Crayon Shin-chan is a delightful children’s animated program in Japan that highlights gross examples of child abuse and skimpy two-dimensional art. At least it’s better than that standard Japanimation crap featuring characters with overly large round eyes. And don’t even get me started on Japanese
manga (comicbook). Okay, maybe later.
As of this writing (19 years later), I have seen exactly two episodes of the show - half of which (50%) feature some violent beatings of a five-year-old boy. I have a boy who’s almost five in another year-and-a-half, so that coupled with my viewing history of the cartoon makes me some sot of expert, and thus I feel qualified to write about it.
In one instance, Shinnosuke (Crayon Shin-chan) Nohara is having a level-headed conversation with his “okaaaaaa-saaaaaan!” (
oka-san is Japanese for mother, but the long, drawn out way I have written it is the way all Japanese kids scream it. So I have written it fo-net-ick-ca-lee/phonetically). Anyhow, the next moment, we see his mother’s face contort into an expression of pure loathing. Next we see an image of stars that is used to obstruct the view of the real goings-on.
When the barrier is finally removed, poor Shin-chan has a bump on his head the size of a large rice ball. Remember that he’s only five-years-old, so a throbbing (perhaps oozing) melon-sized mound of flesh on his head is even larger, relatively speaking.
Shin is usually oppressed by his mother, though sometimes Papa likes to get involved in the melee. Now he doesn’t use a belt like our dad used on our behind. Nope. He doesn’t even use an
open hand smack like a sumo wrestler might. Rather he uses a closed fist and drives his knuckles down onto the skull of his poor defenseless son – just like in pro-wrestling.
Shin-chan sometimes gets double-teamed by his oka-san and
oto-san (father). Hey, shouldn’t he be at work for his 12-hour day, or smoking beside a
pachinko machine spending the pittance he earns, or out drinking whiskey with his friends (IE co-workers) while squeezing the breasts of a local bar-fly (also known as a mama-san)?
Unfortunately, the little fellow (Shin-chan ends up with a pair of goose-eggs on his noggin that could fit into a D-cup brassiere (not generally available in Japan) snugly.
With all of the raps to the head, it’s no wonder (in the episode I saw) he was taken for a walk by his
inu (dog), Shiro (in English, his name is Whitey). No, this time, it’s not a typo. This is a tpyo. His little friends look on in fright as Shin-chan began barking and sniffing their backsides.
The dog, in typical Japanese fashion, let his pet boy make as much noise as it wanted, seemingly oblivious to the please of the ravaged youngsters to remove the fuzzy little Crayon Shin-chan from their legs.
I’m sure most of you dear readers are as disgusted as I am at what I have just presented to you. Good. Perhaps with your help we can have the little bugger removed from the ‘care’ of his parents and placed into a different time-slot when I am home more often.
So why bring all of this up? No one seems to think that physically abusing a small boy in anger is a bad thing here. While the boy certainly says and does things to tick off his parents, the perceived violence is shocking. That’s just bizarre.
It is a funny show apparently, but it doesn’t quite translate well. You may judge for yourself by clicking
HERE to watch a Japanese-language episode--I couldn't find the uber-violent one.
And speaking of bizarre, on a different subject, I once went through a tv listing for the week and found over 40 shows (60%of the total programs) have a food/or cooking related theme. This is years before the specialty channels made their debut.
The weirdest one I saw was the
2nd Taxi Driver Food Challenge where contestants (cabbies, I assume) are blindfolded and have to guess what single item food they are tasting. Yes, it’s the second one of these shows.
Iron Chef was on at this time, but without the silly English translations, it wasn’t that interesting a show.
So, why am I talking about food when I started this blog out with cartoon violence? Her's the bridge: my
Crayon Shin-chan chopsticks. I figured nearly 20 years ago that I might have kids I'd enjoy beating, I mean feeding.
Somewhere playing with my remote control,
A. Cartoon Joseph
Title is by the Jefferson Airplane - not Jefferson Starship, Starship or The Great Society.
