Yuri Kuma Arashi 3
I had gotten the impression from some that the first half of this episode was kind of a waste, and I don't really think that's true. This episode is paced a lot more naturally than the other two episodes, and the purpose of it is largely to express how Kureha has responded to Sumika's being eaten, and how that contradicts the environment around her.
There are some revealing aspects of in her consultation with the principal, particularly in how guarded she is about her grief, but the most revealing part is really her scene in class, and on the roof. The flashbacks connect to the present. She holds onto the eraser she borrowed from Sumika, worn now to little more than a nub. She looks at the garden she built together with Sumika, an act that's already in some respects a remembrance of her mother. She's lost in these memories of the past.
That's expressed most literally here, in the classroom. Everyone is focused on their lessons, but Kureha is focused on Sumika's absence. She can't let go of the things time and circumstance have taken from her. She tries to redirect that grief into a hatred of bears, but she can't quite manage it.
The most interesting thing here is how that serves as a counterpoint to the other members of her class. Everyone goes through the show of the ceremony and its public expression of grief, but the class is business as usual. They're what Kureha is afraid of becoming, and because she shuts herself off from them in favor of the now-absent Sumika, they exile her.
I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around exactly what bears and eating really mean, but the themes related to invisibility, the "invisible storm", and being part of the group are becoming more and more obvious. There's no room for a real love that one doesn't give up on in this school.