The Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 release is on April 3, 2023, the Spring 2023 anime season. The 2nd will have a total of 12 episodes released as three Blu-ray/DVD volumes.
The anime was initially confirmed to be in production on December 23, 2020. The second season will be titled Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Punch! (Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Panchi!).
The second season will have Yuna, Fina, and her friends building tunnels and restaurants, exploring deep mines, and attending politically explosive birthday parties.
The following Season 1 main cast members are confirmed to return for the sequel:
- Maki Kawase (Askeladd in Vinland Saga) as Yuna
- Azumi Waki (Senko in The Helpful Fox Senko-san) as Fina
The day the first season ended, the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 production decision was announced. Besides confirming the second season, they also released commemorative artwork to celebrate the renewal.
“The second production is decided!” tweeted Maki Kawaase, the Japanese voice actress for Yuna. “I was surprised and happy to hear the other day. Please look forward to it …!”
“The final episode is over and I have no time to feel lonely … [! !! !! Second production decision! !! !! ] Oh! I’m really happy! !!” tweeted Azumi Waki, the voice of Fina. “You can see cute cute Fina again!”
“The second season of TV animation was also announced!” tweeted Rina Hidaka, the voice of Lady Noa (Noire). “I did it! I will do my best as chairman.”
This anime announcement proves that streaming revenue is more important than Blu-Ray/DVD box set sales. When the first volume of the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Blu-Ray/DVD released in Japan in late January 2021, the discs only sold 1,810 copies in their first week.
This article provides everything that is known about Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 (Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Panchi!) and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.
Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 anime spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)
Note: The spoilers for Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 assume that the story will pick up again with light novel Volume 5.
The Bloody Bear has outdone herself and defeated a Kraken. Now that Yuna has beaten the bad guys in town, she wants to enjoy some seafood.
Now she faces the problem of establishing a secure trade route between Crimonia and Mileela. As we all know by now, this bear has no problem thinking outside the box, so she uses magic to cut a tunnel between the port and the city!
Besides setting up a commerce career, she’s also launching into the restaurant business. The aristocrats also desire that she escort students, but they won’t listen to her.
Another problem is that the world lacks enough Mithril, a rare material used for dismantling creatures. Yuna finds herself traveling underground and facing off against a Golem.
Yuna is invited to a birthday party in the Royal Capital. While Yuna doesn’t want to go to an aristocratic party, she reluctantly agrees since she doesn’t want to hurt the birthday girl’s feelings.
But when she arrives, storm clouds are gathering around the noble families, and Yuna finds herself dragged into yet another incident.
Unfortunately, anime fans will have to wait until the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 release date to watch what happens next. Stay tuned!
Why the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Punch! release date is in April 2023
As of the last update, EMT Squared, Kadokawa, or any company related to the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the exact Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 release date. However, the production of a Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear sequel has been announced and it’s confirmed that the second season is coming out in April 2023.
Once the news is officially confirmed, this article will be updated with the relevant information.
On November 1, 2022, anime news leaker Sugoi LITE leaked the teaser visual for Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Panchi! in addition to providing the broadcast time frame. The news was officially announced on November 4, 2022. But it’s amazing that the anime series ever reached this point.
This bear was swimming against the stream since, in the beginning, the anime was a run-of-the-mill isekai power fantasy, albeit with a female OP protagonist. The bear suit and its bear-themed powers are a reoccurring visual gag that’s cute but not too humorous. Fortunately, similar to the BOFURI anime, Yuna is lovable, and it’s her sarcastic character that carries the show forward.
Reviews were initially lower on MyAnimeList, and it seems to have middling popularity on FUNimation Now. With the BOFURI Season 2 anime confirmed, now Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear will enjoy the same success.
Except for the Rainy Cocoa anime series, Studio EMT Squared is not known for creating second seasons, making Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 another exception.
Anime productions are scheduled years in advance. Since the second season was announced during the finale, Anime Geek successfully predicted that we could be watching Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 in mid-to-late 2023, but it turns out we’ll be getting more Bear Time in April 2023.
