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| A Tokyo subway train celebrating 25 years of Crayon Shin-Chan |
Japan is world famous for its cartoons (
manga) and animated cartoons (
anime) and one of the longest running of these, in the same league as Doraemon and Detective Conan, is Crayon Shin-chan. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the
anime, some Tokyo subway trains were decorated with the little guy's face (picture right).
Shin is a five-year old kindergartner who drives his parents mad by breaking all sorts of social rules, misbehaving, and generally acting inappropriately. He is definiitely more
kimo-kawa (creepy-cute) than
kawaii cute; he can be rather disgusting and even sexist, something which saw Japanese PTAs label the programme as unsuitable for children. Indeed, not a few Japanese parents have banned the programme in their house: it is more South Park than Tom and Jerry! Even abroad, despite being aired in 45 countries in 30 languages, Shin-chan has been controversial; in
Spain, for example, there was a campaign to move it to a later time-slot, in
Indonesia it was labelled as "porn," while in India it was
reportedly banned outright.
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| Click to preview on amazon |
Nevertheless, for the student of Japanese, Shin-chan can be a useful learning experience, since he often plays with language, much to the consternation of his parents, such as switching around the set-phrase pairs which form the glue of Japanese social interaction. For example, his reversal of "I'm home!" (
tadaima) and "Welcome back!" (
okaeri-nasai) makes for highly amusing viewing - and the phrases themselves will stick in the mind. The trailer for the new film can be seen
here and the comic previewed on amazon by clicking left.
