Crayon Shin-chan, No. 16 - Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Hero of Kinpoko (2008)

No. 16, Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Hero of Kinpoko, aka Crayon Movie: Anything They Want! Golden Spear of the Brave (at least, that’s that the Google translation from Chinese). At any rate, the Crayon Shin-chan movie from 2008. The last one I can find.

What’s becoming apparent, having seen (in Japanese) three Crayon Shin-chan movies, is how different they are from each other. Each movie takes the foundation of the “Crayon Shin-chan” TV show and builds from there, tossing that semi-normal universe into bizarre fantasy. Those fantasies have no overlap in substance or style. The Storm Called: The Battle of the Warring States told a period feudal tale with relative seriousness (and boredom). The Legend Called Buri Buri 3 Minute Charge used a comic kaiju framework to deliver potty jokes. And now The Storm Called: The Hero of Kinpoko explores pure, surrealistic fantasy, never laugh-out-loud but always light and comic.

It’s ever clearer that these movies were a way for the Shin’ei Doga animation studio to explore further visual approaches, while maintaining the baseline Shin-chan look. Number 16 is the most formally inventive in that matter, using an occasional Wonderland-lite dreamworld as its own personal playland. Consider the image below, part of the most gorgeous sequence in any of the Shin-chans I’ve seen.


The plot, as best as I can work it out from the visuals alone (Japanese language track, no subtitles – well, okay, subtitles in Chinese), is the standard tale of an alternate genre realm colliding with five-year-old Shin-chan’s land of Japanese satire. Here, a magical, all-powerful Sword of Mystery (or possibly a Golden Spear of the Brave) is stolen from the evil Jester King of the Clown Kingdom – look, I dunno what these things are called, I’m just assigning the most obvious designations. So a beetle, which we never see again (though a later good guy proves to be a shapeshifter), shutters this sword off to the Shin-chan universe, and we’re off!

Now, based on the too-small poster, and presumably the movie’s pre-release Japanese hype, audiences are now primed for Shin-chan to get his hands on said sword so that wackiness can ensue. The first ten minutes in Shin-chan’s company expend plenty of energy on Shin-chan’s newfound sword mania. For he sees his TV hero Action Kamen using one and, well, what a kid sees on TV… Lord knows if his obsession with butts came from television too, and then if his family gets the BET.

Shin-chan goes to the store to purchase an Action Kamen-Approved Plastic Killing Sword of Death. Because we’ve all seen movies like Gremlins and Small Soldiers (and, er, Child’s Play), we know the main character, by total stupid lucky coincidence, shall end up with a magic sword, or some such. That’s why it’s such a shock, build-up aside, when Shin-chan gets home to discover the sword box instead contains – a ruler?!

But Shin-chan’s also independently taken in a black dog which is a perfect double for their usual white dog, Shiro. So if that ruler is a misdirect, then something is up with the dog, surely.

That night begins a series of visitations, as Shin-chan plays host to the Jester Lord’s devious minions. First up someone I call the Tall Man, out of the fact he looks nothing like the villain from Phantasm. The Tall Man tempts Shin-chan, as all these spectral clown types shall, with any number of magical fantasies like out of “Yoshi’s Island.” Presumably, so I guess, this is to get him to give up the “sword,” as apparently it has to be given, cannot be taken. So it’s psychological warfare against the anal obsessive Shin-chan, a character without psychological depth. He repeatedly spurns the demon clowns’ advances, either through being incredibly smart or incredibly dumb. But not before the Tall Man leads his stylistically unique sub-minions in a song and dance number, like something out of The Nightmare Before Christmas (a possible influence upon this entry). There are two original songs in this film (not counting the credits pop song), making, uh, Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Hero of Kinpoko something of a musical.

Apart from these nightly temptations (hmm, what could that be a metaphor for?), Shin-chan’s life goes on as normal – All the better for the animation budget to stretch when called for. No one else believes the child’s tales of evil clowns, though those who ignore evil clown warnings learn to pay. Even while this is meant as the “normal” section, there are still context-free moments of strangeness which defy commentary:


This is a TV show (Japan, man!) which inspires Shin-chan, in its deviancy, to do his patented “buri buri” dance – that is, to remove his trousers and vibrate his sphincter directly in front of his parents’ faces. They shut the TV off, putting a premature end to the film’s dedication to the butt. It’s necessary to call ass attention at some point, so they’re getting it out of the way.

