Beary Cute

Bears are definitely bad news for anyone who earns their ire. They're humongous, freakishly powerful, frighteningly durable, can't be outrun, and will kill you slowly to boot.

But when they aren't angry or hungry, bears can be surprisingly cute. They've got tons of fluff that makes them look pleasantly chubby and fun to cuddle with, and their faces have a dopey sort of innocence to them. This gives the adults a Gentle Giant sort of feel, while their cubs are considered to be among the cutest baby animals to ever walk the Earth. Unsurprisingly, these traits translate well into toy form, and the teddy bear's popularity likely plays a big part in why bears are perceived to be so darned cute.

Thanks to how prolific of a trope this is, fictional bears that aren't portrayed as violent monsters are bound to be friendly and adorable. There's a lot of overlap with Beary Funny since friendly bears can be quite goofy, and then there's Pandaing to the Audience for a more specific flavor of this trope in regards to the especially adorable panda bear.

Examples of Beary Cute include:

Advertising

Snuggle Bear is the mascot for the Snuggle brand fabric softener. The bear is not only cute, but also soft to show how well the product works.

Anime and Manga

Super Kuma-san, alter ego of Kuma-san, is a living teddy bear who acts as a superhero that protects a small town. He also dances to music with the park clown to entertain the local children.
The titular Rilakkuma from Rilakkuma and Kaoru, as well as Korilakkuma. They're teddy bear creatures who live in an apartment with a salarywoman named Kaoru. They often laze around the house and eat snacks such as honey pancakes, but do provide some relief to Kaoru's day-to-day life.
Mofurun from Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure was an average teddy bear, but a bit of magic brought her to life. She can sense magic and the Linkle Stones, and can also transform the main duo into Magical Girls with certain Linkle Stones. In the movie, Mofurun becomes a Pretty Cure with a bear motif with the Wishing Stone's help.
Enforced in Killing Bites: the Giant Panda Brute Wang Aizhen uses the panda's adorable characteristics to appeal to the Killing Bites tournament's audience while showing the same strength and brutality of a bear. She's a decently powerful martial artist, but not enough to be a proper contender in the tournament thanks to her lack of experience in fighting other Brutes.
Symbolized in Yuri Kuma Arashi: bears and lesbian relationships are a symbolic parallel of Japan's view of homosexuality with bears' depiction in popular media. Bears tend to have a cuteness to them in pop culture, but are dangerous creatures in reality. Japan's view of lesbians, while portrayed positively in a large amount of media such as anime and manga, is still rather backwards to the point that actual lesbians have trouble gaining acceptance within Japanese society.
Xiao-Mei (aka Shao May) from Fullmetal Alchemist is the small pet panda of May Chang, as well as her trusty traveling companion. Despite being so little, she is rather protective of May and often mimics May's actions.
Kumamon from Digimon Frontier is a Beastman Digimon that looks like a small bear made of snow, and is clad in green armor with power over ice.
Yuna from Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear is a hikikomori who was transported to another world by a god who also gave her a set of bear-themed equipment: a bear suit with bear hand puppets as weapons. Although it looks like nothing more than a preposterously cute costume, the ensemble is a potent set of magical enhancements that make her more powerful than anything else in the world, even moreso when it takes a bear-like form.
Bepo from One Piece is a seemingly meek bear Mink who acts as the navigator for the Hearts Pirates. He seems weak-willed but can hold his own in a fight with his martial art skills.
- Subverted with Bear-Man a Gifter who has eaten the Bear SMILE Fruit. He looks like a ridiculously buff, but otherwise huggable green teddy bear with a cute face, but due to eating a SMILE Fruit instead of a proper Zoan fruit, he still has his human face in the muzzle.
In BNA: Brand New Animal, The Bears are a baseball team of mostly Bear Beastmen in the Anima City Baseball League. They are rather cute and innocent, but are inexperienced at the game. This doesn't stop them from having fun playing it, though.
Panda from Jujutsu Kaisen is an upbeat, yet calm Abrupt Mutated Cursed Corpse with a good sense of humor. Unsurprisingly, he looks exactly like a panda bear.
Lain Iwakura, the title character of Serial Experiments Lain, spends a great deal of her private home time in a bear-styled one-piece pajama outfit, complete with ears on the hood. She's already a creepy kind of cute, but the suit just adds to it.
The concept behind Mao-chan is that cute aliens are invading Japan. In episode 18, the cute alien of the week is a black bear with a white muzzle... that promptly gets lost in a snowstorm.

