Television Review: Shin Chan
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What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that although this colorful anime
series is about a 5-year-old boy, it's full of risqué
humor, sexual innuendo, and frequent moderate profanity -- in
other words, all the makings of a teen's ideal show. Of course,
while the storylines contain sexually flavored humor, they're
more adolescent than mature (Shin-chan frequently reveals his
butt and penis, etc.). And the main character behaves badly,
but it's more out of immaturity than hostility. Snide jokes
about the mom needing a boob job or a woman needing a strong
man like Bill O'Reilly may go over younger viewers' head, as
may the dysfunctional relationship dynamics between the
parents.
Families can talk about how Shin-chan compares with Bart
Simpson. What's the difference between the two mischievous
boys? How is the humor in their shows both similar to and
different from each other? What's the appeal of their
characters? How might these shows be different with a girl
character in the lead?
An anime series featured in Cartoon Network's adult-oriented Adult Swim programming block, SHIN CHAN follows the silly, mischievous, often-rude antics of 5-year-old Shin-Chan and his parents and neighbors. The humor is mostly adolescent- and adult-oriented, with a good dose of sexual innuendo and frequent profanity. For example, one segment begins with Shin-chan watching a TV show in which superhero Action Bastard save his young female sidekick, who has been attacked with an enema ray and squeezes her butt cheeks together until she's freed. Then, Shin-chan gets his mom to buy a particular brand of sausage so he can get enough Action Bastard stickers to win a prize. Jokes about putting a sausage in one's mouth culminate in Shin-chan baring his butt in a grocery store and doing an "ass dance" in order to collect stickers from customers.
American producers wrote new scripts to accompany the Japanese show’s original animation, using American voice actors and changing the dialogue to better suit an American audience. So jokes referring to popular culture figures like Bill O'Reilly and Jessica Simpson have replaced the original Japan-oriented humor. Jokes about boob jobs, penis size, crack whores, and more pepper this strange amalgam of anime and South Park . Teens won't learn anything new from the show, but their parents might want to preview the series anyway.
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