vaguely fantasy setting. And I do mean vaguely. She can buy tatami mats, stay at a hotel with futons and a hot spring, and get artisanal candy shaped like animals (the bears have sold out, for some reason). Then she goes to the adventurer’s guild, there’s a quest to take out a dangerous predator that no one wants to take except her… and a very suspicious ninja girl named (try to contain your shock) Shinobu, who insists on accompanying her. Is there some secret plot going on? And does it involve trying desperately to break Yuna out of her shell of “whatever, I don’t care, I’m headed back”?

I was reminded the other day of a series I dropped .like a hot potato a while back, Wandering Witch. It has quite a bit in common with Kuma Bear, in that it stars talented people who try not to get involved in things but end up doing so anyway, and who have a large element of selfishness to their personality. For Yuna, though, this is mostly a front. When she finds out what’s happening to the country, and that it’s been predicted by the country’s prophet, she’s still fairly apathetic. But when she finds the prophet is a 10-year-old girl whose parents have died… naturally, she decides to help. Yuna rarely thinks about her parents much anymore, but there is a definite subtext of “kids need to be allowed to be kids, even when they are orphans and have to grow up fast, no one deserves the childhood I had”. She is a surrogate big sister to every girl she meets, and she will move heaven and earth for them. And then deny she did anything special.

This is a multi-part arc, so I assume next time will have lots of fighting. Till then, enjoy another review where I overanalyze a title that really doesn’t deserve it.