Since the Tall Man failed, Shin-chan is next visited by the Boob Harlequin (who appears further down, and is unmistakable). Of course, breasts are Shin-chan’s main weakness, just like, well, the majority of human males. These being temptation enough, Boob Harlequin forgoes more ostentatious fantasy. But still Shin-chan relents, partly at the new dog’s insistence. Yup, that black dog is gonna be important!


Boob Harlequin reports back to the Jester Lord (that guy above, because clowns aren’t scary enough already). Let’s talk about this evil Clown Kingdom. On top of the film’s visual ambition, it seems Shin’ei Doga finally got themselves the budget for a CGI department. CG is at the best of times difficult to marry well with cell-style animation, and it fares much worse here. The 3-D renderings look like they’re for the N64 (you know, the polygon era). Which is a shame, because otherwise the Clown Kingdom looks like something Tim Burton would’ve dreamed up had he been born in Tokyo. It’s partly an M. C. Escher bio-mechanical nightmare, with black and white card slaves and shifting shapes made up of puzzle pieces. This is an unusual land, and a grand achievement.

That shapeshifter I hinted at long ago, the one I think was the beetle, now escapes from the Jester Lord’s carnival clutches, in the form of a kid’s puzzle box. He goes to Shin-chan’s house.

So this shapeshifter has a name I actually parsed out – Mata. Beats calling him and/or her the Clown Child. Mata, now in androgynous human form, exposits to Shin-chan some…things. Damn this language barrier! All this is to prepare Shin-chan for the next night, and the Tall Man’s final visitation – where he at last resorts to violence.

Shin-chan first tries to defend himself with a “buri buri” – can’t see what good that’ll do – when Mata rather transforms the family’s dining room into, basically, TRON only gay. The world is now an infinite grid made of the pinkest pink that ever pinked. Mata then transforms him/herself into a biplane of most inadequate CG rendering. The Tall Man does likewise, and even morphs himself into a whole squadron based on his “whatever the filmmakers wanted to do” powers. And the chase is off!


It’s an extended dogfight, done almost entirely in CGI (unfortunate, unfortunate CGI). There are many rendering errors you wouldn’t think would make it unscathed into a theatrical release, at least not in a year post-1990. The hollow interiors of the planes are visible, as they shimmy in and out of existence. It’s embarrassing, considering how successful the traditionally animated moments are. Even Shin-chan, the lone 2-D feature in this sequence, remains the most visually appealing element. One has to admire the detail the animators give him in freefall, even if it means a flopping penis getting tangled up in his inexplicably-loosened pants. I don’t get this continued emphasis on Shin-chan’s organ.

Shin-chan escapes, and the Tall Man is seemingly dead, since we never see him again. Returning home, Mata sings a dreary lullaby to the moon, knocking off the film’s musical quota nice and early(ish).

Some more time wastes away with a desultory depiction of the family’s normal life, possibly reusing animation from way back in the “Shin-chan” archives, a necessary step to allow the budget to create hideous CG abominations. But once that’s complete, night comes again, and Shin-chan can face the violent retribution…

Of Boob Harlequin!


Note, this is in the “real” world now, Shin-chan’s family right there. So they can at last see the breasts he’s been prattling on about. Instead they’ve been frozen solid, as if by Professor X himself. But Mata rescues them all, transforming the nature of reality in one of those successful moments of animation (i.e., 2-D). Oh right, and Mata even magically grants the entire family new circuit outfits, the only dignified means of battling the forces of clowns, as they are about to do.


I maintain that the finales of damn near every anime go way off the rails, at least by western standards. And they start early, leaving the whole Third Act to boast such oddness. It affords the maximum amount of interesting animation, at the cost of cohesion. But different cultures consider narrative strength differently; consider Italian horror movies, or even ostensibly “coherent” anime features like Ghost in the Shell. It’s easiest in these instances to just go with the flow, and enjoy the experience for what it is – stream-of-consciousness ramblings taken cinematic form. Usually with ultimate good battling ultimate evil.

