Joseph Luster
October 10, 2008 
Shinchan isn’t exactly an anime for purists. It also might not be one for the pure of heart; a fragile innocence that will be shattered in no time after a thousand and one wiener jokes unceremoniously slap it in the face. The balls-to-the-wall English dub produced by FUNimation takes everything that was remotely raunchy about the original Japanese series—widely enjoyed in various forms across our Planet Earth—and makes it raunchier, darker, and more relevant to its late-night American target audience. Nope, purists probably don’t like it one bit, but for the most part, Shinchan is funny as hell.
Adapting this series is a slippery slope in the first place. From its beginnings in Yoshito Usui’s manga in 1990 to the debut of its still-running animated counterpart two years later, Shinchan is understandably rife with cultural humor, much of which is based on wordplay and thus next to impossible to accurately translate while retaining the intention of the joke. Besides, this is America. We don’t care how much “welcome back” sounds like “I’m home” or vice versa; we want farts and little kids cursing and all the raucousness we’ve come to expect from the late night Adult Swim lineup.
Despite its age, Shinchan ends up looking like Fantasia compared to the rest of the non-animation that fills those time slots, and thanks to the fact that they actually have comedy writers behind all of the script changes, the punchy dialogue can put some of them to shame in that department, as well. The fact that it’s shameless and ridiculous is the primary selling point, and there’s no false advertising here. Sure, they oversell the occasional joke, but it hits more than one would think.
Of course, you probably know all that’s been said here so far if you’ve a) watched the show before or b) read Daryl Surat’s review of part one way back in issue six of Otaku USA. So what’s different in part two? Not much, really, and if you enjoyed the first, you’ll most definitely want to continue with the season and absorb even more over-the-top humor than your mind can possibly handle. With episode titles like “The Herpes Effect” and “Gratuitous Grandparent Nudity,” you should know what you’re getting into from the moment you unfold the case.
Shinchan holds up really well in short bursts, though marathon sessions are only recommended to the truly brave. Other’s may find that their mileage varies, as it tends to with comedy, but I found some of the humor wearing thin after drilling through half the set. Taking a break helped freshen the experience and kept me from developing a rocky relationship with the voice talent, who do a pretty swell job in general and aren’t very deserving of a marathon viewer’s bloodshot ire.
While most of the aforementioned revamps to the show’s script bring everything properly up to speed and make it an appropriate pick for something like Adult Swim, it would be nice to have the option of more content in its original 
language on these discs. I know, I know, I already said this wasn’t a series for anyone not prepared to enjoy the wildly different dub, but watching the snippet of original Japanese video that the first collection provided gives a taste of some of the more subtle humor. After getting a glimpse of Ench-man/Encho-man in his Japanese form on the first set of discs, for example, the lack of Japanese clips in part two is kind of disappointing.
The rest of the collection is solid and, when paired up with the first release, provides an affordable bundle of episodes and a handful of extras for fans of the show. Though I’ll be surprised if they ever really chip away at producing even a modest chunk of Shinchan’s 600 plus episodes in North America, this is a series that showcases one of the creative ways a program can be successfully reformatted for another region with a little bit of elbow grease and the ambition to make the original seem completely innocuous.
Studio/Company: FUNimation
Available: Now
Rating: TVMA
