Now that is how you do Crayon Shin-chan as a feature film! The only other one I could find (until tomorrow), Crayon Shin-Chan: The Legend Called: The Battle of the Warring States, was a staid and stately period drama, which mostly suffocated whatever classic Shin-chan humor it had like Jack Nicholson at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But Crayon Shin-chan: The Legend Called Buri Buri 3 Minutes Charge (or CSC:TLCBB3MC) retains the TV show’s sense of comic anarchy throughout, upgraded fantastical storyline or no.
Godzilla is attacking! Or knock-off, ersatz Godzilla, at any rate. Things begin like a kaiju (that is, gigantic Japanese monster movie – you know, Godzilla and the like), an excuse for the movie to fake us out with the crushing deaths of many regular series characters.
Ah hah!, but it was just a dream, Shin-chan’s dream, that demented little kill-happy 5-year-old. (At least for once he’s not thinking rapturously about his own butt cheeks.) Ignoring the rest of the sleeping Nohara family – father Hiroshi, mother Misae, little sister Himawari – Shin-chan descends into another dreamy reverie…
Where he fights alongside Action Kamen (or, as Wikipedia has now suddenly decreed, “Action Mask”), a spoof of either “Kamen Rider” or “Ultraman” depending upon whom you ask. Crazy Japanese superhero shows, either way. It seems a bit structurelessly aimless so far, but there’s a point to all this, as it’s not simply an endless stream of Shin-chan dreams throughout (at least, I think it’s not – I don’t have recourse to understanding Japanese to really work it out).
Anyway, Action…Whomever does battle with a motley crew of supervillains, I’d wager all those so far created in the show’s twelve-year run. Shin-chan helps his hero out by…um…revealing his penis. This is a regularized course of action for Shin-chan. In fact, in Japan his genitalia are iconic. All this is somehow considered “family friendly” in that country (I mean, consider what their pornography is like), which is why I feel no qualms in visually depicting Shin-chan’s exhibitionist acts. (Warning: naked cartoon comedy nudity to follow.) That’s just a precursor to Shin-chan’s greatest natural offense (for this battle, at least). Facing Mantis Fiend (or whomever), he shoves two fingers up the insect’s anus! Jesu Christo! David Cronenberg movies must be laugh riots in Japan!
Opening credits employ the same stop motion pig villain motif I recall from, er…CSC:TLC:TBOFWS. This is evidently a regular series feature, and I lament not having access to more entries, to really identify patterns and such. There is also a silly song.
Returning to “normal,” an artfully wordless sequence depicts regular morning ritual for housewife Misae, who works herself silly feeding and cleaning up after her clan. It’s a lot like similar scenes with Marge Simpson, appropriate given “Shin-chan’s” similarity to “The Simpsons” – but with a far more pronounced anal fixation. Honestly, this series is inexplicably biological. But anyway, Misae sees Hiroshi off to work, and races to deliver Shin-chan to the school bus (itself pink and cat shaped, a regular element that is less strange to me now I recognize that fact). Misae fails, and rather bikes her son all the way to school by accident.
Finally back at home, Misae is too pooped to do anything but collapse on the floor. Meanwhile let’s take note of Shin-chan’s toy Ersatz Godzilla, which featured so prominently in the opener. For totally inexplicable reasons, the thing has plastic molded pink buttocks, like a baboon, simply because Godzilla is another conduit for making ass jokes. Specifically, Himawari collects the toy, and licks said ass to no end, as my own dog is wont to do. Kids’ film!
Then – let us accept non sequiturs are heavy on the ground in anime generally, and seemingly more so in Shin-chan – a wall banner opens up, revealing a portal to another dimension! Two entries under my belt, and the Noharas’ standard suburban home is a nexus point for all sorts of mystical and metaphysical shenanigans. A glowing light emerges, inspects the room, and at last…sails directly up the Godzilla toy’s anus! Because in Japan it’s not abnormal to sculpt a biologically accurate asshole into your kaiju dolls.
The toy animates, and devours Misae’s ramen. And – cut!
Rather, in an odd jump, we focus our attention upon Hiroshi, who returns home exhausted from work Japanese style, to find his home both clean and empty. A paradise! Then he finds that inexplicable portal, and passes through as casually as most fantasy in this franchise is handled, whereupon he finds himself in –
Kaiju Land! It’s a world full of real (ersatz) Godzillas. The kaiju (gigantic monster, remember) genre shall be the through-line for, er, CSC: TLCBB3MC. That I can handle, even if kaijus allow for a ridiculous amount of ridiculousness – all the better for the series’ tone. Take for instance the sudden, unheralded arrival of Ersatz Sailor Moon to battle Ersatz Godzilla. This, by the way, is seemingly not one of Shin-chan’s fantasies (it’s the director’s). Sailor Moon is triumphant over Godzilla (the sentences I write sometimes…), who then disappears. And Hiroshi’s whole family is already here, and they’ve all taken most easily to this world.