Boob Harlequin, like the Tall Man before her, employs a vehicle to attack her quarry, all while in a stylized and overly colorful fantasy world. She uses a clown convertible (of evil!), forcing Mata to become a…strangely thin car thing. This chase is wacky, nigh incomprehensible, and violates most of the laws of physics even as they exist in the anime realm. And though they’re at the bottom of a valley, a sudden cliff way makes them fall up. Which leads to this:


A momentary adoption of a totally different drawing style, for all of 3 seconds – it’s frankly the film’s funniest moment. There’s a lot of this sort of visual experimentation in Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Hero of Kinpoko. It’s non-diagetic, follows no rules, and raises the film to the next level.

Mini-bosses defeated, it’s time to face the Jester Lord himself. Since the Lord has turned himself into a dragon, our heroes use their “whatever powers” (really, it doesn’t matter) to become a sort of Voltron amalgamation – Shin-chan is the head, while everyone else is some naughty bit (his father is the groin, and it’s saying something that this is not one of the more puerile Shin-chan movies).


Craziness then occurs, naturally. The Jester Lord is like a multi-form boss, for as soon as he’s defeated in dragon form, all but Shin-chan again freeze, and Shin-chan must face the Jester Lord in his…Jester Lord form. This is the cue for that glorious sword to at long last come into play. Would you believe it was that cheapo ruler all along? Well, it is. So what of the black dog, in its misdirection? It turns out the dog was really a magical shield in disguise. Sure, why not?

Entering a new visual area, keyed off of German expressionism such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Shin-chan swordfights. There are more crazy variations, even, as the Jester Lord possesses hydra-like abilities to split in half and duplicate. Why, this’ll require Shin-chan take on a new unexplained form of awesomeness – an angular light being with a Super Ultra Mega Lightning Sword of Destiny, or whatever!


We’re nearing the end, so Shin-chan summons the biggest lightshow remaining budget will allow for, and he wins. Not much more to relate, Mata exposits whatever’s going to happen to the Clown Kingdom now, explains why it should concern us, and Shin-chan returns to the Universe of Japan.

I’m not sure if anyone but Shin-chan retains memory of all this. His mother Misae doesn’t seem to, as instead she’s mad at Shin-chan over recent shenanigans. As a capper, she dangles him violently by the ears, which is this series’ equivalent of Homer Simpson strangulating Bart: grotesque iconic child abuse played for laughs.

Two more Crayon Shin-chan movies to date have followed Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Hero of Kinpoko, though there’s the possibility that 2010’s Crayon Shin-chan: Super-Dimension! The Storm Called My Bride will be the last.

In 2009, series creator Yoshito Usui fell off a cliff while hiking, and died. As he’d been personally responsible for the “Crayon Shin-chan” manga ever since its 1990 inception, that put an end to that…though the discovery of some excess manuscripts allowed his apprentices to extend the series through 2010. But out of respect for the heart and soul of Shin-chan’s butt, manga production has ceased, lest it become a zombie property.

As TV’s “Crayon Shin-chan” did mostly adaptations of each and every manga, it too has felt the sting of Usui’s untimely de-cliffing. Some debate has suggested that they may continue production ad infinitum anyway, citing “Doraemon” and “Sazae-san” as other properties which have perpetuated post passing. This pertains to the movies too, even though they were never as central to the series. They weren’t the direct products of Usui’s stories, but rather financial and creative outlets for the animators. So wither the TV series, thus too the movies (that annual off-season TV show effluvia). Crayon Shin-chan, the movies, may continue, but it’s too soon to say.


RELATED POSTS:
• Series introduction
• No. 10 Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Battle of the Warring States (2002)
• No. 13 Crayon Shin-chan: The Legend Called Buri Buri 3 Minutes Charge (2005)

Crayon Shin-chan, No. 13 - Crayon Shin-chan: The Legend Called Buri Buri 3 Minutes Charge (2005)

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)

Crayon Shin-chan, No. 10 - Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Battle of the Warring States (2002)

The tenth Crayon Shin-chan movie, elegantly titled Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Battle of the Warring States (to be fair, without a good translator all Japanese titles sound lugubrious in English), is surely an obscure picture, as evidenced by its complete lack of an IMDb link. By all evidence, this movie doesn’t exist…except it does, because I just watched it. That is thanks to some of the seedier corners of the Internet. I know, I could have gone to Chinatown, to see if that mysterious store which sells the mogwais has a copy, but that’d be Region 2, and a big “if” anyway.

