Crayon Shin-chan (TV series)

Crayon Shin-chan (Japanese: クレヨンしんちゃん, Hepburn: Kureyon Shin-chan; also titled internationally as Shin Chan) is a Japanese anime comedy television series based on the manga series of the same name by Yoshito Usui. Produced by Shin-Ei Animation, the series follows the life of Shinnosuke Nohara, his family and his friends around the town of Kasukabe, Saitama and other locations. Most episodes were adapted from the manga but similar to ongoing shows such as Doraemon at that time, the show later processed into its own original stories which mostly included specials.

The series premiered on TV Asahi and its affiliates on April 13, 1992 leading to tie-in media being produced such as toys, video games, merchandise, a movie series, an eventual non-canon CGI movie, a spin-off live-action film and its success paved the way for the show to be exported to over 85 countries and its international success led to spin-offs such as Crayon Shin-chan Spin-off and Super Shiro to be produced.

The series aired on TV Asahi and its affiliates since April 13, 1992. The series was originally directed by Mitsuru Hongo from 1992 to 1996, and was replaced by Keiichi Hara from 1996 to 2004 and since 2004, the series is directed by Yuji Muto. The music for the series is composed by Toshiyuki Arakawa. The series was originally going to conclude in 1994 and have its time-slot replaced by a remake of Umeboshi Denka from the same studio. However, as the series became a huge hit in the ratings on TV Asahi, the network decided not to replace it, leading to said adaptation being scrapped with only a theatrical pilot film being completed and released.^[4] On August 22, 2018, TV Asahi announced that both Crayon Shin-chan and Doraemon would move from the 2003-2018 Friday night timeslot to the Saturday afternoon Anime Time block starting on October 5th of that year. Following that, the show gained a major format revamp with episode rebroadcast segments being introduced with its audio re-recorded with the show's current voice cast and several edits.^[5]

From the show's debut until 2018, Akiko Yajima voiced the titular character until she stepped down from the role in 2016 citing difficultness to process with the voice of the character. She was replaced by Yumiko Kobayashi that same year.^[1][2] Toshiyuki Morikawa took over Hiroshi Nohara as his original voice actor stepped down from the role in 2016 due to health problems, preluding his death in 2020.^[3] Miki Narahashi and Mari Mashiba had voiced Misae Nohara and Shiro respectively since the show's debut in 1992, Mashiba also voices Toru Kazama, a classmate at Shin's school and one of the members of the Kasukabe Defense Force. Since her debut in 1996, Satomi Kōrogi has been voicing Himawari Nohara.

An English subtitled version of Crayon Shin-chan ran on KIKU in Hawaii from December 18, 1993, until December 2001^[6] when Lacey Entertainment acquired the rights. The episodes were translated by Karlton Tomomitsu.^[7]

The series was first dubbed into English by Vitello Productions in Burbank, California through 2001–2002, when TV Asahi and Lacey Entertainment decided to market the series worldwide. During the early 2000s, it ran on Fox Kids (and later Jetix) in the United Kingdom, on Fox Kids in Australia, on Channel i in Singapore and on RTÉ Two in the Republic of Ireland. Subtitled versions also aired on Stöd 2 in Iceland and on Arutz HaYeladim in Israel. RTÉ Two has not shown the series since 2005, and on Jetix UK, the series was eventually relegated to shorts in-between programs, as a slot-filler. The dub is of American origin, with veteran voice actors such as Kath Soucie, Russi Taylor, Grey DeLisle, Pat Fraley, Eric Loomis and Anndi McAfee playing the characters. Soucie voiced Shin and Misae.^[8]

Funimation (now Crunchyroll, LLC) acquired the Shin-chan North America license in 2006.^[9] As per all international licenses for the series, TV Asahi remained a licensing partner for North America.

The first 52 episodes of the dub aired on Adult Swim. All three seasons, 26 episodes per season, have also been released on DVD. Season 3, released in 2011, culminated in the official finale, effectively ending the Funimation series.^{[10][11][12][13]}

On August 9, 2025, it was announced the FUNimation English dub will be released on Blu-ray by Discotek Media.^[14]

A fourth English dub of Crayon Shin-chan has been produced in Hong Kong by Red Angel Media in 2015^[15] and was commissioned by LUK Internacional, the company that produces the Spanish, Portuguese, the second Italian and the second French dubs of Crayon Shin-chan and commissioned the Doraemon dub that aired on Boomerang UK. The dub was translated from LUK Internacional's Spanish dub, which is close to the Japanese original and has no censorship. The first three volumes of the dub were released in the European and South African Nintendo 3DS eShop on December 22, 2016,^[16] and the fourth and fifth volumes were released on December 29, 2016.^[17] The dub is separated into five volumes, with the first volume being free while the other four cost €1.99/£1.79. The first volume contains two episodes while the other four contain 6 episodes each which makes 26 episodes in total.^{[18][19][20][21][22]}

In India, Hindi dubs of the anime started airing on Hungama TV on June 19, 2006. Later, it also began airing in Tamil and Telugu dubs.^[23] In 2024, Sony YAY! also started airing the Hindi dub, also providing dubbed versions in Bengali, Tamil & Telugu.^[24] As of May 2025, all films have been dubbed in Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu, and have aired on Hungama TV and Sony YAY!.

• Official website (in Japanese)
• Official Shin-Ei Animation website (in Japanese)
• Official Bandai Visual website (in Japanese)
• Crayon Shin-chan (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Crayon Shin-chan at IMDb
• Shin Chan Funimation dub at IMDb