Anyone who has a backlog the length of a laundry list that could extend from the opposite ends of a football field knows that a lot of anime has been produced since the dawn of the medium. You could say this about most animated mediums, but anime hit something of an exponential growth going into the late ‘00s as the industry started to quickly expand beyond its niche audience. Anime seasons used to barely scrape the double-digits in total production count, but that number has nearly quadrupled in just over a decade. Looking at the upcoming Winter 2024 season, there are 46 new anime productions airing with standard length episodes. That’s not even counting shorter length productions or multi-cour leftovers from the previous season. New anime studios seem to crop up out of nowhere to meet this demand, and as of right now, there doesn’t seem to be any sign that this is going to slow down any time soon. If it does, it’s going to be like a train smashing full speed into a brick wall, and I’m not qualified to talk about the repercussions that kind of thing will have on this medium.
The real point I’m trying to make is – there’s a lot of anime out there. When you go beyond the more notable picks, whether by popularity or by critical acclaim, you’re swimming through a dense ocean of animation trying to find the gems buried in the seabed. But having a lasting impact in this medium isn’t always accomplished by being great. Sometimes it’s by being infamous. People to this day will still talk about trainwreck productions like DEEN’s Pupa and the ever detested Glasslip from P.A. Works. Sometimes it’s better to be notable than not at all, because being remembered is the end result whether you’re good or bad. People who watched Ex-Arm will probably remember its jarringly terrible 3D animation a decade from now in the same way that people still harp on the 2016 adaptation of Berserk. Just like how I still remember watching true bottom of the barrel trash like Big Order and Taboo Tattoo several years later! Both of those aired in 2016, by the way. Evidently this was a rocky year for anime.
You know what else aired in 2016 that has an infamous reputation? An adaptation of a quaint little slice-of-life comedy manga called Kuma Miko. If you’ve ever heard of this series, it’s likely because you’ve heard someone talk about the infamous ending scene. After watching enough anime, you come to realize that endings are never the best part. This is especially true of manga adaptations that only receive a single cour, because the directors and writers have to establish finality where there is none. Japanese story structures highly value the conclusive aspect of the ending to any piece of media, so they have to come up with something to let the dust settle whether it’s good or not. As I’ve mentioned in my other writing, the one-cour manga adaptation serves virtually the same purpose as an advertisement. That doesn’t preclude them from being good; you can read my high praise for Watamote which fits the mold here. But the purpose is to advertise the source material. It’s an investment, and that means you’re not always going to see burning passion from the end product. Kuma Miko is also a manga that only received a single cour anime adaptation, and its entire legacy is hinged on controversy.
For several years, I’d heard about the infamous Kuma Miko ending scene. I’d read paragraphs from people claiming that the anime director and scriptwriter tried to spin the series into some kind of cruel psychological torture porn involving the main character, the socially stunted 14-year old Machi Amayadori. I’d even tried to look into the ending out of context, but that was a fool’s errand. I knew that I had to see the whole thing start to finish before I could truly judge for myself if these claims were true. Despite the infamy, this is still quite a niche series that one would’ve only heard about back in 2016 when it aired. Nowadays, you’d have to dig to see any discussion about it unless you stumbled into a “worst anime ending” thread. As such, it took me over seven years to finally dive in and see for myself if this was truly the bastardized adaptation that so many had claimed it was.
The premise is simple: In the remote Kumade Village located in Japan’s Tohoku region, Machi Amayadori serves as a miko at the Kumade Shrine. The village secretly coexists with the Kumai clan, a lineage of bears that are capable of human speech and are revered by the village locals. Machi maintains a relationship with the current representative of the Kumai clan, Natsu, but the reality is more like they’re normal siblings. Machi and Natsu grew up together which established a trusting relationship between the two. They’ve always relied on each other, but the reliance is tested after Machi becomes fed up with the doldrums of rural life and decides she wants to attend high school in the city. Machi’s sheltered upbringing has left her socially maladjusted and she is largely unaware of the existence of modern appliances and technology due to the village having little of either. On the other hand, Natsu has a keen interest in modern culture and technology. This leaves him far more knowledgeable than Machi – something he leverages as he tries to dissuade her from leaving the village.