There’s a reason why so many anime franchises follow the Crayon Shin-chan method, and release movies each and every year – hence their obscurity through oversaturation. It’s especially odd to grant the “Crayon Shin-chan” TV show yearly action thrillers, as it (and the manga) are comedic deconstructions of domestic life first and foremost. But that’s what happened.

That’s because Japanese animation is largely an independent venture, with a great many studios competing. In the U.S., an animation studio never depends entirely upon a single property for their whole existence. In Japan, they do. Hence for Shin’ei Doga, the makers of “Crayon Shin-chan” (hell, it’s there in the studio name!), it makes sense to milk their titular 5-year-old’s name for all it’s worth, franchising it as much as possible.

Hence The Battle of the Warring States, while technically a Crayon Shin-chan movie, sees Shin’ei Doga trying to expand into totally different styles of storytelling. It plays far more dramatically than one would expect for a series best known in the U.S. for supplying countless jokes about penises and abortions and shotguns (that’d be the FUNimation gag dub from Adult Swim). I am assuming a reasonable amount of this film’s content, however, as it’s not dubbed in English – nor subtitled. Oh yeah, it’s wholly in Japanese, which I do not speak (I could only pick out the word “ninja”). That’s not a ginormous problem with such a visual medium, and I even grew up watching things like “Dragon Ball Z” and My Neighbor Totoro sans linguistic aid. And as Crayon Shin-chan is aimed at a young audience, the visuals have to carry a lot of the story – and the story has to be simple.

The central notion of The Battle of the Warring States (which is unwieldy, even as a shortened title – let’s go with CSC:TSC:TBOTWS) is that young Shin-chan, he of the world’s most astounding buttocks, travels back in time (via magic) to feudal Japan. This isn’t all that distinct from my recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, and we know what I thought of that. It is wholly unfair to judge a movie I only sorta saw. Rather, a simple recounting…

The central Shin-chan attitude is effortlessly wacky and ridiculous, as exemplified by the stop motion credits – of Shin-chan doing inexplicable battle with a self-replicating pig monster for reasons having ultimately nothing clearly to do with the movie. This general wackiness informs every animation decision for Shin-chan and his Nohara family. Their designs are intentionally skewed and crude, but consistent in their hideousness. The acting is always to the rafters, eyes bugging out like a Japanese Tex Avery cartoon, and symbolically-loaded non-diagetic poses struck habitually.


Then there’s Shin-chan’s butt. What an odd thing to make the character’s central feature, a child proud of mooning at the slightest provocation. The kid must do oddly misinformed Kegel exercises, for his butt cheeks have more distinct muscles and superpowers than the Hulk.

But enough of the hero’s ass! How’s he get back to the time of Ran? Well, he goes home, the dog Shiro has dug a hole, and he goes in. This mechanism is very unclear, as the hole has a bottom (5 feet below the lawn, in fact), but a blue light I first mistook for a commercial informs us some vague magic transports Shin-chan, magic surely dwelt upon in the dialogue.

Feudal Japan as Shin-chan finds it is a far cry from his standard sketchy universe. It appears, even on first glance, to be a serious place, its residents actually vaguely resembling real human beings. They don’t look especially good, though, for Shin’ei Doga is trying their hand at a drawing style they are unfamiliar with (that being “anything other than Shin-chan”)…and it’s all done on the low TV budgets which don’t diminish the main program’s charm. Of course, as the film plays out in this setting, it seems less and less distinct, as though the animators grew tired of doing something far more stilted than their norm.


There’s basically no humor intrinsic to this area, as all comedy comes from Shin-chan himself, his anachronisms and his strangeness and his attitude. It seems Shin-chan isn’t meant to be a relatable character per se, let alone a role model. Rather, he is an odd duck we laugh at, but don’t identify with. This makes for a strange narrative, as far as I can tell.

