The Finale of Yuna‘s first season in Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear! This episode, we take a back seat to Yuna and focus a bit more on Fina, who isn’t thrilled with Yuna’s recent explosion in popularity…
Going in to the finale, I have no idea what to expect — and not in a good way. This season so far has had pretty satisfying episodes (Episode 8 being my favorite) as well as extremely boring ones (Episodes 7, 10 and 11 stand out in this regard). Will the finale be satisfying? My guess is as good as a coin toss.
Let’s get into it!
Episode 12: Miss Bear and Fina
This episode begins with Yuna getting a large bowl of rice from Ans, a minor character we met an episode or two ago whose sole trait is that she’s a good Japanese Food chef. Yuna pulls her “come with me” card again, and asks Ans to come back to Crimonia with her to open a Japanese food restaurant. Ans declines because of the giant mountain in the way, but Yuna gets her to admit that if the mountain was out of the picture, she might reconsider.
We cut to Fina eagerly awaiting Yuna’s return. When she spots Yuna in the distance, she instantly cheers up, and asks if she can spend the day with her. Yuna apologizes but says that she has an errand to run, and Fina grows a bit sad but tells her that it’s all right and they’ll hang out another time.
We then see what that errand is — Yuna arrives at Lord Cliff‘s home and tells him that the town of Millela wants to join Crimonia in being protected by local bandits. We once again cut to another part of the story, this time Atla meeting Lord Cliff, and Yuna being roped into making a large tunnel through the mountain to connect the two towns. This scene is pretty comical, and so far, I’m actually really entertained at the joining of the two towns.
Yuna then returns to Fina’s home, where she asks if Fina would like to see the sea — something that the Crimonia citizens have probably never seen before. They ask Tirumina and Gentz if they can take Shuri along, and the three go through the newly-formed tunnel to Millela. When they arrive, the citizens of Millela are enamored with Yuna, causing Fina to once again feel a bit slighted.
The bear-shaped home that Yuna made in Millela is where Fina stays for awhile while Yuna goes out to defeat monsters and meet with other people. Noire pays this home a visit, only to see Fina alone by herself. Fina opens up a bit to Noire about feeling lonely since Yuna is always out and about, and Noire tells her to be a bit more assertive.
That night, when Yuna returns, Fina (instead does the complete opposite) tells Yuna that she’d like to take a break from traveling with her and go home to learn how to butcher more properly from Gentz. Yuna agrees, and Fina returns home.
Fina spends a few days in Crimonia where Gentz inquires what’s up with Fina. Fina sadly tells him that she isn’t a Princess, nor an adventurer, nor a noble, nor a good cook — and feels that she must improve with butchering, because she feels it is her only use to Yuna. In essence, Fina is afraid that if she doesn’t improve her skills, Yuna won’t hang out with her anymore, and instead visit everybody else.
Gentz reassures Fina, in way appropriate for a ten year old girl, that Yuna’s relationship with her isn’t this transactional and that she can be a bit more selfish with Yuna’s time. Meanwhile, Noire pays Yuna another visit and talks to her about this issue with Fina, where Yuna begins to see things from Fina’s perspective a bit more.
The two reconvene in Crimonia and Fina prepares to bare her heart to Yuna — only for Yuna to hold Fina’s hands and tell her there’s somewhere she’d like to take her. Yuna takes Fina into the forest and looks up at the sunset, and tells Fina that her home is extremely far away. So far away, in fact, that she probably can’t ever return. She says that she never planned to meet Fina or settle down, but she’s glad that she did. She can’t explain why exactly she did this, nor can she explain why she bothers with the matters of others, but she simply does — and she says that doesn’t need a reason anymore, either.
We get a flashback scene from all the episodes thus far, and the two girls share a hug, marking the season’s end.
Opinions / Analysis
This finale was not the worst of the series at all. It took something very bland that other episodes spend the entire episode doing — in this case, uniting Millela and Crimonia — and also sprinkle in some interesting character depth on top of that with Fina. The episode with the orphanage (Episode 5) could’ve done this as well and it would’ve made it a million times more interesting.
This series as a whole suffers from its pacing — it’s far too slow. If Yuna were an adventurer that wasn’t overpowered and didn’t completely change the state of the world she was in, then perhaps a slower pace could be interesting. But when Yuna can completely eradicate 10,000 monsters in a few minutes, the slower paced episodes like Episode 5 just don’t hit for me at all.
This episode is better than those episodes in the way that it takes something bland and spices it up a bit. Would I say that this episode is Good? Well, it’s a bit too sappy for me personally — don’t get me wrong, I love cheese, but we didn’t get enough Yuna and Fina character development or inner conflicts for it to work. Up until now, whenever Fina has a problem, she runs either off into the woods to pick medical herbs, or to Yuna’s house.
It’s sweet, sure, but it’s boringly sweet.
What do you all think of the finale? What do you think will happen in Season 2? Are you even interested in watching? Let us know in the comments!
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You raised some good comments on this one and now I have to go back rewatch the episode. Though it is funny you talk about the pacing as they blew through almost 5 of the Light Novels to get to this point with the anime. They really did skip through a lot and I think the next season is going to be just as fast paced and a lot of side stuff gets neglected
hi Chris! did you read the light novel? I haven’t checked it out yet, but I’m always looking for more Light Novels to read!