Film

Lotso-o'-Huggin' Bear from Toy Story 3 is a classy, gentlemanly pink teddy bear with a friendly disposition and acts as Sunnyside Daycare's kindly old caretaker. However, his friendliness is a facade; thanks to the trauma of accidentally being abandoned by his original owner and replaced with another Lotso, his heart has hardened and he's since become a cold-blooded, ruthless monster. He lords over the daycare with an iron fist, and forces other toys to act as playmates for rowdy and destructive toddlers on threat of punishing them severely if they don't.
Po from the Kung Fu Panda trilogy is Adorkable to a T, being a fun-loving fanboy of all things kung-fu related. And as a bouncy little baby... well, look at him! He's adorable!
Beary Bearington and the rest of the Country Bears are meant to be this, since they're a kind-hearted, lovable, goofy bunch of ursine musicians. But as impressive as the animatronic bears may look (given that they're from the Jim Henson Creature Shop and all), plenty of people found them more unnerving than cute thanks to how eerily realistic, yet off they look.

Literature

Paddington Bear is a beloved figure from British children's literature, and made his first appearance in the 1958 book A Bear Called Paddington. Not only is he small, adorable, and dressed in a cute little coat, hat, and scarf ensemble, but he's incredibly polite to boot.

Music

The music video for "The Secret About That Girl" by Japanese Vocaloid producer and singer-songwriter E ve shows a line of toy bears which take part in the teen boy's fantasies about the girl.

Puppet Shows

Ojo from Bear in the Big Blue House is an endearingly sweet, adorable bear cub with a big imagination. Bear himself also counts from a Gentle Giant standpoint seeing as how kind, patient, and fatherly he is towards viewers and the residents of his Big Blue House.
Baby Bear from Sesame Street, whose cuteness is further accented by his Elmuh Fudd Syndwome-style speech impediment.