Shin-chan wins over the shogun lords by performing apropos of nothing his “buri buri” dance – that is, his “buttocks frenzy” dance. Like a Japanese Cornholio with an even greater bunghole fixation, Shin-chan bears rear, raises as high to the heavens as possible, as he parades it in rumba style up and down in hypnotic fashion, all the while almost certainly singing “Butt butt butt butt!”

Shin-chan’s time is spent primarily in the company of a warrior, whom I name Warrior. His name’s probably Bob or Franklin or Mitsobushi or something, but I don’t know it. Warrior is in love with Princess, which is evident because of the standard romantic soundtrack whenever they’re together. (The Princess’ bog-standard anime longing glances clue us in too.) Forget Japanese (or Esperanto), music is the universal language. It also lets one know that Warrior has a back story, because nostalgic strings play as he speaks before the sunset. What that back story is, we can only guess: Happy childhood in a village, rampaging villainous warlords destroyed the peace, former family, possibly something paralleling Shin-chan’s home life, who knows?


Shin-chan falls in with a crowd of children just as grotesquely drawn as he is – because they’re perfect stand-ins for his regularly appearing chums from 2002! One feature on the boys is very unusual to Western eyes: Each one has a water symbol somewhere on his face, say tears or sweat. And their ringleader has a mighty snot dangle eternally gracing his face, a curious thing since, as an anime character, he has no nose. Shin-chan takes an instant lighting to this crowd of grotesques, without ever having to bear gluteous maximus to do so (sadly, as the film grows seemingly self-serious, Shin-chan forgets his love of public indecency).

The youths travel to a forest glen, the setting somehow tied in with time travel. It’s also where Princess comes to be wistful about something or other. So she’s there too.

Where there is Princess, there are bandits to rob her. And where there are bandits, there is Warrior. When Warrior and Princess are together, there is romance. And where there is romance, there is the family sedan casually idling here in the 15th century – Wait, what?!


Okay, so Shin-chan’s parents Hiroshi and Misae are themselves now in the past, having intentionally parked their Honda Civic directly over the dog’s pathetic hole for an indeterminate amount of time. This is good, because Shin-chan’s feudal schtick was starting to wear thinner than grandma’s underpants.

Rather than the Noharas banding together and returning to 2002, possibly because it’s presently impossible to work the time mechanism or some such, they travel to the castle of the good guys, gaping all the way. One thing that separates, er, CSC:TSC:TBOTWS from most other unambitious one-time-period-only time travel movies is that the ancients never react in terror at the travelers’ modern technology. Never once is their car stereo treated as a possessed magical demon, or any such B.S. The only strange reaction is that a group of soldiers get their hands on Hiroshi’s beer cans. They get drunk and pass out. Which is what Hiroshi had planned to do anyway. Though he doesn’t handle his beer’s disappearance too well…


There’s lots of talk going on, lots of exposition concerning goodness only knows (the soundtrack doesn’t help me out with this stuff). Then an enemy army appears outside of Princess’ castle, meaning this is probably what all the chatting was about.

War is at hand, a chance for the animators to mostly do serious and unengaging battle scenes from here on out. It’s Warrior vs. Villain, Villain being another new non-namer. But what of our regulars? With all this sudden danger, it’s not like Shin-chan and Hiroshi are going to be caught taking a piss.


Actually, that’s exactly what they get caught doing! Bless Crayon Shin-chan’s adherence to bawdiness.

The battle wages, and leave it to Japanese animation to never pass up a chance to stretch such events far beyond their appropriate length. Of note, this being a family film, there are actually many battlefield deaths shown. From one perspective, this is as would be, but one doesn’t expect it in a butt movie. I can’t remember now if the overall battle sequence really was very long, or if I just took a lot of screen caps during this segment. At any rate, there is an odd ratio of images to things I have to say. Thus, two images at once.



Those actually sort of work together, as it sums up the Noharas’ reaction to Villain. They make the eventual dramatic decision that, even though it’s likely they can already go home, they’d rather help their friends win this war first. The Turtles did the same thing in their equivalent film. At least the Turtles are warriors. All the Noharas have is a low horsepower, low-cost Japanese sedan – perfect for committing hit-and-runs against samurais. More oddly, Hiroshi seems to think the car’s antenna makes a perfect sword; this doesn’t work out. Victory comes of Shin-chan’s actions of course – He walks directly underneath Villain’s legs, and jumps upwards. That ricockulously big head of his thus eradicates Villain’s ball sack. Ah, the groin shot, that most noble of cinematic traditions!

