Forbidden Subjects

Crayon Shin-Chan versus a Magnificent Seven era Charles Bronson lookalike! Wait, there's more: Crayon Shin-Chan versus Bronson's ass! It doesn't get any better than this, folks. It's all in the 2004 Crayon Shin-Chan the Movie: Sunset of the Kasukabe Boys. You read it here first. Maybe Kinjite was on the money after all.

In spite of the fact that the Crayon Shin-Chan TV show and films have been around for more than a decade, I never paid much attention to the series until recently, when one of the flicks got a write-up in Takashi "Superflat" Murakami's Little Boy book. I've heard it described as a Japanese version of the Simpsons, but it's really more like a scatological Calvin and Hobbes minus the tiger.

Pretty lowbrow stuff all in all, but at their frenzied best they're the closest thing to a Daicon Film anyone's made in years. I'd almost forgotten that the Japanese used to make cartoons designed to (gasp!) entertain the audience rather than compete for the Palm d'Or. And now that Bronson's made his big anime debut, I'm counting the days until "Crayon Shin Chan the Movie: Death Wish."

Comments

[Steve Harrison]

Dunno if you heard over there, Shin-chan has been licensed in the US.

Many of us scratch our heads in confusion, because the 'popular wisdom' is that long running series are poison in the marketplace, and IIRC Crayon Shin-chan is like 400 episodes and counting...plus movies.

And of course the concern that anyone will 'get' Shin-chan, given how shows like Dr. Slump seem too...'Japanese-y' or something for fans to grab onto.

Could be just that someone over there is REALLY good at snowing the American companies... "Oh, Det.Conan is HUGE in Japan! VERY popular! It will be big hit in US, of course!" (it's not.)

I'm happy that someone is willing to risk something like Crayon Shin-chan (altho it's not my cup of tea)..I fear it's going to become some mutated for US broadcast edited mangled 26 episodes of utter crap and utterly dismissed and unreleased in its original form...which would be a shame.

I think Patarillo would have been less risky...but then again, I *am* insane...

[mattalt]

Crayon Shin-Chan isn't my cup of tea, either, which made the fact that the movies are such well done homages/parodies all the more surprising.

I hadn't heard that the series is coming to the US, but whoever's localizing it is going to have their work cut out for them...!

[hillsy]

I must admit to buying the translated manga brought over (guess I'm a lowbrow kinda guy). At least I DID until ComicsOne went under...

[thomas]

It's been on TV since about two years here in Holland, and failed to capture my attention.

Partially due to the classical Dutch post-synchronisation, which always seems to consist of two persons-of-indefinite-sex voicing all of the characters using the same voices as they already used in previous series...