Isekai stories as a genre are pretty much inherently rooted in power fantasies. It’s a genre built around wish fulfillment, the idea of being able to escape the mundane world to somewhere else that appreciates you. Obviously there are deliberate subversions of this knocking around but for the most part it’s really not surprising these kinds of stories are popular with how alienating modern society can be. A major conceit of a lot of these stories is that the protagonist, either through some power granted to them by whatever force sent them to this new world or just by virute of having knowledge outside the context of that world, ends up achieving some level of power or significance within their new setting, again, it’s understandably an appealing idea. Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear offers its own version of this fantasy; what if you could just be nice?

Continue reading “12 Days 2020, Day 9: The Nice Power Fantasy of Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear” →