Victory is at hand, and the opposing army hasn’t the heart to fight with their leader’s manhood mangled. Epic music of epicness makes it doubly clear, as Warrior leads a triumphant procession back towards –

Never mind, Warrior just dropped dead. What of? I dunno! Maybe some errant bullet struck him, though there’s the slight hint that Shin-chan murdered him (unlikely). A touching though maybe pointless death scene follows. Princess weeps. The soldiers weep. It’s anime, so these are not subtle tears either. Then the bad guy army forfeits their weapons, even though they already ceded the battle.

Farewells are said, though forgive my Japanese ignorance for thinking this scene had already passed a few times before. The Noharas drive off into some reeds near that forest glens when –

Suddenly they’re back parked over their dog’s metaphysical ditch, in a most understated way. All seems over, when a moth flies out of Shin-chan’s ear (?!) and up into a white cloud. I wouldn’t point this out, but the music makes a remarkably big deal out of it, as though ‘twere the destruction of the One Ring. There’s a hint this moth is the spirit of Warrior, so…yeah, sure, I’m going with that. It seems an appropriate ending.

Well, there it was, a one-off Shin-chan that wanted to be a historical drama. That’s hard to align with the standard mode of the show, except…eh, movies are a different beast. Perhaps these theatrical features were Shin’ei Doga’s way of experimenting with new forms – almost certainly that’s the answer. This kind of seriousness and low fantasy has nothing to do with “Crayon Shin-Chan” as created by Yoshito Usui. But if a studio needs to franchise, to milk their cash butt dry, I guess it’ll do.


RELATED POSTS:
• Series introduction
• No. 13 Crayon Shin-chan: The Legend Called Buri Buri 3 Minutes Charge (2005)
• No. 16 Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Hero of Kinpoko (2008)

Crayon Shin-chan, an Introduction

“Buri! Buri! Buri! Buri!”*

*Translation: “Ass dance! Ass dance! Ass dance! Ass dance!”

Most anime film franchises develop in a very particular way (or so it seems to my gai jin eyes). First comes the manga (or comic book, O my droogies), the creative progeny of a single artist. Given immediate manga magnanimity, an anime TV series develops, often doing animated adaptations of individual manga issues, to prevent continuity problems, or questions of canon.

Then given enough series success, feature films begin. These are produced by the same animation studio behind the TV show, and done on an annual basis as a supplement to it. In many U.S. animated programs, a similar approach yields movie-length TV or DVD entries, but rarely anything theatrical. And indeed, these anime movies are theatrical, in a Japanese cinematic trend I have no knowledge of (this whole write-up is gonna be me groping in the dark, like at a Romanian orgy). Seemingly, the movies are the least important ingredients of these manga-based franchises. However, this blog’s format necessitates considering all film franchises as such, creating an odd scenario when it comes to much Japanese product.


So it is with “Crayon Shin-chan,” which originated in 1990 with creator Yoshito Usui. The manga and TV show employ a simple (almost childishly simple) visual style, like a little kid’s sketches. This is appropriate, as the series concerns a kindergarten-age rapscallion, Shinnosuke Nohara, more popularly known as Shin-chan. He is a shameless boy, with something of an anal fixation, and a love for women far too old for him (as a 5-year-old, that means any sexually mature woman). These interests, as well as a love for the fictional show-within-a-show “Action Kamen,” lead to antics, which lead to problems for the larger Nohara family, which lead to hilarity.

Enduring Shin-chan’s buttocks-heavy nonsense are his mother Misae (known for a short tempter, and an inexplicable visual trademark called “guri-guri”), his father Hiroshi (who may or may not wear the pants depending upon Misae’s mood), and later in the series Shin-chan’s newborn little sister Himawari. There’s also the dog Shiro, another later addition. So the franchise’s focus is decidedly domestic, with the parents occupying the traditional (nay, stereotypical) modes for a Japanese couple: the housewife and the salaryman. Then there is the extended family on either side, Shin-chan’s school chums, and the surrounding universe of the Kasukabe Saitama Prefecture.

