A torpedo cruiser is a type of warship that is armed primarily with torpedoes. The major navies began building torpedo cruisers shortly after the invention of the locomotive Whitehead torpedo in the 1860s. The development of the torpedo gave rise to the Jeune École doctrine, which held that small warships armed with torpedoes could effectively and cheaply defeat much larger battleships. Torpedo cruisers fell out of favor in most of the great power navies in the 1890s, though many other navies continued to acquire them into the early 1900s.

The Kuma-class light cruisers were a class of five light cruisers built for and operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN). The Kuma-class cruisers proved useful in combat operations ranging from the Aleutian Islands to the Indian Ocean throughout World War II.