Shin Chan, a compendium of countervalues

Abstract

Comic artist Yoshito Usui imagined and created Shin Chan in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1991 he began publishing a comic strip in a small Japanese newspaper in which he intended to demystify the image of the housewife through a 5-year-old boy and his family. The success was immediate and the social criticism and comic humor spread. He soon began publishing Shin Chan comic albums that were well received. With this sudden success, those responsible for TV Asahi would soon arrive to propose to Usui to take the big step: to take Shin Chan from paper to television in the form of an animated series. In 1992 Shin Chan began to be broadcast in Japan, bringing the same comic stories to the screen, although those responsible for TV Asahi asked Usui to soften its contents because it was possible that it also attracted children, despite the fact that the series was designed for an adult audience. But no matter how much it was softened, Shin Chan revolutionized and created controversy in Japan, not because of the aspects that are emphasized today in the West, since sexuality and irreverence in cartoons is not something new for the Japanese, but because in a certain way way he mocked the strict and serious Japanese customs.