So…a boringly standard setting, with a large cast of characters (which I haven’t even remotely delved into), a reputation for scathingly funny social humor (which I’ve also neglected mentioning so far). “Crayon Shin-chan” sounds like nothing so much as “The Simpsons!” (Only a bit more kid-based…ish.)

Sometimes called “Japan’s Bart Simpson,” Shin-chan emerged roughly parallel to that American satire, and seems to occupy a similar comedic niche in Japan. The humor is reportedly based upon Japanese wordplay and other cultural notions which do not travel well. Hence, despite the franchise’s noted popularity within Japan, it has not moved extensively beyond the Asian world. But since Chinese is linguistically similar to Japanese, the show (and other properties) has successfully transitioned to that market.


Common Shin-chan love made it as far as India, where the show’s songs could easily be replaced with local Bollywood singles, as befitting that country’s pop cultural obsessions. This continued up until a point, when parent groups took offense to certain Shin-chan facets. As befitting a “Simpsonian” social satire, “Crayon Shin-chan” is not without risqué elements, most notably the titular Shin-chan’s habitual tendency to drop trousers and wiggle his buttocks proudly for all to see. He does similar entertainments with his penis, including a famous routine called “Mr. Elephant.” There was nothing all too culturally questionable about such anarchical impertinence in Japan, where cartoons regularly do much, much stranger things, but a nation like India is considerably more conservative in such matters. There was altogether too much sex in “Crayon Shin-chan,” though ‘tis otherwise a kids’ show, leading to complete government censorship in 2008.

The same story is found further afield, such as in American and European markets where “Shin-chan”’ was eventually distributed in the ‘00s. Due to profanity, frequent naked buttocks, etc., the intended audience of children never saw the show to any great degree. Fox Kids held distribution rights in the early 2000s, but the only markets where “Shin-chan” escaped government censure were those markets where the new dubs came pre-censored. And when that happened, “Shin-chan” was not popular.

Except in Spain! “Crayon Shin-chan” is ridiculously hot in Spain!

Within the U.S., the greatest “Crayon” craziness was on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, where the show was again redubbed for a decidedly more adult audience. This FUNimation version totally recontextualizes the show into a run of off-color jokes, placing new emphasis on the original’s occasional display of asses, genitalia, dead babies and fart clouds. (Find the first full-length episode here, as long as the link survives.)


An example of this bastardization’s humor: Shin-chan’s Futaba Kindergarten is renamed the Super Happy Fun Time American School. “Action Kamen” is now “Action Bastard.” It’s not quite my taste (within Adult Swim, give me “The Venture Brothers”), but I’ve known many of my friends to really love this version. They also find Airplane! “too subtle,” so what’re ya gonna do?

All that’s to do with the show (and manga, to a lesser extent). As for the movies, they really haven’t travelled beyond Japan, and surely haven’t been redubbed in any serious capacity (or at all).

And how does one do a yearly feature connected to a show that’s essentially “Simpsons”-esque? (Consider how…awkward The Simpsons Movie turned out, and that was with 20 years of prep time.) Reportedly, the silly and derisive “Shin-chan” tone changes ever so slightly, with Shin-chan’s genuinely virtuous characteristics taking greater prominence – the better for creating the impression of arcs and drama. And in favor of wacky hijinks, the plots concern big, ridiculous world-shattering battles against supervillains and space aliens and whatnot. They’re action thrillers!...Presumably. Also presumably, wackiness remains to some extent, so maybe all this is more a parody of the typical feature anime. Someone with a bit more knowhow, help me out please!


Anyway, the movie series ran from 1993 through 2010 (though maybe not any more after that – more on that in a later post). Here they all are:

