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

I have frequently whined about having to review a lot of these .5 short story collections, mostly as they tend to feature things like bookstore exclusives that out of necessity cannot have any effect on the plot. But in something like Kuma Bear, a series that is so dependent on Yuna’s POV that any scrap we get from other characters is most welcome. If there’s one thing that we’ve learned about Yuna throughout this series, it’s that she – still! – hates herself. Every time she talks about her physical appearance it’s to talk about how short, flat, and plain she is, and every time she does anything for others she plays it off as being self-serving or nothing special. But when you see Yuna in the eyes of other characters, she’s described as “slim, pretty and feminine”, and everyone and their brother talks about how kind and nice she is. Honestly, this world warps to that kindness – which is why the darkness of the past is – mostly – not seen anymore.

I say mostly because this volume, for the first two-third or so, adapts the bookstore-exclusive stories from Vol. 10-16, which means it has the beach trip to Mileela, including in the party the women from Mileela who were abducted by bandits. Neaf in particular was raped and had her family murdered, and they HAVE to discuss it here, but it’s elided to “something terrible happened”, as they’re always talking about it to kids. After these stories we get five more written just for the volume, which honestly have the same feel as the stories we’d just read. The last quarter of the book is the most unique, as it has Yuna, Fina and Noa watching the first season of the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear anime.

Believe it or not, the last section is by far the most interesting and rewarding. If you’ve ever been to the Archive Of Our Own fanfiction site, you may be familiar with a genre called “Reaction Fic” or “Characters Watch the Show”, and this is essentially an official version of that. That said, the best of those fanfics analyze the source and are able to give new fresh takes, and that’s what we see here. I’m sure it’s not canon, but here we see Yuna’s past in Japan and her isekai’d status revealed to Fina and Noa, and Yuna narrating that she regards having to learn to cook and clean for herself because her parents were never around as “cherished memories”, as they let her live on her own here. That’s horrible! She also sees Noa’s optimism and positiveness about herself and thinks that she should learn from Noa as she’s so negative. I agree so much. Lastly, they also watch the anime original parts, including the final episode, which Yuna herself describes as “like a yuri anime”. They’re not beating the allegations.

So this was more rewarding than I expected, and at 400 pages or so it’s good bang for your buck. It’s not all moe cuteness. Just… mostly.