Lecture slides used in Desucon frostbite 2020 about Ikuhara Kunihiko's "Yurikuma Arashi" and its referent in society. Theme analysis from the perspective of an historian/international relation student. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yanPQc9zm8

1. Connecting the Conflicting
Worlds - Reverse-engineering
Yurikuma Arashi
Reflection on Yurikuma to make sense of Kolme Lautasta Sarazanmai
Wataru “walterinsect” Yamazaki
Desucon Frostbite 2020

2. #KuumaLilja
For comments, questions, criticisms
Hot Yuri Action

3. Outline
1. What this is about
2. Hypothesis
3. Kuma Arashi
4. Post-9.11
5. Keywords
6. Yuri
7. Layered “Yuri”
8. What was it about?
9. Connecting with Sarazanmai

4. What this is about

5. Rant
International Relations /
History Ikuhara Craziness

6. So…

7. Why Yurikuma Arashi now?
• Mirror image of Sarazanmai (2019)
• To better understand his new work
• Most abstract of his work*
• *experience may vary
• I felt like it

8. Yurikuma Arashi ユリ熊嵐
• Director: Ikuhara Kunihiko
• Winter 2015
• 12 episodes
• Novel and comic

9. Ikuhara Kunihiko Exhibition 2019 Pamphlet
“Looking at Ikuhara’s work as a director, one will notice a special
thing. That is his “era-consciousness”. Things like socially impactful
events, natural disaster, political change, advancement in technology
has fundamental effects on people’s mind. Ikuhara’s creative world is
often intertwined with the events at the time and reflects the era. “
(Ikuhara Kunihiko Exhibition Preparation Committee, p. 1)

10. この写真 の作成者 不明な作成者 は CC BY-SA のライセンスを許諾
されています

11. Reverse-engineering
Abstract presentation
(i.e. my brain when I watch Utena
Movie)
Concrete IRL events

13. Hypothesis
Aims, context, and official narrative

14. Utena was ~1980s,
Penguindrum was 1995,
Yurikuma was 2001

15. この写真 の作成者 不明な作成者 は CC BY-NC-
ND のライセンスを許諾されています この写真 の作成者 不明な作成者 は CC BY-SA-NC のライセンスを許諾されています

16. Eternity
Miracle Revolution

17. “Shojo Kakumei Utena dealt with the sense of stagnation
unique to the 90s, and the atmosphere of wanting a change.”
(Ibid.)

19. Destiny
Sin Family

20. “In Mawaru Penguindrum, he dealt with the Subway Attack in
1995.” (Ibid.)

21. Invisible
Wall Promise
Official Narrative…?

22. “In Yurikuma Arashi, he focused on the issues of
communication in the social media era.” (Ibid.)

23. Chotto Matte

24. Ikuhara Exhibition Pamphlet p.

25. Yurikuma Arashi is…
Using Yuri and Kuma Arashi to talk
about post-9.11 world

26. Kuma Arashi
Not-referenced canon
Kuma shock!

27. Kuma Arashi
• A novel by Akira Yoshimura in 1977
• Based on real incident in 1915
• Worst incident in JPN history
• No direct reference

29. Sankebetsu Brown Bear Incident
• December 1915
• Sankebetsu district, Hokkaido
• Attack by a 380kg bear
• 7 deaths, 3 injured
• Master matagi Yamamoto

32. Hokkaido as historical “problem space”
• Ezo(蝦夷）
• “northern barbarians to be conquered”
• Key issue since 8th Century
• Origin of “Shogun”
• Fertilizer and deforestation
• “Inner colony” of Japan (Imanishi 2007)

33. 1915 in Japanese history
• After Sino- and Russo-Japanese war
• Established itself as a Great power
• Hokkaido as
• its first internal/external colony
• frontline against Russia

34. Kuma Arashi
• Clash of two worlds / Lebensraum
• Bears – Nature
• Humans – stepping into wilderness for gain
• Hostility
• Absolute division and hatred
• Human victory
この写真 の作成者 不明な作成者 は CC BY-SA-NC のライセンスを許諾
されています

35. Post-9.11
Division, hatred, the scarring memory

36. What did 9.11 brought?

38. Re-surfaced religious conflict
• “Clash of Civilizations”
• Tensions in the post-colonial world
• New ways to achieve the goal

39. Colonial past

40. Victimhood/Victimizerhood
• 9.11 as a point of
1. Victimhood sentiment of the Victimizers
2. Victimizing actions of the Victims
• Ikuhara’s first-hand experience

41. But you can’t just say
“9.11/religion”
to everything!

42. Kumaria Religion
Yurikuma Arashi Ep. 11

43. Religion in Ikuhara’s work
• Penguindrum
• As the “past to overcome”
• Constraints
• Kiga no Kai = Aum Shinrikyo
= Cult
• Yurikuma Arashi
• World after it is “overcame”
• “secularization”