1. Crayon Shin-chan: Action Kamen vs Leotard Devil (1993)
2. Crayon Shin-chan: The Secret Treasure of Buri Buri Kingdom (1994)
3. Crayon Shin-chan: Unkokusai’s Ambition (1995)
4. Crayon Shin-chan: Adventure in Henderland (1996)
5. Crayon Shin-chan: Pursuit of the Balls of Darkness (1997)
6. Crayon Shin-chan: Blitzkrieg! Pig’s Hoof’s Secret Mission (1998)
7. Crayon Shin-chan: Explosion! The Hot Spring’s Feel Good Final Battle (1999)
8. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called the Jungle (2000)
9. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Adult Empire Strikes Back (2001)
10. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Battle of the Warring States (2002)
11. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: Yakiniku Road of Honor (2003)
12. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Kasukabe Boys of the Evening Sun (2004)
13. Crayon Shin-chan: The Legend Called Buri Buri 3 Minutes Charge (2005)
14. Crayon Shin-chan: The Legend Called: Dance! Amigo! (2006)
15. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Singing Buttocks (2007)
16. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Hero of Kinpoko (2008)
17. Crayon Shin-chan: Roar! Kasukabe Animal Kingdom (2009)
18. Crayon Shin-chan: Super-Dimension! The Storm Called My Bride (2010)

That there are not IMDb links to many of these features indicates how sparsely known they are outside of Japan. Hell, I’ve found videos of movies not listed on the IMDb!

Clearly, little is known of these features in the English speaking world. Considering the rights entanglement most anime suffers through, international release rarely happens. All the regular reference sites have essentially zero plot summaries or anything. Even the freaking Anime News Network has little to no information on these movies, at least nothing of any use!


Here’s what I can find out (it doesn’t help that the locatable summaries are in Engrish):

Part One: Shin-chan’s TV hero, Action Kamen, is apparently a real part of his world now. Only he cannot return to his own world, or something, without his “Action Stone,” which has been stolen by Haigure, also called Leotard Devil. It seems Leotard Devil’s dastardly scheme involves swallowing the Stone (as opposed to passing it), which will somehow result in the end of the world. How this is so difficult, if he already possesses it, is beyond me. And it’s up to Shin-chan, the butt-bearing tot who’s hot-to-trot, to save the world, something he’ll do again every year for the next two decades, without ever aging.

Part Two: The Nohara family wins a dream vacation to Buru Buri Island (which translates out to “Ass Dancing Island”). Little do they know this is all a ploy by the wicked White Snake Gang to kidnap Shin-chan for no doubt justifiable reasons, Shin-chan being a completely normal 5-year-old in his universe, who happened to save the world once (maybe). Then there’s someone called Prince Sunnokeshi, and the Buru Buri Monster (aka the “Ass Dancing Monster”).

Behold, an article on this 1994 film’s mightily delayed premiere in India!

Part Three: N/A


Part Four: Things are normal enough as the Futaba Kindergarten goes to Henderland, an amusement park seemingly having to do with the Spanish infinitive for “to cleave.” But the park is home to Dark Secrets, and Shin-chan can only save the day with the magical playing cards he’s been given by a living marionette. I assure you, amongst Japanese media this is a ho-hum bit of weirdness.

Part Five – Eight: N/A


Part Nine: It now being officially the Twenty-First Century (i.e. 2001), a museum opens in honor of the Twentieth Century, where the adults can relive their childhoods. It all turns out to be an evil scheme straight out of Henderland, with the villain seeking a delayed Y2K, to keep it the Twentieth Century – forever. Shiver!

Parts Ten – Eighteen: N/A

About the other 13 movies, I know not beyond their titles, and what unwieldy beasts those are! Two colons in one title! Shin-chan, ass-centric deviant that he is, must be proud. And what’s with the repetition of the semi-subtitle “The Storm Called”?! Maybe it was a sub-brand “Shin-chan” name, presenting those movies as being in a separate continuity (or something) from the show or manga.

Really, I’m more confused now than when I started, knowing “Shin-chan” prior just as a source of butthole jokes on the Cartoon Network. But there are at least locatable two entries…In Japanese, of course, but if incomprehensibility negated movies from this blog, I wouldn’t’ve written up The Cremaster Cycle. That means Part Ten, Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Battle of the Warring States, and Part Thirteen, Crayon Shin-chan: The Legend Called Buri Buri 3 Minutes Charge, are next in the pike. (Future edit: Parts Sixteen is also available.) And to watch them, I shall have to become – an Internet Pirate! Arr!


RELATED POSTS:
• No. 10 Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Battle of the Warring States (2002)
• No. 13 Crayon Shin-chan: The Legend Called Buri Buri 3 Minutes Charge (2005)
• No. 16 Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: The Hero of Kinpoko (2008)