Kuma Miko

*This review contains minor spoilers*

Kuma Miko is a very cute anime. I quite enjoyed watching so far, but there are some reasons I couldn't feel but disappointment. And I'm just writing about this so people who feel the same towards the situation on this anime can already know about it.

Art is amazing, trully outstanding. High quality animation, for real. I really loved the traits, the expressions, the background scenario, everything. I didn't had anything to criticize here, also because this special way to draw characters and animals are kinda my favorite ever.

Sound is great, the endings and openings are cute as well, relaxing songs, pretty ... voices dubbing. Just the way I also happen to love.

The problem begins with some parts of the story and some specific characters. And I can't talk about it without showing some minor spoilers. But don't worry, it won't exactly change anything on the plot itself. Here is where I NEED to be very straight about it. I rather be critical then fall into blind fandom.

The story is mainly around a cute young girl, named Machi, trying to go to a school in a town near her village. Ok, nothing wrong until here. But then, we have a first strange impression on the very first episode: Yoshio (the city tourist guide) starts telling a group of nine years old kids [saying they could already hear an uncensored story, wtf?] about the village and how talking bears appeared there from a bear that had sex with a... priestess? Eeeeeeerm... Starting to get bizarre, right? But yeah... I tried very hard to ignore it, but then it got worse.

After this, the plot falls often into lolicon. Blatantly. There's an unbearable number of scenes where old men in the village are seen talking openly about the beauty and the body parts of a fourteen year old girl, in a sexual and fucking disgusting way. But there were a particular scene when the protagonist's cousin (Yoshio again) falls purposely upon her half-naked body, holding her wrists tightly, forcing her to respond in a totally cringy scene why a bear could see her naked like that and he, a grown fucking man, couldn't. Needless to say, I was deeply disgusted (again) and outraged by that, because is something made to sound funny. What's funny about it, really? Made me sick... It's was sexual harassment, but made in a way to look cute and funny, and "critical" (he claims equality over seeing a child naked? Are you guys FOR REAL?). It doesn't matter if he is from the family, that just make things even worse.

Machi is a 14 year-old girl but looks confusingly younger, and again, that makes everything look worse. Also, Natsu, the bear, always have these long flashbacks with a quite gross and pedophilia-like scene. Yeah, I know, he is an animal and it's supposed to be cute and pure, but it is not.

To end with it: I made some effort to keep watching and it had it's funny momments, although I find the show decently enjoyable at best. But I definitely couldn't close my eyes to the problems I said before. Knowing how Japan handles pedophilia and lolicon, I felt sincerely uncomfortable.

I love slice of life, it's my favorite genre of all times. If Kuma Miko didn't had this problems, it would be one of my favorites for sure... Such a pity...

So, if you can't tolerate pedo jokes, child sexualization and this kind of stuff, be aware or be away.

EDIT with spoilers about the ending of the story:

It ended so much fucking worse than I thought It would. Irritating and SO frustrating. Yoshio is definetely the worse character I've ever seen, a stupid moron that places a huge burden on a little girl even though she does not want to, even if she panics and becomes traumatized. Natsu is a selfish friend that manipulates her mind until she gives up the one dream she had of being able to study in a bigger school. The poor girl had no will respected and were always discouraged until she let go of it only to fulfill other people wishes. Dis-gus-ting. This show pisses me off A LOT. I take back the "could be my favorite" part. This anime has too many flaws on the plot to be considered good or even fair.

Terrible ending and scumbag characters ruin an otherwise average slice of life series.

Story: It's about a cute village miko who wants to experience city life. Unfortunately, she has crippling social anxiety which prevents her from interacting with strangers. Fair enough. That's an alright premise to go with. 6/10

Art & Sound: The art was good. The visuals were colourful and the choice of shamanistic BGM was unorthodox but fitting with the show. The studio did some good work in terms of audio and visuals. You can appreciate their high production values and the work they placed in the show. 7/10

Character: Machi's social anxiety gets increasingly worse ... as the show progresses. Social anxiety does that to you, and she needs help and loving support to overcome it. My bone to pick is with the supporting cast who aggravate it further with their insensitivity and selfishness.

Her cousin is a static scumbag to the end and accelerates her regression by continuously forcing her to become the village idol despite her protests. The bear (Her sole remaining pillar of support) eventually also regresses from a parental figure who gives her tough love to become increasingly clingy, emotionally manipulative and wanting to maintain Machi's social anxiety and the status quo (I get that this regression is anime exclusive but it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth). 1/10

Overall: This show's dark humour is mostly derived from Machi's ignorance of technology, social anxiety and the many ways her panic attacks sabotage otherwise normal everyday situations. It's a mix of funny and cringe until a certain threshold. Some reach their threshold after a few episodes. Others reach it at the last episode (I reached it at the last episode).

I'm giving it a 3/10 just out of sympathy for the studio people who tried their best to make it work. Otherwise, it's a plain 1/10 based on the characters alone.

Sigh... I hate to be doing this, but I gave this anime one of my lowest scores ever. In all honesty, I didn't hate this anime entirely, it was very cute and sometimes amusing, but unfortunately disappointment and general fucked-upness ruined this anime. Warning further ahead is spoilers, but I suggest you read on because it'll spare you the pain.

In the final episode, After Machi has run away from the Idol contest, she eventually picks up the courage to compete in this competition, Quite a brave act from someone with country-bumpkin complex (where she believes everyone thinks she's nothing but a dumb country bumpkin, when ... in actuality she really isn't). After she finished her dance, she is greeted by a crowd of cheers, but she believes them to be throwing rocks at her, etc. When she goes home, Natsu and Yoshio are sitting watching the TV. Machi says she no longer wants to go to the city, which makes Natsu so happy because he selfishly wants her to stay with him. So, instead of her friends clearing up the whole misunderstanding, they just let her believe it happened. This essentially ruined the entire message I think this anime was trying to send. Her complete fuck-up at the contest earlier was all because Natsu prayed that Machi would never leave the village again. An entirely selfish decision, that he didn't even bother rectifying.

Some of the other things this anime does are pretty messed up. Machi attempts to go to a store in Sendai, which takes all her courage. When she goes to the store she was sent to, she believes it is a witches store, and the person with her doesn't attempt to ease her into it but instead keeps pushing her. She goes full fear more, breaks down and runs away. This anime exploits this a lot, often for the sake of a cheap laugh.

There is a scene where Machi is trying to hand out samples of her villages food in a supermarket and is trying her darn hardest to speak up. Sometimes she does. An old woman comes up to her and tells her not to give up, and so do some other senior citizens.

Mostly, In the end, this anime was ruined by the writer being horrible. The message of conquering your fears? Oh screw that, let's be a horrible person. Thank you, Kuma Miko, for giving laughs, but also screw you for being horrible. The message of this anime at the end was, "Live under the total crushing weight of your fears, never attempt to conquer anything!"