Polar Bear Café: Collector's Edition, Vol. 4

Polar Bear Café #4

by Aloha Higa

Life, work, and coffee for friends and colleagues of many species.

Polar Bear-san runs a relaxing café that serves delicious coffee roasted by Tree Kangaroo-san. Tree Kangaroo-san's apprentice, Masaki, is training to become a master roaster, alongside his experienced staff of red squirrels. Meanwhile, is zookeeper Handa-san and waitress Sasako-san's relationship headed in an unexpected direction?! Sit back and enjoy volume 4 of this heartwarming slice-of-life about various creatures that share their lives and work.

The final volume!

Genres: Manga, Graphic Novels, Humor, Slice Of Life, Animals

210 pages, Paperback

Published March 12, 2024

About the author

２月10日生まれ。京都府出身。水瓶座、血液型はＡ。「月刊flowers」2006年４月号にてデビュー（第22回コミックオーディション銀の花賞受賞）。現在「月刊flowers」で活躍中。飄々としたなごみ系キャラの動物たちを描き人気急上昇中。

http://flowers.shogakukan.co.jp/artis...

Reviews

[Christian Schultheiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

So they ended it on a wall break of all things!! J mean how trippy yet hilarious having the baby animals being the ones reading thru these stories essentially along with us, my biggest heart ache after finally finished the last chapter is knowing I’ve officially read everything my comfort manga author higa has produce but even if mostly unlikely I’m going to continue to hold out hope of someday a vol 5. I think one of the true beauties of this silly sweet slid of life is that while it is so very playful and care free it takes the time to dive into its topics enough to actually intrigue and even educate the reader as they go. I mean I genuinely have never felt so knowledgeable or confident as I do now in my coffee making skills, and who knew most of the world’s penguins don’t actually live in the cold. 4.75/5

[kristyn ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ · Rating 3 out of 5]

eh, this was definitely my least favorite of them all. it dragged a lot tbh

[Natalie S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one, adorable as always. I don't really care much for the human scenes, but I love every new animal addition!

[The Questyen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really funny and cute series with a lot of surprisingly well written characters. Reminded me a lot of Silver Spoon. I was expecting more of a wrap-up since this is listed as the final volume but it just ends.

Doing some digging it looks like there is a sequel series in Japan that has been going for 4 or 5 volumes so hopefully Seven Seas licenses that and brings it out in English because I would like to see more of these characters.

[Ande · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Polar Bear-san, I'm going to go ahead and clock out!"

5.00 / 5.00 stars

Polar Bear Café is a cute and fun slice-of-life manga centering around Polar Bear-kun, the proud owner of a café, and his cast of animal (and some human!) friends and customers. Polar Bear-kun is not a native Japanese speaker and often gets confused – a hilarity of misunderstanding inevitably ensues. This is the last volume in the 4 volume collector's edition. Since it was the very last volume, and I will miss this wild cast of characters, I couldn't help but bump the rating up to 5-stars. Not everyone will feel the same as it's largely more of the same from the first 3 volumes, but we do get to learn even more about being a master coffee roaster!

This manga always holds a special place in my heart. When I was learning Japanese, my teacher suggested the Japanese language version as a way to practice reading and understanding. I got frustrated having to look up so much vocabulary and quit after the first chapter, but always wanted to go back and finish it.

There's nothing earth-shattering about the story, and the artwork is very simple, but it's an easy cozy read to take your mind off the troubles of your day. The word puns are fun to read, but get old eventually. Even still, I enjoy reading about this big fuzzy polar bear trying to make his way in a delicious cafe.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for a cozy cafe read to their mind off more serious topics or give your brain a break.

[Becky B · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of comics following the adventures of café visitors and workers as well as some animals and people who work at the local zoo (or like to visit). This volume sees one of the zoo workers actually asking out the lady who works at the café. Mama Panda goes to a concert. And Masaki learns more about different types of coffee during his ongoing internship.

This is a low key, feel good collection of manga comics. I have learned quite a bit about different types of coffee from Masaki’s internship. The other story arcs are by turns cute or humorous.

Notes on content:
Language: 3 minor swears
Sexual content: None. Mama Panda writes “Kiss Me” on her fan for the concert but it doesn’t really happen (her husband doesn’t know how to react to it when he sees it).
Violence: None
Ethnic diversity: All the people are Japanese.
LGBTQ+ content: None specified
Other: The animals start spreading rumors about the zoo worker and the café lady, but they are ridiculous.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Canada-kun is plain... and that is why I like him." - LOL

[Bear · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny and cute! It's a nice comfort manga to come back to every now and then!

[Julianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a wholesome series. Polar bear and grizzly bear are my favorite