くまクマ熊ベアー 9

One of the better filler volumes

I've found with this series that the volumes that follow up really big or concise arcs tend to wander a bit as they go through the prior story's denouement. The sea town arc was great, but the volume or two after that were rough as they dealt with the fallout, and I was braced for that coming off the excellent Volume 8, but Volume 9 does a solid job wrapping things up quickly and explosively and setting up the next arc while also having a nice little mini-adventure.

The opening chapters are perhaps the most exciting fight scene in the series and the first time we see Yuna truly pissed about something. It's as hardcore as the series has gotten and there's some legitimately interesting political fallout which was also a strong point of volume 8, along with some cute scenes where Yuna has to convince everyone that her bears aren't that scary despite the fact that she tore through town in a rage to go deal with things.

After that she decides to relax a bit which is where we get the obligatory "Yuna introduces a new food" subplot. This time it's Mochi and this was the one area this volume the language got pretty tricky because the process is both somewhat bizarre and labor intensive. It actually helped a lot to just watch a video of how Mochi is made so I could understand why she was suddenly talking about hammers and giant stones with holes in them. Usually when Yuna introduces a new food, she takes it to each friend of hers separately and gets their appraisal which can be pretty repetitive, but this time around she gathers everybody up all at once and shows it to them in one swoop, which was nice, and since it's so intensive she doesn't sell it at her restaurant, it's more of a hobby food.

After that we get to the real meat of the volume which is Yuna joining a small elf girl to go help the elf village. They don't get there quite yet by the end and this volume is more about the journey there and the hijinks they get into, but it's cute and even as a set-up arc it has a fun mini-adventure that leaves off at the right place and I feel like volume 10 will be one of those singular focused volumes that stays on one plotline. The post story bits from the perspective of the other characters were also probably some of the best and most satisfying of that format in the series as well, so good stuff all around.

I keep saying it every volume, but this really was the easiest volume so far for me, aside from the mochi-related business. Even moreso than usual, I'm starting to notice my reading comprehension increase in places outside of these books. Before it felt like I was getting better at reading Kuma Bear, but now it feels like I'm getting better at reading Japanese. I've been able to get through 5 chapters on a reading day, I still haven't quite managed to finish a volume in the space of one week but I feel like it's possible now. I'd like to finish the series by the end of the year and who knows if I will, but I feel like I'll be close at least.