by Crayon Shin-chan, which began its manga serialization in 1990, is a nationally beloved series that has continued to depict not only gags but also human emotions and adventures.
This 32nd film is set in India and depicts Bollywood-style dance and the exploits of the Kasukabe Defense Force. Combining light-hearted laughter with passionate drama, this is one film not to be missed this year. We bring you a review by
The transcendent 5-year-old protagonist
I’ve been a weekly reader of “Manga Action” for almost 50 years, and after I started working in anime, “Darakuya Store Monogatari” began appearing in the magazine. I fell in love with this manga’s elusive, strange charm, and Yoshito Usui’s next serialized manga was “Crayon Shin-chan.”
I became hooked on the laid-back humor of its transcendent five-year-old protagonist when it began serialization in 1990. I continued to read it, and naturally, it was adapted into an anime two years later, and then into a movie the following year. I remember secretly feeling envious while working in animation at Yomiuri TV, thinking that some manga could grow so smoothly.
At the time, I didn’t have the skills to adapt this manga into an anime. Proof of this is that when the TV anime “Crayon Shin-chan” aired on Mondays at 7:00 pm, the TV anime “Kobo-chan,” which I produced, was broadcast at 7:30 pm the following night. Although it was on a different channel, the main character was a 5-year-old, so to emulate the popularity of Shin-chan, people started advertising it everywhere with the phrase “60 minutes of Shin-chan and Kobo-chan starting at 7 pm on Mondays.” Even now, whenever I watch Shin-chan, the two 5-year-old characters line up in my head.
A clean tempo
This is the 32nd film in the series since ” Crayon Shin-chan: Action Kamen vs. the High-Leg Demon King” was released in 1993, but for me, the ninth film, “Boraemon! The Storm Called: The Adult Empire Strikes Back,” is the one that stands out the most. I remember being amazed by the way the story theme, based on the 1970 Osaka Expo, which was deeply ingrained in people of my generation over 20 years ago, was captured. But what surprised me in the end was Shinnosuke Nohara ‘s “perseverance.” That was a long prelude.
This upcoming Shin-chan film is set in India. While the title doesn’t suggest much about India beyond the “gorgeous” curry, the story quickly finds everyone in India. The clean pace is the highlight of this film. Speaking of India, there’s the Bollywood-inspired dance. It’s well-utilized in the drama. It must be not easy to recreate that dance in animation, but the film does a great job, even with the culled dance. Shin-Ei Animation’s unique animation style works well.
