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The adult in me loves all the innuendo, but the kid in me loves the poop gags!

Shin-Chan (Crayon Shin-Chan as it was released in Japan) tells the ongoing suburban life story of the Nohara family.  Dad (Hiro), mom (Mitzi), baby girl (Hima), and son (title character Shin) make up the human members of the family, along with Whitey their dog.  Life is pretty normal for them.  If arguments about money, kids being obsessed with TV shows, accidents, and the more than occasional misunderstanding are normal (and it is, at least at my place).  Of course, the extremely bizarre is also the norm in Shin’s world.  The principal of Shin’s school, Mr. Ench, is also the problem-solving super hero Ench-Man.  Shin blows up the family house, forcing them to move into the Falling Apartments complex.  And I’ve never seen two women assault so many stuffed rabbits at once!  Well, there was that one time in the Catskills, but I digress.

Back to Shin’s wacky family.  Mitzi is always saving for a boob job, possibly because Hiro is obsessed with sex.  Shin is sure that everything his favorite TV hero, Action Bastard, does and says is how he should live his life.  Hima, though not yet able to speak, finds herself in the middle of many conversations or causing some sort of disaster.  The characters are all archetypes to the Nth degree.  But honestly, the majority of the show is dick and fart jokes.  Which is great because I love dick and fart jokes!  One of my favorite lines was Shin, after going to the bathroom, saying, “I think I just dropped a weight class.”

Shin has the maturity level of his obvious young age, but uses very adult language to get his points across.  He seems to do it with honest ignorance of the social faux pas, which leads to many hysterical circumstances and back-and-forth dialogue.  What’s hard to figure out sometimes is if the adult characters have any more maturity than the kids.  Sure, Shin moons his friends and family almost every episode (at one point in a grocery store, he drops trou and the intercom announces, “Attention shoppers!  Ass dance in aisle five!”), but the amount of times the adults says the word “boob” throughout this Season 1 set gets up in the … okay so I lost count.  But that kind of proves my point, yeah?

And the great thing about all this crass humor is that half of it is social commentary.  Topics range from politics to gender issues, from societal etiquette to commercialism.  The jokes are a great way to poke fun at and ask indirect questions to the oppressively weird status quo we all exist in.

The show is set up to follow a continuing storyline, but the way the segmented episodes are presented, it is easily accessible at any point.  I personally think you’d get more out of it watching episodes in order because of all the in jokes that refer back to previous events.  Also, the more TV shows, movies, and comics you know about, the more jokes you get.  Parodies and satires pop up all over the place.

In the special features, there is a section called “From the Bowels of the Booth” that provides alternate takes to lines, enhanced background dialogue (featuring one of my favorite new phrases from a Rush Limbaugh parody radio show – “Polar bears are murderers and sure burn in hell!”), and line read bloopers.  Very funny stuff that is completely uncensored.

An original Japanese language episode, Battle: Ench-Man, is provided with English subtitles.  Personally, I like the English language version better.  The jokes are cruder and more relevant to current pop culture.  I know there is a group of the anime-loving sect that abhors English translations, but I gotta tell ya kids, this show is way better in English.  It’s okay.  We’ll get through this together.

One feature (and one I think more animated DVD’s should offer) is the cast auditions.  The audition of Troy Baker (One Piece, Tsubasa) for Action Bastard is really funny.  Chris Caron (Basilisk, Dragon ball Z) who supplies the voice of Whitey the dog also supplies the strangest audition I’ve ever heard, but I’ll be damned if he doesn’t sound just like a little yappy dog.

The other features, including trailers for other FUNimation shows (Slayers, Beck, Witchblade, etc.), an incomprehensible storyboard, and one episode commentary were okay.  Nothing really exciting.  However, an unintended special feature is the immaturely thematic presentation of the DVD set itself.  Disc one is yellow (pee colored) and disc two is brown (poop colored).  On one side of the case is a picture of Shin’s junk with extra lines drawn on it to make it look like an elephant; on the opposite side is the phrase: “Co-Starring Mister Elephant and His Incredible Thigh Slapping Trunk Attack”.  Brilliant in its idiocy.  Brilliant I say!

All in all, if you take yourself and life seriously, this show is not for you.  However, if you can sometimes hear the ghost of the eleven year old you telling you to laugh whenever you hear some one say the word “duty”, Shin-Chan will tickle you silly until you wet your Huggies.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go change mine. 

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