[Yuri Kuma Arashi] - 1
I think it's fair to say that, over time, Ikhuara's works have transitioned from relatively normal stories with a few very stylized elements to extremely stylized works with very few elements of normal storytelling. It's pretty funny that at this point Revolutionary Girl Utena feels 'quaint' and 'restrained' to something like Penguin Drum which itself pales before Yuri Kuma Arashi. I know that I'm simplifying things quite a bit here, but you get my idea. This first episode does not feel very 'consume friendly'.
It's not wise to draw any conclusions right away and things might change in a few episodes, but for now it feels like traditional ideas of characterisation and even pacing have been pushed aside to allow the show to dive right into Ikuhara's very unusual vision. I don't think that you should be sacrificing characterisation in an attempt to bathe in melodrama and symbolism, but Ikuhara clearly made that choice here as this episodes rushes along at 100 miles an hour. We're swept from event to unusual event in a whirlwind and given no time to breathe.
Theories abound as to why this might be. Penguin Drum certainly felt like a three-cour series told in two-cours, so could this be a two-cour show shoved into a single cour? Considering how long Ikuhara has taken between projects it's conceivable that he just never got the funding to make the shows the length he wanted and instead just squeezes his material down to fit whatever runtime he can work with. If this was true it would certainly explain a lot about his recent works, but it doesn't excuse the problems with Penguin Drum and this first episode.
Perhaps we're all jumping the gun here and the next few episodes will pull things back somewhat to actually develop the characters to the point where we are actually invested in them. I certainly hope so but even if it doesn't happen this will still be something I look forward to watching every week because nothing else is like it.