Kuma Miko has a fairly small rotating cast with a few recurring characters that pop in every once in a while to spice things up. There are only two significant characters besides Machi and Natsu that frequently appear in most episodes – Machi’s cousin Yoshio and his childhood friend Hibiki. Yoshio works for the village’s health department as the “Zest Officer”, a meaningless title he probably made up himself. He’s one of the very few young people working for the village which is primarily populated by the elderly who don’t have the energy to come up with a way to attract new blood. As such, he has taken on the daunting task of trying to breathe new life into the village with the noble (but unlikely) goal of skyrocketing its popularity so that more tourists visit and potentially even move into the area. In contrast, Hibiki lives outside the village as a motorcycle riding delinquent with a short temper and a serious lack of honesty with herself. Despite not having any desire to return, she still begrudgingly makes semi-frequent visits to the village. It isn’t long after her first appearance that the reason is made clear: she has painfully obvious feelings for Yoshio after the two of them grew up together. Feelings so obvious that you’d have to be as dense as an extruded brick to miss them, which is bad news for her considering who she’s infatuated with.
Yoshio is the most controversial character in this anime; I only say that because I’ve seen people who watched this show talk about him like he’s a few hairs shy of having committed a war crime. He straddles the line between being exceptionally dense and fairly perceptive, which could give the impression that most of his behavior is an act. Yoshio takes his position very seriously, and he eagerly throws anything and everything at the wall to accomplish his goal of revitalizing the village. Unfortunately for the socially adverse Machi, his plans often involve her as the central figure. As the village Miko, she is treated as something of a mascot by the other villagers – something Yoshio interprets quite literally. Many of the awkward, painful, and borderline traumatic experiences that Machi endures are largely a result of one of Yoshio’s schemes to bring in tourists by using her as an attraction. There’s a running subplot where he tries to market her as a pop idol which leads to a significant event down the line, but I’ll talk about that later as it is a crucial event that shapes the infamous final moments of the anime’s ending.
The rest of the remaining cast largely consists of minor characters who exist in the background. Three of the village children (and they may be the only children who live there) get introduced in the first episode but they appear so sparsely afterward that I couldn’t be bothered to remember their names. Yoshio’s older friend Matsu has a few appearances but all he really does is get drunk off of his own illegally brewed alcohol. There’s also the other characters in the village’s health department, but the only one who really stands out is the meek glasses wearing OL whose entire gimmick is that she shouts “SEXUAL HARASSMENT!” in English whenever any of the male villagers talk brashly to her. It’s clear that most of the supporting cast are largely there to enhance the antics between our main four, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Machi and Natsu are the main attraction in this anime (it’s called Kuma Miko for a reason) and the entire supporting cast – including Yoshio and Hibiki – exist to spice up their daily adventures.
The back and forth between Machi and Natsu largely revolves around Machi’s stubborn desire to make it in the big city. As the village’s well kept secret, Natsu is bound to his post and would be separated from Machi if she left. It’s no surprise then that he does everything in his power to convince her that she isn’t ready for the hustle and bustle of city life. He comes up with the idea of trials for her to overcome in the very first episode, starting with a simple yet deliberately misleading quiz which then leads to other escapades in later episodes such as her having to pick up an item from the nearby clothing store and being tasked to get something from a novelty store at the local shopping mall. Natsu clearly demonstrates how much he cares about Machi but struggles with his selfish desire that goes against her dream, something that he acknowledges in the tail end of the anime. Make no mistake though – this is a quirky slice of life comedy first and foremost. With most of the runtime spent in the village proper, Machi’s day to day interactions with her friends and the local villagers get the most focus.
Kuma Miko has two primary modes of humor. The first has to do with the quirkiness of the village, both in its lore and the interactions between the villagers and the main cast. There’s an infamous gag in the first episode where Yoshio is reciting an old story chronicling the religious origins of the village to the kids. In this legend, the sacrificial maiden protects the village from the vicious bear god with a little bit of beastilaity, which makes one of the kids think that Natsu did the nasty with Machi (the punchline is that Natsu is neutered). This kind of inappropriate humor is not common throughout the rest of the show other than some tame off-the-cuff comments from some of the older villagers. Otherwise they mostly give Machi the mascot treatment, like in one episode where the villagers hold a contest to design a summer miko outfit for her but they really just wanted an excuse to have her wear several cute outfits. It made me think of the Hazuki costume montages from Tsukuyomi. There’s also an episode much later where Yoshio comes up with the idea to film a commercial for the village and Machi is the central figure in it.