Video Games

Pokémon has plenty of adorable little bears among the creatures you can catch and raise.
- Generation II introduces Teddiursa, a cute Normal-type bear cub with a moon symbol on its head. These little guys are often seen licking their paws, because they like to soak them in sweet-tasting honey; when they find any, their moon symbol is said to glow. They're even smart enough to make their own honey by mixing special Beedrill-collected pollen and fruit together. Teddiursa's evolved form is the not-as-visibly cuddly Ursaring.
- Gen 2 almost had two other cute bears in its roster - old artwork and beta builds for Pokémon Gold featured Honoguma, a tubby little firey bear cub that was almost the Fire starter instead of Cyndaquil, and Kyonpan, an adorable Ghost-type jiangshi panda that (for whatever reason) evolved from a voodoo doll. ROM Hacks such as Pokémon Gold/Silver 97: Reforged add them to the roster proper, meaning that you can still play with these lost relics from the past.
- Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire introduce Spinda, a long-eared panda-like Normal-type with large polka dots plastered all over its body, and a constant grin on its face as it drunkenly teeters and wobbles around. While rather weak, Spinda's goofy design is still appealing, and it has millions of unique spot patterns that make it a popular target of collectors. Its Signature Move Teeter Dance is also surprisingly useful, since it confuses all other Pokémon in battle.
- Pokémon Black and White introduces Cubchoo, an Ice-type polar bear cub with a huge wad of snot dripping from its little nose. It's just as compact, wide-eyed, and painfully cute as Teddiursa, down to evolving into the similarly-imposing Beartic.
- Pokémon X and Y introduce Pancham, a Fighting-Type panda cub styled after the Japanese delinquent archetype. These little guys want to look rough and tough, even carrying leaves in their mouth to try to look cool - but they're just plain adorable, especially once their tough facade cracks and they end up grinning. Pancham also take after Pangoro, their menacing-looking evolved form (notice a pattern?), and try to learn how to battle and hunt for prey from them - they even evolve if you have a Dark-type like Pangoro in the party!
- Pokémon Sun and Moon brings us Stufful, a small pink teddy bear-like red panda that packs enough of a punch to knock out well-trained Pokemon with a single blow. Their evolved form, Bewear, is also adorable and resembles a Japanese mascot. They are rather friendly, but due to their massive strength, it's bad news for those they want to hug, because their freakish strength lets them snap anything in half - including human spines.
- Pokémon Sword and Shield Gen 8 introduce a legendary bear cub named Kubfu. They're adorably stern-looking gray bear cubs that look and fight like martial artists, and often spend their free time training their body and mind.
Clark Wonderbot from Inazuma Eleven Go 2: Chrono Stone is an android that looks like a blue teddy bear. Whenever Clark gets excited, he turns pink -- which happens during soccer matches. He also dislikes being called a bear.
From Persona 4, Teddie is a bear-like creature that resembles a living mascot that the Investigation Team first meets in the Midnight Channel. It is later revealed that he was once a Shadow but developed his cute and cuddly form so that humans could like him more.
In Sands of Destruction, there are two types of Bear Ferals: one type looks like humanoid bears, and the other resemble teddy bears. Taupy Topuran is a Teddy Bear Feral who is cute and more than capable of holding his own in a fight.
The Mana of Life from Mana Khemia inhabits and brings the teddy bear held by Pamela Ibis to life. The Mana made a contract with Pamela which allows her to continue living as a ghost while providing other powers.
Freddy Fazbear has many incarnations across the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise, and some are cuter than others while crossing into the Uncanny Valley to some extent. But these are the ones that fit this trope the best.
- Toy Freddy from Five Nights at Freddy's 2 is definitely meant to evoke this, with his round belly, blushing cheeks, and goofy voice giving him an "adorable simpleton" sort of appeal. And as a Toy animatronic, his intended role as an active protector of children makes him that much more approachable... as long as you're a kid. He's just as willing to kill adult-aged night guards as the other animatronics due to faulty programming as well as possibly being haunted by the vengeful spirit of a dead child.
- Helpy, introduced in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria Simulator is a very straightforward example. He's a chibified version of Funtime Freddy, but is completely passive and even helpful towards the player, being willing to assist them with managing their pizzeria while doing adorable happy dances to pass the time! Unfortunately, Helpy's also one of the many threats the player has to deal with in Ultimate Custom Night, but even there he's more adorable than scary, since the only thing he can do is blow an airhorn in the player's face. The other animatronics might not take kindly to the noise, though...
- Glamrock Freddy from Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach may look intimidating, but his Gentle Giant status makes him one of Freddy's most endearing incarnations. He's a Nice Guy through and through, and his conversations with Gregory paint him as something of an Adorkable father figure to the boy.
Angus Delaney from Night in the Woods is a quiet, stoic, and introverted bear who is the boyfriend of the hyperactive Gregg. Not only is he adorably round and cuddly, but his shyness and sense of humor make him that much more lovable.
Jambavan from Tokyo Afterschool Summoners is a bear Transient who is a medical prodigy. He's rather timid and depends on others, especially the polar bear housemaster and med school elder, Leib.
- Alp is a dream demon who looks like a panda and styles himself as cute. He often tries to be the center of attention through rap and break dancing.
Xolga, the deuteragonist of Xolga and Mr. Toko, is a human transformed in a teddy bear by a magical artifact. His plushie form is apparently quite cute, judging by the amount of people who want to risk painful retaliation from the short-tempered and deceptively strong guy by hugging him.
Bernadetta from Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a shy, Adorkable shut-in who has something of a bear motif going for her. The way she frequently hides in her "den"/dormitory leads to the other students of Garreg Mach Monastery calling her Bernie-bear, and if she survives the events of the game, her solo ending mentions that people come to know her as the "Bear of Varley" thanks to the way she "hibernates" when she's out managing her territory. She also likes stuffed bears, and keeps a rather large one in her room.
- And of course, despite the fact that simply talking to her can trigger an anxiety attack, Bernie-bear can invoke another ursine trope on the battlefield thanks to being one of the game's better archers.
Arzuros from Monster Hunter isn't exactly cute in a traditional sense, thanks to being a ferocious yellow-and-blue grizzly bear with red eyes. But Komitsu the Sweet-Tooth from Monster Hunter Rise thinks they're adorable, and tasks the player with taking a picture of a sleeping one as a sidequest.
One of Crash Bandicoot's recurring animal friends is Polar, a cute little polar bear cub. He doesn't appear often, but he's a surprisingly versatile little guy: depending on the game he's been a mount, a racecar driver, a participant in a Mario Party clone, and something of a Team Pet to Crash and his sister Coco.