Back at their home, the Godzilla toy emissary exposits something I do not linguistically understand about the kaiju problem in Kaiju Land (my name for it). It’s clear the topic is kaiju, for I understand that word. It seems the trouble all has to do with this testicularly-shaped spaceship hovering directly over Tokyo Tower (of course Tokyo Tower), and – okay I see testicles, though by this series’ style it could just as well be dual buttocks or breasts. Biological, at any rate. So there’s this hovering dual-gonad blimp thing, like something straight out of Cremaster 1 (god, this series project has given me a really strange reference pool!). Because of it, more and more kaiju monsters shall become the norm.
Such as right now! An alarm goes off on the Godzilla toy’s baboon ass (trust me), and the family returns to Kaiju Land to see a dragon-demon-thingus running rampage. This time it’s Hiroshi’s turn, as he…grasps the Godzilla toy as a magical amulet, thus transforming himself into – Shield Riot Cop Superhero Guy! [Fanfare!] It also becomes clear that Misae had previously done likewise to emulate Sailor Moon, which is apparently every Japanese housewife’s true fantasy. So Hiroshi uses his ass-pulled superpowers, as he defeats the monster with…with…
[Filth coming up!]
He inflates his ball sack to the size of the Goodyear Blimp, and uses it to pummel the monster into oblivious. Victorious, Hiroshi’s…implement dangles flaccidly in the air. It’s funny as all get out, trust me, but it is also very, very bizarre.
Amongst kaiju parodies, CSC:TLCBB3MC reminds me most of Big Man Japan, a movie I made the mistake of watching with my mom. Her brain shut off partway in, and she left to read a book. And she has a high tolerance for strange! Both movies feature a weirdly biological bend to their monsterism, and also descend into “Ultraman” pastiche surprisingly often. They’re also fairly understandable, when you know the Japanese monster genre.
The family’s new superhero existence becomes evident. They are now at the Godzilla toy’s beck and call, to enter the new universe, become superheroes, and thrash a wide bestiary of cartoon monsters again and again. Apropos of nothing, Shin-chan prattles on about something to do with sex. With the aid of visual hints as to what Shin-chan is saying, I deduce he is proposing his one-year-old sister grow up to become a lesbian. What the hell?! Complete with Shin-chan making sound effects and slobbering everywhere and – Kids’ film!
So rather than focus on some tiresome drama at this stage, instead the movie shows in whole the family’s new super-career – and not even in montage form!
Next up, it’s Hiroshi again. Becoming more like Superman each time, he now faces a giant blue minotaur. He uses his cape like a matador, and wins. At least that joke was clean. And a ball with the bull’s power enters Hiroshi’s chest emblem.
Next it’s Himawari’s turn. As the baby, she transforms into – Flying Duck Toy Girl! She faces owl-Mothra, and electrocutes it with her crying. Just go with it. There is much celebration.
Now a centipede-dragon-thingamajiggus rages. Misae returns to battle, this time claiming a new super-identity: Mega Maid! In this transformation, she gains the most common superpower of all – boobs. This moment gains a lot of loving attention from the artists. Being Shin-chan, there is a joke here, as Misae’s cup size increases with each new battle, but it doesn’t cease to be fan service at the same time!
What of Shin-chan’s superpowers, seeing as he’s the lead and all? For now, it’s just Hiroshi again, duking it out with Super-Ultra-Mega-Godzilla. Hiroshi is no match for it, the monsters now growing in power. That’s the cue for Shin-chan’s glorious entrance – completely nude.
Shin-chan tumbles from the sky, in a jaw-dropping shot where he falls towards camera, until his five-year-old endowment have received as much (if not more) attention as Misae’s breasts previously. Seriously, his balls black out the camera. And then…
Kids’ film!
Shin-chan becomes Golden Groin Ball Boy. Yes, his primary superpower concerns his miniscule manhood, of course, his secondary powers all emitting from his butt (bared naked with a needlessly-open costume flap). I swear, this child is the second coming of Le Pétomane!
Shin-chan defeats the beast using Hiroshi’s stinky socks, that being a series running gag. In the inevitable applause and adulation, Shin-chan celebrates before the masses by wiggling his penis for all to gawk at. Seriously. And it’s all up there for us to see. (Not capped.)