The other flavor of humor in this anime is far more prevalent. It’s the classic social anxiety induced cringe humor a la Watamote, and the way these moments are portrayed are strikingly similar in execution between the two series despite Tomoko and Machi being drastically different characters. Machi’s lack of experience with modern life coupled with her crippling anxiety when dealing with people outside the village leads to her often stumbling into trouble whether by her own stubbornness or as a result of one of Yoshio’s schemes. Her deep seated fears of being judged for being a rural girl are so intense that she very literally hallucinates said judgment from other people regardless of what’s actually happening. In one episode, she goes to a relatively busy shopping mall and becomes so self-conscious about showing up in her school uniform (the only outfit she has besides her miko garb) that she hallucinates an entire crowd ganging up on her. Her anxiety doesn’t stop there, though. The most agonizing scene happens in the anime’s eighth episode (coincidentally, Watamote also had its worst painful cringe scene in episode 8) after Yoshio tricks Machi into working at the local supermarket handing out samples of one of the village’s delicacies. Pressure from the store manager, anxiety from being around strangers, and her own lingering insecurities create a cocktail of emotional turmoil that relentlessly persists for almost half of the episode’s runtime.
How much you enjoy this anime is largely going to depend on whether either of these types of humor appeal to you. It will definitely affect your enjoyment of the characters, because Machi is often the one who is enduring the brunt of the punchline. I love Hibiki because she’s an impulsive delinquent girl with gap moe cuteness but she’s often terrorizing Machi intentionally or unintentionally. I’ve already talked about Yoshio who tends to stretch the truth to get Machi to agree to help him out with his village revival efforts and is sometimes unable to take no for an answer. Even Natsu isn’t completely innocent, though he is always the first one to take the blame for putting her through the ringer, as was the case after her trauma at the shopping mall which happened because of one of his challenges.
Personally, I do enjoy the cast quite a bit. Machi is a cute and charming lead that makes it hard to not want to root for her. Her and Natsu have good chemistry that carries a lot of the show. I think it’s interesting that so much of the cast is in the older age range. Yoshio and Hibiki are both in their twenties, and other than the village kids, pretty much everyone else is well into adulthood. The youth of Machi and Natsu contrasts quite a bit with the slow elderly life of the village, which I think is pretty deliberate considering the focus on the stagnation of growth in the village due to the generational gap. It’s a unique cast and while some of the minor characters are a little bit one note, everyone gets at least one moment in the spotlight to do their thing.
The art direction is generally very strong with a good use of vibrance and color. The joint animation work of Kinema Citrus and EMT Squared shows in a good way, with some scenes hitting the kind of fluidity that I would expect from a high end Dogakobo adaptation. Generally, this anime is just pleasant to look at and it uses its primarily rural setting to its fullest extent. The characters are expressive, the backgrounds are pretty, and there’s a lot of fun visual gags that add a bit of spice to each episode.
There’s a nice variety with the background music in the anime and the sound direction is pretty decent. The ED in particular is a highlight, both the song and the visuals accompanying it. It’s cute, it’s catchy, and it has a great build from the verse into the chorus. I like the simple isometric visual style they incorporated with it. The OP is pretty adorable too on the visual front, and the song itself is charming enough. I was surprised to read that the girl performing the OP vocals was 14 years old at the time, which I suppose made her a good match to be singing from the perspective of Machi who is the exact same age.
But let’s stop beating around the bush and talk about the real point of interest: the ending. It’s impossible to discuss this anime without delving into it. It’s the elephant squatting in the room and it’s not going anywhere. To provide some context: Yoshio secretly sends in an application for Machi to perform in an idol competition in Sendai and she passes the initial screening. Although she is highly against the idea at first, Natsu talks Machi into seriously considering it as he knows that this is a step toward her dream of moving to the big city. Fast forwarding a bit – Machi gets to the venue and has to do a pre-show warmup with the other contestants. Once again, her crippling anxiety and fears of judgment take hold as she starts hallucinating that the other contestants are secretly judging her. After fumbling the rehearsal, she runs off into the city as Yoshio and Hibiki try to locate her.