FUNimation’s Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear English dub
A FUNimation Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear English dub for the first season began releasing on January 20, 2021. Here is the English dubbed cast:
- Marissa Lenti as Yuna
- Xanthe Huynh as Fina
- Mallorie Rodak as Helen
- Steph Garrett as Kai
- Lindsay Seidel as Kumakyu, Kumayuru
- Justin Duncan as Lanz
- Jamal Sterling as Ralock
The Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear anime was initially streaming with just English subtitles on FUNimation Now, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video.
A Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 English dub hasn’t been confirmed yet.
Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear manga/light novel series compared to the anime
The anime is based on the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear light novel book series by author Kumanano and illustrator 029. The story began as a free web novel on the Let’s Become a Novelist website, but then Shufu to Seikatsu Sha acquired the rights and began adapting it into light novels starting in May 2015.
As of October 7, 2022, the light novels were up to Volume 19 already. Historically, a new book releases every winter/spring, summer, and fall.
However, that schedule is not set in stone. For example, the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Volume 17 release date was originally scheduled for February 5, 2021, but was delayed until March 26, 2021, and then delayed a second time until April 16, 2021.
By late April 2021, the series popularity had reached the point that the light novels and manga had 2 million copies in circulation. By September 2022, the series had 2.6 million copies in circulation.
A Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear manga adaptation by artist Sergei began in March 2018. As of June 7, 2022, it was up to Volume 8.
Seven Seas Entertainment has been publishing the official English translation in North America. The English manga was up to Volume 7 by July 11, 2023.
The English light novels will be up to the physical Volume 14 by June 27, 2023.
When light novels are adapted into anime, it’s common for content to be condensed and rearranged. Some of the reorderings made sense because related character events spread over multiple chapters were pulled together.
One example is how Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Episode 6 combined manga Chapter 22 (the marriage proposal) and various light novel side stories (bear bath, hairdryer, and pudding chapters) with anime original content (the snow crystal flower).
While the episode was cute, it changed the motivation for why Gentz proposed.
In manga Chapter 22, after healing Fina’s mother, Telmina, of her illness, Yuna played matchmaker by telling Telmina and Gentz to live together so Fina and her younger sister Shuri could have a real family.
While both are shocked at Yuna’s boldness, Gentz decides to ask Telmina to marry him on the spot, and it’s not long before the girls are calling Gentz “Dad.”
While Episode 6 arguably improved on the source material, what’s baffling is that Episode 1 literally dropped audiences into the middle of the story with the black viper quest, which started in manga Volume 3 Chapter 24.
Worse, this flash-forward caused the anime to contradict itself because the ending of the first episode implied that she was playing a VR-MMO RPG since the final scene showed her using a headset in bed.
That’s problematic since Episode 2 backs up the story and explains that she’d actually already been sent to an alternate world by God, so the first episode wasn’t really a game world.
This decision also caused a case of tonal dissonance since the first episode’s mood was more serious, while Episode 2 and beyond were far more light-hearted. It’s also as if the studio wanted to draw in audiences by fooling them into thinking the anime was more action-oriented than it really is.
This decision also can’t be blamed on the differences between the web novel, manga, and light novels. All of those versions start with Yuna being isekai’d and then rescuing Fina from the wolves.
Once the story started rolling out linearly, the anime improved, especially since Yuna’s internal monologues were converted into snarky comments that she says out loud.
Simultaneously, the anime’s introduction of Yuna oddly failed to explain the origin of The Bloody Bear mythos.
In manga Chapter 16, Yuna returns to the guild to talk with the guild master, and she keeps hearing people call her the Bloody Bear. Eventually, Gentz explains the rumors that are flying around.
It seems that Yuna picked up the reputation for picking a fight and then leaving people bloody and knocked out. They claim she appears at the guild dragging along the monsters’ bloody corpses while wearing a bear costume, hence the nickname The Bloody Bear.
Additionally, various aspects of her character were not portrayed, including how she really didn’t like her parents in the real world (useless slackers) and how she was investigating this new world’s magical mechanics to figure out how to take off the bear suit permanently.
The anime also failed to mention how she quickly rose in guild rank.