46. (clip from “vanguard” scene)
• Ep7 12:02~13:02

47. Religions of the same root
• Abrahamic Religion
• Similiar religious imagery
• Escher-esque tessellation pattern
• Picture book as the Holy text

48. • Stained glass from
Kumaria Religion (Ep.
11 12:05~12:13

51. Ursa and Homo(Yuri)
• Ursa
• Society bound with religion
• Training “vanguards to keep
the absolute division”
（Ep. 11）
• Homo
• Secularised society
• Governed by “atmosphere”

52. Why “secularized”, not
“Christian”?

53. Maybe clip from ep 11
• 15:18~15:49

54. Bear laser

55. Reversed symbol

56. Secularization as “Schizophrenia”
• Separating faith and logical mind
• Ursa and Human
• Interchangeable, overlapping ideas
• Internal conflict
• Symbols of border and schizophrenia
• Two-point perspectives
• Reference to Psycho (1960)

57. Ep.11 clip

58. Two-point perspective

60. Keywords
Interpreting keywords

61. Absolute Division, Gateway of Friends
• Border of the Lebensraum
• Kuma Arashi
• Cf. Palestinian border, Trump Wall
• Sole point of mutual understanding
• Jerusalem…?

62. Invisibility, Invisible Storm
• Nationalization and Secularization
• Accepting norms
• Membership
• Peer pressure within communities

63. (screencap)

64. Ceremony of Exclusion
• Homeland Security, internal security
• Eliminating potential enemies
• Defining self through hostility
• Suppressing expression

65. Promised Kiss, True love
• Rejection of “love as desire”
• = Eros
• Desire to dominate and obtain
• Egoistic love
• True love “making yourself dive into the storm”
• = Agape
• Self-sacrificing love

66. Amnesia of the Colonial past
• Victimizing Middle East
• Colonialization, intervention, oil, political instability
• “Beat the evil terrorists in the name of justice”
• Kureha’s amnesia
• Believing in justice to “destroy all the bears”
• Cognate naïveté

67. Yuri
As genre and as symbolism

68. It’s in the name!
• Imagery of intimate F/F relationship
• Agape/Eros/Philia/Storge between girls

69. Revisiting the issues
• Sailor Moon
• Utena
• Ikuhara as Yuri director…?

70. Ikuhara doing Yuri kuma Arashi
• Post-Utena
• What “revolution” brought to this world
• “icing on the cake”
• Utilising branding to attract audience

71. Layered Yuri
Complicated Yuri representation

73. Is Yurikuma Arashi just an ordinary yuri
anime?

74. Layer 1: Taking Yuri at face value
• Surely “looks yuri”
• Icing to draw audience
• Ikuhara doing proper Yuri…?
• “I couldn’t determine how much “service” I should include”

75. Yuri as a genre
• Purity
• Christian girl’s school
• Intimate, but not sexual…?

77. Symbolism
• Purity
• Chaste
• Sacred
• Virgin Mary
• Fleur-de-lis
• Holy Trinity
• Virgin Mary

78. IKUHARA, WHY
Goddamnit gimme more

79. Excessive diversion
• Excessively sexual symbol
• Total diversion from genre norm/symbolic meanings

80. Layer 2: Mocking the norms
• “purity”
• cognate with homogeneity belief
• Challenging genre norms
• Sugar coated critical
• Meta-genre and meta-fictional

81. What was Yurikuma about?
Revisiting the beginning

82. We have always detested you.
And we have always loved you.
It drove us to reach out in friendship.
The wall be damned.

83. We have always detested you.
• Maintaining the division
• Destroyed Kumaria and Clash of Lebensraum
• 9.11
• Arrogance
• Amnesia
• retaliation

84. And we have always loved you.
• Bears and Humans are the same
• “Abrahamic Religion” interpretation of Islam, Christianity and
Judaism
• Mutual understanding was possible

85. It drove us to reach out in friendship.
The wall be damned.
• Struggle towards mutual understanding
• Rejection of social rules
• Creating bond free of the narrative of the community
• To overcome the division

86. Praise to individualism
• Free yourself from societal norms
• Bonds can sustain individual
• “The power to revolutionize the world!”
• “Transferring the Destiny”
• si vis amari ama(if you seek love, love first)”
• Reaching agape

87. Epilogue:
Connection with Kolme
Lautasta
Mirror image, what is Sarazanmai about?

88. Themes
• Desire
• Imperialism
• “true love in a box” (C.V. Rie Kugimiya)

91. World after Iraq
• Lone Wolf terrorists
• ReoMabu dance sequence
• “Invincible people”
• Those who have nothing to lose, turning against society
• Breivik?

92. 3.11 as next turning point
• Social media
• Desire for survival
• Not to be overcame/suppressed
• Seeking for connections
• Turn from Individualism?

93. Sarazanmai
• Lonely people in the hyper-connected world
• Amazon
• Social media
• Connection
• 3.11-induced
• Cf. Death Stranding, Tenki no Ko

94. Kiitos!
Kysymksiä?

95. Nyt Päättäjäisille!