Global Trends: Death Of Shin chan

Death Of Shin Chan

Crayon Shin-chan (クレヨンしんちゃん Kureyon Shin chan), also known as Shin Chan, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated byYoshito Usui. It follows the adventures of the five-year-old Shinnosuke "Shin" Nohara and his parents, baby sister, dog, neighbours, and friends and is set in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture. An anime adaptation of the series began airing on TV Asahi in 1992 and is still ongoing.

Basic information

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 viewers may find it difficult to understand his jokes. In fact, some of them cannot be translated into other languages.

Shin chan

Some other humorous themes which are repeated in the series are of a more universal nature, such as gags based on physical comedy (such as eating snow with chopsticks) or, as a child, unexpectedly using adult speech patterns or mannerisms. But even there, many of the 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). Shin-chan regularly becomes besotted with pretty female characters who are much older than him, and an additional source of humor is derived from his childlike attempts at wooing these characters, such as by asking them (inappropriately, on several levels) "Do you like green peppers?" (ピーマン好き?). He continually displays a lack of tact when talking to adults, asking questions such as "How many times did you go to the police?" to tough-looking men or "How old are you?" to elderly people.