Some more monster fights before anything resembling structure can arrive:
Misae becomes Sexy Mermaid Housewife Woman Girl to stop a very large goldfish.
Hiroshi defeats a gigantic flaming ghoul – which turns out to be a gigantic naked salamander.
Misae becomes Boob Witch Lady to stop a crab monster.
Apparently, terrible guitar players are now considered kaiju. This one goes to Shin-chan, who destroys the man’s guitar within his own ass. As an extra scatological detail, the guitar’s shape is even equated with the testicular form of the floating Tokyo Tower blimp.
Hiroshi vs. a bunny demon.
Misae vs. a…a thin…thing.
Himawari vs. a giant snail.
The family dog now vs. a feline Cerberus.
And Shin-chan vs. a formless cat-chicken. In order to achieve victory, Shin-chan does this:
Reverse enemas! Kids’ film! (I can see why this hasn’t traveled much outside of Japan.)
Have we had enough complete wackiness? Okay, so the dramatic point of all this is that all the kaiju fighting is simply another chore for the Nohara family, who were over-inundated to begin with. The house is a complete sty, like a dorm room or a bachelor’s pad. The monsters are growing stronger, and are no longer fun to fight. Worst of all, it seems a pan-dimensional gonad is descending over Tokyo Tower in this world now, where they have no powers!
Thankfully for viewers just looking to get their jollies, there is never any self-serious dwelling upon superhero angst or any such nonsense. No, the Noharas don’t have to fight a beast sans powers, and no they don’t mope or weep or do any of that crap. They simply lay around, physically exhausted. That is, until Godzilla toy’s ass alarm goes red again, and they dutifully return to Kaiju Land for one final slog.
It’s an anime-style climax, meaning things go at least three steps beyond what Americans would consider the logically craziest possible ending. Things always always always go totally nutbars Lovecraftian metaphysical lightshow cuckoo at the end. At least with Shin-chan I can be ass-ured of more ass-inine ass humor.
The final threat (above) is a formless pink beast made of a flowing, viscous fluid. It’s best not to think about those implications for too long. Let us ignore entirely, then, all the gigantic tentacles everywhere. Those always mean trouble.
Misae and Hiroshi attempt a tag team, as only one person can use the Godzilla toy’s transformative powers at once. But El Slime-o won’t budge. Ultimately Shin-chan takes charge, he whose plot-mandated ass superiorities shall surely triumph. Flame propel from Shin-chan’s miraculous intestinal tract, granting him methane flight. But then his power farts out, as it were, and he falls within the great pink beast’s gaping toothed maw. Shin-chan commits flatulence again once inside, and seemingly defeats the beast.
In America, at least. In Japan, the beast rises again, necessitating the Nohara family take refuge – in crazy. Now, for reasons surely 100% self evident by the dialogue, Action Kamen is there with them, and they’ve all been transformed up to kaiju scale. There is a robot, too. And also a monster-sized crayon drawing of a pig (?!). Er?
At this size, all continue to rail against the anthropomorphic Pepto Bismol. Misae does as I imagine Mario oft does, and crushes the thing with her ass. Ass ass ass ass ass! (Note: “Buri buri” also means “ass ass.” This series has a preoccupation.) The pig poster moons the monster (?!). Hiroshi attacks with his socks (?!!!!?!), as they learn stinky smells repel Spermatozilla. This looks like a job for Shin-chan, and his bowels of fury!
The robot gapes open the monster’s clenched, pink, anus-like mouth (this is so wrong!), as Shin-chan places his wide open rear over the beast’s chasm. And thence lets out the mightiest passed ass gas the world have ever known! Victory is achieved! By handing the monster his ass, he handed the monster its ass.
The Tokyo Tower testicles now lower to the ground, turning then into two gigantic gold…oh, wait, it’s Shin-Chan’s ass. WHUUUUUUUUUH?! Normal Shin-chan engages his penis in a dialogue (?!?!?!?!?!?!), as the new testicle-ass-Shin-chan yells about evil this and that and I’m sorry, everybody, but I am completely lost here. See how wild these things go at the end? Shin-chan pursues Shin-chan all over animated Tokyo landmarks, defeat comes to the one who is bad, and –
Okay, I thought I had a handle on this movie for a while there, but 90 minutes later I am just flabbergasted. Which is just as a Shin-chan product should be! Everything returns to series normality, this story dropped with no further canon references, and I stand marveling at the amassed bouquet of bizarre biological notions, anal jokes, and general abnormality. And damn it was funny! Kudos, Crayon Shin-chan movies, kudos.
RELATED POSTS:
• Series introduction
• No. 10 Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Battle of the Warring States (2002)
• No. 16 Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Hero of Kinpoko (2008)
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