Web Animation

Molly Blyndeff from Epithet Erased is a twelve-year-old whose fashion sense has a bear motif, shown by her hair loops styled like bear ears and her custom made bear hoodie. There is also her minion nickname of 'Bear Trap' given by Giovanni.

Western Animation

The Care Bears are technicolor teddy bears with special symbols on their bellies called Belly Badges, which are related to their personality and magical powers.
Fluffy and Uranus are pink and blue teddy bear-esque office assistants to Duckman. They are both cute to an exaggerated level along with their politically correct nature, but can come off as needlessly annoying.
Andy Panda is a cute panda cub who goes on all kinds on adventures around the world.
Winnie-the-Pooh is an adorably ditzy yellow teddy bear who wears a red shirt and loves to eat honey. He lives in the Hundred Acre Wood, where he often plays with Christopher Robin and his other friends.
5.0.5 from Villainous is a large blue bear with a yellow flower growing out of his head. He is a failed experiment created by Dr.Flug that turned out adorable and cowardly instead of threatening, but he's been known to pull off impressive feats of invulnerability when the situation calls for it.
The title character of Paddington, the animated TV series adaptation of the famous Paddington Bear books made by Hanna-Barbera, is a stop-motion bear doll and adorable.
Ro-Bear Berbils are small robotic bears who help the ThunderCats and other people on Third Earth with either food or technology in both the 1985 and 2011 series.
Little Bear is a curious six-year-old grizzly bear cub who lives in the woods with his family. He also ventures out into the woods to play with his friends.
The titular characters of We Bare Bears, a trio conformed by Grizzly, Panda, and Ice Bear, a grizzly panda and polar bear respectively, are quite cute and endearing in their attempts to integrate within human society, and specially when they form a "bear stack" to go around.

Real Life

As a rule, bear cubs are incredibly cute! Whether they're grizzly bears, black bears, panda bears, or any of the other numerous species out there, it's hard to resist the urge to cuddle and snuggle with one. But if you ever run into one in the wild, keep your distance. Mother bears are infamously protective of their cubs and no matter your intentions, they will fuck you up six ways to Sunday if they catch you anywhere near them.
Adult bears look dopey and innocent when they aren't actively hunting and causing trouble, and are particularly cute when they act like humans, as shown by these photographs. This does not make them any less dangerous so for all that is holy, please don't try to hug or pet one in real life.
Fuzzy, soft, and achingly adorable, teddy bears are among the most beloved children's toys around the world for a damn good reason. And they can thank U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt for that: the first teddy bear was created in response to a series of satirical comics and drawings made portraying a famous event where Teddy refused to shoot a bear his men had incapacitated during a hunting trip. While the bear itself was an adult, most artists interpretations made it out to be a frightened little cub which won the hearts of many an American. So when Morris Mitchom and his wife decided to sell toy bears named after "Teddy's Bear" they were a massive hit, and the rest is history.