Finally! This is the first Nihongo manga I've finished. An accomplishment despite its simple language. Lol The characters are kawaii and their gags are hilarious. ^^
I often don't prefer to read mangas because most of them are action-packed and dramatic. It's not that I'm not a fan of these aspects being in a book, but ones in mangas are often adopted from an anime with the same energy, therefore being a bit too aggressively fitted in some parts. What separates this particular series from the rest is how chill and relaxing it is. I used to have a hard copy of this series a few years prior and revisiting them once again felt nostalgic and brought back many good memories. Although I must admit, the anime version of this wasn't the best compared to the books, it was still pretty decent for a small team production. I'm going a bit off-topic here, the story is there in the title. It's about a world where humans and animals interact like people and about a polar bear and all his animal and human friends with a nice cafe in the countryside. It's a bit like a diary in a sense, where the book narrates everyday normal things they do and the conversations they have on the cafe counter. Unlike other mangas, this book brings a really chill atmosphere and I highly recommend you read this.
I managed to read one entire manga in Japanese and that alone deserves 4 stars honestly. I didn't understand everything, but it was still enough to enjoy the story and most of the jokes. It's a simple, light-hearted manga. The perfect book for me to start learning Japanese again.
Le pongo 4 estrellas por los dajare o chistes malos y juegos de palabras que tiene, que son el tipo de humor que me encanta. Este es un manga lento, que no va hacia ningún sitio, lo cual está bien porque es relajado; un slice-of-life en toda regla.
Empecé a leerlo porque suele estar en la lista de "mangas para principiantes" que quieran leer en japonés. Sinceramente, no creo que sea para principiantes, sobre todo si solo se ha estudiado con libros de texto, sin apenas exposición al lenguaje natural (por ejemplo, viendo jdramas, que es mi "nicho" XD). Además, algunos chistes son difíciles de seguir. Y la parte de los pingüinos se me ha hecho bola, porque como el tipo de dibujo es realista, a veces es difícil distinguir quién habla o qué emociones está teniendo cada personaje. De hecho, este artículo en Tofugu me confirma que me he perdido muchas referencias culturales, como lo de los partidos políticos o el azúcar. Y cuando lo estaba leyendo me estaba dando cuenta: "Aquí seguro que me está faltando algo por entender...".
En fin, este tomo no es más que otro intento por mi parte de leer en japonés, sin despegarme de jisho.org para el vocabulario y de DeepL para las frases más complejas gramaticalmente. Algún día no los necesitaré, espero. Algún día~~
I read this in Japanese for the second time. The first time was over the summer, and rereading it was a surprisingly valuable experience. I thought my comprehension on my first read-through was fairly good, and while I don't think I missed anything major then, I definitely understood much more, and had a much easier time reading in general, the second time around. It's a really cute and funny manga with mainly everyday language, and I'd recommend it to Japanese learners for sure.
Because the promotion of this book was recommended by a Japanese elementary school, I used to think it would be very childish. However, I really wanted to see this style of drawing. But after reading it, I feel that it won't be excessive at all if it's classified as adult reading. This doesn't feel childish at all, and it's very relaxing. There are many little plots inside that are really funny and cute. I really like this book.
I really enjoy this series, its a slice of life about adorable animals. My Japanese reading ability is still lacking so I was only able to understand about 60% of the text, but I still thoroughly enjoyed reading about all the characters.
Shirokuma Cafe is one of my most favorite anime! I love the scanlation I am reading, it is very nicely put together & super tidy. For once, the English words don't dominate the page.
Absolutely underrated in every single way possible. First manga and anime that I fell in love with, and I'm rereading it now. I love the casual vibes in this so much.
Polar Bear and his ursine pals at the zoo live their anthropomorphic lives, communicating with one another and zookeepers. Easy to read, engaging characters, and light tone. This was a fun read.
Really fucking cute. <- this is my review of the entire series.
I read this as low beginner/ intermediate Japanese input and found it a great resource for a non-native speaker as it's a slice-of-life work and pretty engaging.
It's pretty wholesome I expect you'd enjoy it if you like light-hearted comics/manga; but I'd mostly recommend it to beginner/intermediate Japanese students. Slice of life work like this is the most practical for language acquisition as most shounen manga tends to be high fantasy which is likely to contain less useful language (for general purpose)
Got to brush up on those Japanese-reading skills. *brings out the Japanese dictionary*
18/03/2014
Finally finished this thing! Now I can buy the second volume... Not really much to say. Probably that the anime is better, but I can't really say that as I've only watched a few episodes so far. I like the art style, and the themes are light and fun. Just... if I didn't have to bring out the dictionary for every sentence it would be a whole lot better, and some of the meaning was lost on me.