English Dub Review: Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear “Bear, Fights Squid (?)”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Yuna dumps the thieves that have been terrorizing the town at Atola’s doorstep. She’s prepared to simply leave it at that. But the shocked guildmaster demands to know the full story.

After the details reveal that Zarrad, the master of the merchant’s guild, had hired the thieves in order to create a crisis and price gouge food, Atola and Yuna confront him and make him pay for his crimes. Atola in particular gets to show off her ability to really pack a punch.

With the thieves behind bars, the coastal road is safe again. Yuna’s efforts have saved the town, but she’s really more interested in getting something to eat. Yuna returns to the restaurant she’d visited earlier, and they treat her to a special meal: grilled fish, steamed rice, and miso soup.

She cries tears of joy while eating it, and is even more excited when they reveal there’s an entire country with this cuisine: Wa.

There’s only one thing standing between her and this country of culinary delights: the giant squid.

Wandering around town fails to give her the inspiration she needs to defeat the beast, although it does lead to several comic-style scenarios about how such attempts may play out.

Thankfully, a hotpot dinner with Damon and his family leads to just the breakthrough she’s looking for.

Our take:

I’ll admit it: I thought she was gonna eat the squid.

And I suppose that’s still a possibility. But it wasn’t shown in this episode. Honestly, I was a little surprised it didn’t even make it into one of her “failed” comic plans while trying to figure out a way to defeat the beast.

These simple cartoon sequences certainly added to the humor for this episode, which could have easily read quite dark, what with Zarrad’s creation of a famine just so he could get rich.

Ultimately though, Yuna’s inspiration for defeating the “murder squid” was perfectly in line with her character. Oh, and definitely focused on obtaining more delicious food.

Her dinner with Damon (voiced by Aaron Campbell, aka Nakano on The Helpful Fox Senko-San) is both an adorable look at what life is normally like in Millela, and the moment that sparks her idea for how to proceed with her attack on kraken.

In addition to her plans being both food inspired and food motivated (her chant of “rice! miso! soy sauce!” while fighting is adorable, and apparently effective) this battle is the first one where we see some limitations on her powers.

She mentions while moving the “bears of earth” to trap the squid that this sort of magic takes a ton of mana.

While she’s still able to complete the battle, it does take some effort on her part. We see her struggle a bit, which is unusual. It’s unclear if her limits on mana is mainly a result of her current level, or due to lack of sleep.

Atola carrying our exhausted bear protagonist back to town after she passes out as soon as the battle’s finished is an undeniably sweet moment. For all the little sisters Yuna’s racked up in this game, it’s nice to see her get a big sister as well.

This is the penultimate episode of this series, and honestly, I’ll be sad to see it go. But as long as things get wrapped up with one more wacky adventure (and hopefully a final line or two from Amber Lee Connors as Atola) I think I’ll be able to bear it.