Duly noted, thanks.

Nocturnalux wrote:

You mean like...Kuma Shock?

There are no spoilers, only Kuma Shocks.

After replaying this 10 times I have successfully desensitized myself to it.



Thank you!

Oh no, Mirun is adorable. I liked him a lot. I think that was the best episode yet.

I'm just gonna put this out there:

Wild guess 1.)
[ Kureha's mother was a Diane Fossey-esque figure, except with bears, and wanted to understand them so she took her daughter and lived among bears. She found an orphaned Ginko and raised her as her own (the already noticed star pendant could have been a gift to Ginko when they had to part ways, presumably because of the wall or societal pressure). Ginko later lived with her own kind, both her and Kureha forgetting about their childhood together, but Ginko felt a need to see Kureha again, drawn to the scent of lilies that remind her of Kureha's mom. Also, mom could have been killed by Kureha's teacher, out of jealousy or for meddling with bears, and the teacher implanted a fear and hatred for bears into Kureha.]

Wild guess 2.)
[Same as above, and has to do with what Flah noticed, but with Kureha and Ginko being actual sisters from  a bear/human union. Which means YKA has incest! With a third party (Lulu)!

BAM!!! Ikuni Combo!!!!]

That, or I need sleep.

But remember, you read this here first! Provided no one wrote it somewhere already.

Yessss I called the star necklace.

Ok seriously Mirun was really cute and I was actually kind of moved by the episode. I felt feels. FEELS.


I am liking the series more as it goes on. It looks like they've plotted it out nicely and that it's going deep. Deeper. Motto. Yes.


Almost peed myself laughing at this:


I was going to screenshot the Nanami-cardboard box but that's just too easy.

Episode 4 spoilers galore: [Mirun is not the smartest bear out there, is he. Cute but he got on my nerves after a while. And in the beginning it cracked me up how the Judge!Bear rolling around was so much like M!Akio. I wish they had done that scene with his human form instead, though.]

So far, this has been my favorite episode yet. Gave me a reason to care about some of the characters, at least. I'm still indifferent to Kureha, though.

that was sooo touching

lulu and ginko omg...

and nice to get more time with the judgemens too!!!!

YamPuff wrote:

Kiseki wrote:

Lulu's definitely more interesting after this episode. I wonder what the Promise Kiss symbolizes? What is the difference between "love" and "kisses?" I'm hungry for the next episode.

My first thought was sexual vs. platonic love? Might be more complicated than that, but that's what popped into my head.

My first guess is loving vs being loved (in return). So it may well go with your idea, in terms of fulfillment.

As to Lulu, I thought she was amazing from the very first ep!

Okay, so, why did we have the first three episodes?  I mean, stuff happened, and maybe it will be more significant in retrospect, but we basically get:

[1) Sumika's relationship with Kureha and her death.

2) The introduction, non-development, and death (?) of two antagonists.  Aside from their involvement in the "Invisible Storm," I don't see them having that big of an impact on the themes or plot, but man did they get a lot of screen time.

3) A lot of build-up to Lulu and Ginko's possible role as villains, which goes all of fucking nowhere.]

Right now, the fourth episode is just making me wish all of that could have been done more quickly and elegantly, because the fourth episode is actually good, in a way that I wouldn't say any of Penguindrum was, much less the first three episodes.  The re-used shots are still really noticeable, and not in a particularly good way, but… hey, it feels like there's actual content, I can give it a pass.

So, my thoughts on themes:

[I think it comes down to the phrase, "We loved you from the beginning, and we hated you from the beginning, too."  There was some speculation earlier about "pure" love and whether that differentiates bears and humans, and that's a theory I'm willing to subscribe to.  But I think "pure" love isn't love that's pure from lust, but from hate or resentment.

I think the decision to "not give up on love" is a matter of acknowledging that the love one feels is impure, and mixed with other emotions, but still being willing to believe in it and see it as valuable, rather than devaluing it, seeing it as a way of settling for something less than "real" love.  And that, the idea of finding value in flawed and ambiguous relationships, is an idea that I think is cool as hell.

As to why Kureha's (still?) human, I don't know, maybe her love (and maybe Sumika's?) really was pure, and consisted entirely of positive emotions.]

And finally:

[Anyone else notice Lulu's bee?

The opening shot (and the memory that Ginko prompts) imply that it's what killed her brother, and given how tied into her own emotions it is, I think that implication places a great deal of responsibility for the death on her: she didn't just send him off to do something dangerous, she was the one who attacked him directly.

However, when it circles someone, it's usually circling just her, but when her brother is close to her, it circles both of them, and it also circles both Lulu and Ginko when Ginko shows up.  I suspect it represents some sort of protective urge, which manifests as hostility to most people (the princes/judges and her attendants in an early scene) who try to get close (physically and emotionally) to Lulu.]

Well, the first three episodes seemed to be for the viewers to form misconceptions and theories on the roles of the characters, the Invisible Storm, etc. Once Episode 3 firmly established what the storm was, and that Lulu and Ginko are assisting Kureha, we could go into the backstories of characters that were intended to be ambiguous prior. That's how I see it.

One thing I thought was kind of interesting was that [the box Mirun was climbing in was labeled "love." And while Lulu was using it as a way to kick him off a cliff to his supposed death, he didn't die and always came back. Maybe the box was actually protecting him from being harmed even though Lulu had harmful intentions? In the end, what killed him was the bee while he was outside the box. ]

I don't know, though. Just tossing some ideas around.

Last edited by HonorableShadow (01-27-2015 05:33:16 PM)