Brianna Fox-Priest
November 11, 2024 During anime’s 2000s resurgence in the West, many of us eagerly tuned into Toonami every week. If you stayed up late for Adult Swim, the 12:30 am slot was overtaken by a cheeky, mouthy five-year-old, Crayon Shin-Chan. While I vaguely remember the details of the show, it’s obvious to me now that my time with Shinnosuke (Shin-chan) was a much different experience for young Japanese viewers.
While peculiar greenlit dubs skewed my impression of Crayon Shin-chan, almost 20 years later, I got the chance to meet Shin-chan in a different light. The most recent life-sim Shin chan games looked very innocent and wholesome compared to the show I recall. With an affinity towards cozy anime sims, Shin chan: Shiro and the Coal Town made it onto my radar.
Spending some time with the game preview, which I reviewed here, Shin chan: Shiro and the Coal Town proved to be a good addition to anyone who is a fan of anime life sims. The best part about these particular titles is you don’t need to be a veteran fan of the series or have any previous knowledge of Shin-chan to play. In our recent interview, the game’s producer, Akira Nagashima said “many people will be experiencing the world of Crayon Shin-chan for the first time through this game. We designed it so that even beginners can enjoy the game without any prior knowledge.”
So if this is your first entry into the world of Shin-chan, you chose a good place to start. The ease of gameplay is perfect for short sessions. Being a new story in the Shin-chan world makes it simple to understand and get started.
Shinnosuke’s days are filled with catching bugs, fishing, growing vegetables, and running errands for neighbors. It’s a repetitive process in the beginning, but after you unlock Coal Town your days mining materials feel more purposeful. Helping the local restaurant and town inventor will have you running from the two main maps in search of materials. The main appeal to collecting resources and small tasks is to unlock mine-racing.
Rather than needing to beat your opponent’s time, you win by collecting crystals for a high score. The courses become more challenging and require new trolley parts and customizations to take turns better, knock challengers off course, or drill through obstacles. It’s a fun side quest to break up the daily scavenger hunt that becomes the main focus at the end of the game. There isn’t anything particularly difficult throughout the game (other than finding the spawn area for that pesky rhinoceros beetle), but the final “battle” was a nice change of pace.
Shin chan: Shiro and the Coal Town was a short and sweet title, making my reintroduction to Shin-chan enjoyable. It isn’t my definition of the perfect cozy game, but it’s a nice break from time-consuming titles.
I can’t forget to mention that Shiro and the Coal Town is an absolutely beautiful game to look at. I often stopped running through screens to watch the trolley cars stroll along the horizon of Akita. Its painterly style works surprisingly well with the illustrations of the characters, a style favored by Nagashima and his team.
If more anime sims adopted an approach for newcomers to easily pick up and play, more people would be willing to discover series they would normally overlook.
