Shirokuma Cafe

Shirokuma Cafe
Cover of the first Blu-ray featuring main characters Polar Bear, Panda, and Penguin
しろくまカフェ (Shirokuma Kafe)
Genre	Slice of life, slapstick
Manga
Written by	Aloha Higa
Published by	Shogakukan
Demographic	Josei
Magazine	Flowers
Original run	2008 – 2014
Volumes	5
Anime television series
Directed by	Mitsuyuki Masuhara
Written by	Toru Hosokawa
Music by	Kenji Kondo
Studio	Studio Pierrot
Original network	TXN (TV Tokyo)
Original run	April 5, 2012 – March 28, 2013
Episodes	50 (List of episodes)
Manga
Shirokuma Cafe Today's Special
Written by	Aloha Higa
Published by	Shueisha
Demographic	Josei
Magazine	Cocohana
Original run	2014 – present

Shirokuma Cafe (Japanese: しろくまカフェ, Hepburn: Shirokuma Kafe^?, lit. Polar Bear Café) is a Japanese manga series by Aloha Higa (ヒガ アロハ, Higa Aroha^?). It revolves around the everyday lives of a group of animals mingling with humans at a café run by a polar bear. An anime adaptation by Studio Pierrot aired in Japan between April 2012 and March 2013. While it never received an official international release (mostly due to its heavy emphasis on Japanese wordplay, which complicates the potential for dubbing into other languages), it is available on the streaming website Crunchyroll alongside the television broadcast for global audiences.

The original manga by Aloha Higa began serialisation in Shogakukan's Flowers magazine from 2006. Five tankōbon volumes have been released so far. The manga went on hiatus between May and July 2012, citing lack of communication concerning the anime adaptation. The manga returned from hiatus in the September 2012 issue of Flowers, following Higa managed to talk with the anime production on her intellectual property. The manga was retitled Shirokuma Cafe Today's Special and moved to Shueisha's Cocohana on its September 2014.

An anime adaptation by Studio Pierrot aired in Japan on TV Tokyo between April 5, 2012 and March 28, 2013 and was simulcast by Crunchyroll.