There were a variety of details that were cut, but most of them weren’t important. For example, the fight against the goblin Deborane and his guild lackeys was cut short, and the intervention by the guild master was cut completely, but the anime made up for it by focusing the scene on comedy.
The Nushi the boar quest (manga Chapter 14-15) was condensed down to showing black bear Kumayaru womping the boar. The small side stories involving Elena, the innkeeper’s daughter, were also skipped since the minor character doesn’t exist in the anime.
However, since Elena wasn’t a reoccurring character in the manga/light novels, her absence isn’t a big deal.
Episode 5 covered the orphanage story arc, but it skimmed over details that showed just how frantic Lord Cliff Foschurosebecame when he realized Yuna had come to resent him.
The characterization was also different since the anime had Yuna being embarrassed for not trusting Cliff.
In the books, she raked him over the coals and demanded that he create a trust internal surveillance unit to ensure that such atrocities never happened again.
The noble Enz who embezzled the funds had an influential brother in the capital. However, Cliff still executed the entire noble family for their misdeeds and planned on telling the brother they died from a home invasion.
While that sounds extreme, Enz’s crimes were worse than the anime mentioned, and both his son and wife were in on it.
Enz would entice young girls to become servants and then sexually abuse them. When families came looking for their missing daughters, they were imprisoned in the basement jail, along with other dissidents.
Cliff’s troops found piles of corpses of children piled up in their basement from all the murders.
Needless to say, that’s a bit dark for a light-hearted anime series that’s focused on slice-of-life antics combined with occasional fantasy action.
Not surprisingly, the pacing of the anime’s episodes was fairly quick compared to both the manga and the light novel series. Episode 5 adapted up through manga Volume 4 Chapter 34-36, which was about three-quarters of light novel Volume 2.
Episode 6’s ending finished the book by having the royal capital trip be announced after the pudding scene, which happened in manga Chapter 37.
Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Episode 7 adapted almost half of Volume 3 by skipping the journey to the royal capital and a brush with bandits, which involved a Bear Golem sinking down into the ground with a Terminator-style thumbs up. Episodes 8 and 9 similarly skimmed past the guild master and other details to finish the book.
Based on the pacing of the anime so far, the finale, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Episode 12, found a stopping point near the ending of light novel Volume 4.
The good news is that there is plenty of source material for making Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2. Better yet, English-only fans who wish to read ahead of the anime can jump straight to Volume 5 once it releases in March 2021.
The only bad news is reserved for manga readers. The manga is currently adapting the middle of light novel Volume 3, the royal capital story arc, which means the manga probably won’t catch up with the anime until 2022.
Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Punch! studio, staff, and theme song music
The main staff and studio are returning to produce Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2.
The anime is being produced by Japanese animation studio EMT Squared, which is probably best known for the Rainy Cocoa series, the Assassin’s Pride anime, and the anime The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar.
The second season will be helmed by director Yuu Nobuta (High School Fleet) and series director Hisashi Ishii (Rainy Cocoa and episode director for Naruto: Shippuden).
Artist Yuki Nakano is the returning character designer. Composer Shigeo Komori will write the music.
The Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 OP (opening) theme song music “Kimi to no Mirari” will be performed by Azumi Waki, while the ED (ending) has not yet been announced.
For the first season, the Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear OP was “Itsuka no Kioku” as performed by Azumi Waki, while the ED was “You Know What (Ano ne)” as performed by Maki Kawase (Japanese voice actress for Yuna). A special ending theme song “Ano ne. -loved ones ver.-” for Episode 12 was sung by Maki Kawase and Azumi Waki.
The finale, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Episode 12, was released on December 23, 2020.
- Updated February 2, 2023: Added new trailer PV and Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Punch! OP info.
- Updated November 2, 2022: Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Panchi! release date in Spring 2023.
Updated April 22, 2021: Added Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear novel popularity.
Updated March 15, 2021: Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Volume 17 release date delayed.
Updated January 19, 2021: Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear English dub confirmed.
Updated December 23, 2020: Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Season 2 confirmed!
Updated November 30, 2020: Added Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear Volume 17 release date.