A lot of that looks reasonable, but I think it's a bit early yet to have any kind of certainty about these things
Of course, this is nothing but my personal speculation. And even though it's based on quite the analysis of Ikuhara's earlier works, it's still only one chapter that we have read. True. Besides, as far as I can tell we don't even have all characters introduced yet. So all I wrote above should be taken with a grain of salt, naturally.
Also, there's the issue of it having some connection to Penguindrum, which had a different take on some of those concepts
There's no issue with connection to Penguindrum - it has never been announced to exist anywhere in the first case. The only "connection" we have now is Ikuhara's picture blog at http://penguinbear.com, where he up till now has only been uploading production news relevant to both mangas - Penguindrum and Yuri Kuma Arashi Storm. And both are published in the same magazine.
Well, there's another notable similarity, which is the use of the "transparency" symbol, that was introduced in Mawaru Penguindrum (or at least I don't remember it being used in Utena). And this definitely makes sense as both series seem to share the same theme ruled by that "transparent" metaphor - being unneeded, being rejected by society. However, unlike MP, that focused more on family and parents sin aspects (should entire family be held responsible/punished for the sin of a single family member), YKA brings homosexuality to the front. That's one reason why I think the family aspect may rise in YKA too - not all parents are willing to accept deviant sexuality of their children. But well, this really is speculation of higher order than everything I wrote above.
BTW, here's the Japanese summary for ch.2:
http://yuuki101percent.hatenablog.com/entry/2014/03/29/195615
UPD:
Now that I keep thinking about it... MP also had bears in it... There were two huge ones (dark and white) in the PotC world. The white one represented the end of the world, since this is where PotC kept appearing from. The dark one most likely represented the beginning of the world - this is where the guys appeared every time. There were as well tiny versions of those, which were used in the last episodes by Sanetoshi. And there was at least one in the shop where Himari looked for threads (ep.17) - san-chan knitted a bear and a penguin. But then again, it pretty much points to the fact that PotC, Sanetoshi, and the guys were from the outside of the world from the very start.
last edited at Apr 1, 2014 8:09PM