It’s a well known fact that the mangaka for Kuma Miko posted a public statement (that was later deleted) on one of their social media accounts after the anime’s final episode aired. Although many highlight this as their dissatisfaction toward the anime’s ending, the actual post only calls out one specific thing – a line spoken by Yoshio about halfway through the episode as he’s standing on the roof of the nearby department store with Hibiki as Machi is hiding close by. Hibiki is sympathetic toward Machi’s reluctance to participate in the contest and claims that she should be able to live the life that she wants to. She asks why Yoshio is so desperate to have Machi go through with it, who then responds with a remarkably callous callback to the sacrificial maiden story from the first episode, heavily implying that Machi has to go through it as a “sacrifice” for the village’s prosperity. This is the one true misstep of the anime’s final ending, and it was so heavily criticized for being out of character that this entire section of dialogue was gutted in the BD release. In fact, it’s the only major change the BD makes at all to the final episode other than an extended flashback sequence to make up for lost time.
I can understand not liking Yoshio to some extent, but for him to say something like that is completely off base and the scriptwriter probably realized this as they were scrubbing this anime from their resume. This is the same guy who criticized Natsu for ridiculing Machi after she had her nervous breakdown at the mall, saying that he should be more patient with Machi and allow her to grow at her own pace. It’s one of the few moments where Yoshio seriously looks out for Machi as her older cousin, and I find it hard to believe that even he would put his desire to revitalize the village over her wellbeing. Evidently the mangaka agreed and so the dialogue was struck from the record. The rest of the episode progresses without much in the way of controversy. Machi decides to return to the venue just in time for her performance and with the help of Natsu – who snuck into the city under the guise of a mascot character – she’s able to perform her miko dance in front of a huge crowd.
When the performance ends, there is only five minutes of the episode left for them to wrap this entire show up. These five minutes are the critical moments of contention that so many speak horror stories about. To break things down – Natsu helps Machi go into something of a trance state in order to do her performance, but once she breaks out of it, she becomes acutely aware of the crowd in front of her. She has yet another one of her hallucinations, this time of the crowd throwing rocks at her (which honestly sounds a lot worse than it is) which causes her to run off the stage in panic. It’s a pretty natural reaction from Machi considering what she’s endured throughout the anime. Here there’s a pretty awkward cut off which then segues back to the village where Machi proclaims quite infamously that she no longer has any intention to go to school in the big city. Natsu, who was struggling with his selfishness in the previous episode, revels in the fact that Machi is deciding to stay in the village. After a brief scene showing the other characters (which also reveals that Machi did win a special award at the competition), the anime ends with a moment where Machi seems more childish and ignorant of technology than before, with Natsu cheerfully re-explaining these concepts to her.
I can see why people would interpret this ending in such a negative way – not only did Machi seemingly give up on her entire goal that was established in the first episode, but it also comes off like she went through a serious mental regression that was being enabled by Natsu and everyone else. But the fact is that this is a comedy of errors cooked up by poor scene juxtapositioning. This is nothing more than a gag scene that was supposed to lighten up the mood after the drama of the preceding eighteen minutes, but it ironically ended up having the exact opposite effect as was intended. This is fact by the way; the second OVA episode shows some of the events that took place after Machi’s performance, and it ends with Machi declaring her intentions to follow Natsu to Tokyo after he inadvertently won a mascot competition with deliberate parallels to her own experience, her childish and ignorant state having been completely reverted. These OVAs came out shortly after the TV anime, so it’s undeniable that this was all planned in advance.
Regardless, it wasn’t a very smart choice of sequencing to have such an emotionally charged episode segue into something that could be construed as a mindbreak of the main character. Comedy is all about timing, after all. The timing here was so impressively off that this anime has been forever branded as a psychological abuse show despite being nothing more than a goofy rural slice-of-life anime with elements of cringe comedy. If you asked me whether or not the ending taints what came before, I’d answer with a resounding “no”. I think that Kuma Miko has a lot to offer for people who can appreciate the kind of mood and humor it operates with. I’m not going to say the ending is great, but I feel like it’s only a deal breaker if you’re already on the fence about the anime to begin with. Otherwise you’re just buying into the myth that this anime is anything deeper and darker than what it really is on the surface – a show about a miko and a bear and their quirky backwards village. I still think it’s worth giving it a chance without any preconceived notions. No matter how you slice it, Kuma Miko will be remembered; even if it’s for the wrong reasons.
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