Kumano Maru broadens the Japanese hybrid category to include Army amphibious shipping. It could transport aircraft and launch them from a 110-meter deck, but lacked the hangar and landing arrangements needed to recover them. Below, rails carried landing craft through stern doors, allowing the ship to deliver either seventeen smaller craft or thirteen larger examples. The ship survived, repatriated Japanese personnel after the surrender, and was then converted for merchant use. Its design is best understood as an aircraft-and-landing-craft transport, not a fleet carrier.
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Kumano Maru combined landing craft with a take-off-only deck
Kumano Maru carried landing craft through stern doors and aircraft on a short take-off deck, making it an amphibious transport rather than a conventional carrier.