Crayon Shin-chan · Lablypedia

The manga spawned a media franchise, which includes an anime television series that has aired on TV Asahi since April 13, 1992, with over 1200 episodes. The anime has been dubbed in 30 languages and aired in 45 countries. The franchise also includes several spin-off anime and manga series, films, and video games. As of 2023, both the Crayon Shin-Chan and New Crayon Shin-Chan manga have over 148 million copies in circulation, making them among the best-selling manga series in history.

Synopsis

Set in the city of Kasukabe in Saitama Prefecture within the Greater Tokyo Area of Japan, the series follows the adventures of the five-year-old Shinnosuke "Shin-chan" Nohara and his parents, baby sister, dog, neighbours, and best friends. Most of the plot is about Shin-chan's daily life, but it is often interspersed with fantastic and incredible elements.

Many of the jokes in the series stem from Shin-chan's occasionally weird, unnatural and inappropriate use of language, as well as from his mischievous behaviour. Consequently, non-Japanese readers and some viewers may find it difficult to understand his jokes. Some gags may require an understanding of Japanese culture and/or language to be fully appreciated; for example, his "Mr. Elephant" impression, while being transparently obvious as a physical gag, also has a deeper resonance with contemporary Japanese culture since it refers to the popular Japanese children's song "Zou-san" (ぞうさん). But after modest translation, it is popular in the rest of Asia due to cultural compatibility. It also contains many sarcastic jokes and stereotype humour.

The series is mainly of a comedy style with a lot of sexual innuendo, leading to parents forbidding their children to watch it. However, due to its popularity, it's also stylistically as family-friendly as possible, although it may not apply everywhere. Most episodes are about the importance of family and friends. On rare occasions, it also has some darker episodes like Miss Matsuzaka's boyfriend dying in the manga, though it was not adapted into an anime episode. It also includes several horror adaptations, for example "The Line of no End", "The Horrible Elevator" and "The Kindergarten Stairs".

Abnormal for his age, Shin-chan regularly becomes besotted with pretty female characters in skimpy clothing who are much older than him, and an additional source of humour is derived from his childlike attempts at flirting with these characters, such as by asking them (inappropriately, on several levels) "Do you like green peppers?" (ピーマン好き?) (because he hates green peppers so much). He continually displays a lack of tact when talking to adults, asking questions such as "Why can't you cook?" to his friend's mom or "How old are you?" to elderly people.

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Media

Manga

Crayon Shin-chan, written and illustrated by Yoshito Usui, debuted in Futabasha's seinen manga magazine Weekly Manga Action in 1990. It started as a spin-off of the character Shinnosuke Nikaido (二階堂信之介) of another series by Yoshito Usui, Darakuya Store Monogatari (だらくやストア物語). The chapters were collected into 50 tankōbon volumes, which were published under Futabasha's Action Comics imprint, from April 11, 1992, to July 10, 2010.

Yoshito Usui died on September 11, 2009, after a fall at Mount Arafune. After Usui died, Futabasha originally planned to end Crayon Shin-chan in November 2009. Upon discovering new manuscripts, Futabasha decided to extend the comic's run until the March 2010 issue of the magazine, which shipped on February 5, 2010. Although the series formally ended on February 5, 2010, it was announced on December 1, 2009, that a new manga would begin in the summer of 2010 by members of Usui's team, titled New Crayon Shin-chan (新クレヨンしんちゃん, Shin Kureyon Shin-chan). This manga moved to a dedicated website after the magazine it was serialized in ended publication in late 2023.

A series of four bilingual Japanese-English manga were released in 1996 in Japan as Shin-chan: The Little Horror! (クレヨンしんちゃんの楽しいゾ英会話).

ComicsOne translated ten volumes of Crayon Shin-chan into English and released it in the United States of America. Occasional pop culture references familiar to Americans, such as Pokémon and Britney Spears, were added to increase the appeal to American audiences. The manga is mirrored from its original to read from left to right. Starting with the sixth volume, many of the names were changed to the ones used in the Vitello and Phuuz English version of the anime, even though the dub never aired in North America. This translation is rated Teen.

Since then, American publisher DrMaster took over the licenses of several manga series, including Crayon Shin-chan, from ComicsOne. No new volumes of Crayon Shin-chan were released under the DrMaster imprint.

On July 28, 2007, DC Comics' manga division CMX announced the acquisition of the Crayon Shin-chan manga. The CMX version is rated Mature instead of Teen from ComicsOne, because of nudity, sexual humor, dirty and bad language. The first volume was released on February 27, 2008, with uncensored art, and the style of jokes that frequent the Adult Swim dub with some throw backs to the original version, such as his original greeting. However, volume 10 omitted a gag which was in the ComicsOne version.

On April 11, 2012, One Peace Books announced their release of the manga, which is a reprint of the CMX version, in an omnibus format. Three omnibus volumes were released simultaneously on October 15, 2012. Volume 4 was released on November 13, 2013, and included the Japanese volume 12, marking the first time that particular volume has an English translation.

The Crayon Shin-chan manga spin-off, Action Mask, is currently available as read-only/print-only subscription from Crunchyroll and Futabasha. The main Shin-chan manga is also available from Crunchyroll using the CMX version, concurrently up to volume 10.

Anime

Television series

An anime adaptation of Crayon Shin-chan, produced by Shin-Ei Animation, has aired on TV Asahi since April 13, 1992.

A live-action film titled Ballad: Song of a Nameless Love, based on Crayon Shin-chan's animated film Crayon Shin-chan: Fierceness That Invites Storm! The Battle of the Warring States, was released in 2009, with the live action film's Kawakami family being the equivalent of the anime's Nohara family.

Video games

Console and handheld

Many video games were only released in Japan, but there were others released in South Korea, Italy and Spain.

Smartphone and tablet

Note: The last app isn't a game in itself, rather a Crayon Shin-chan hub with news, manga, and games.

Marketing

Konami, through Card Connect, has released a series of frames, including a series of colorful holograms, based on the anime's characters.

Reception

As of 2015, the original run of the Crayon Shin-chan manga has sold over 55 million copies, while the New Crayon Shin-chan manga has sold over 3 million copies, surpassing 58 million copies between both, making it one of the best-selling manga series. Including game books, encyclopedic books and other related material, the figure amounts to 148 million. As of 2023, both the Crayon Shin-Chan and New Crayon Shin-Chan series had over 148 million copies in circulation.