Crayon Shinchan, Vol. 1

The back cover says I quote: "...celebrates the terrible power of destruction and indicency wielded by toddlers everywhere". And it's true and so much FUN! Each volume of this English translated manga by Comics One contains two stories in color and the rest are in black and white, or with "tones" used in Japan. You get to see what is the life of 5 year old Shinnosuke Nohara,Shinchan being the diminutive of his name in Japanese; he is rude, loud, makes the most innapropiate comments at the worst time, and isn't afraid of exposing his nude body and private parts for all to see. Shinchan is a free spirit in every sense of the word. The stories are very honest, very funny and sincere; and some even typical for the behavior of a 5 year old boy. The author has included many elements of the typical middle class Japanese family and Japanese culture in his stories, but the translator has cleverly changed some details to appeal American audiences. In the first volumes all names are Japanese then are changed to American names in later issues. Though Shinchan and his aprents remain eternally young (like the Simpsons) the stories do follow an order and sequence of events in the boy's life, but he is five years old forever, unlike the stories on other anime and manga where there is a beginning, middle and end and the charatcers grow, mature and die or move on, NOT here! Both the manga and the anime series it inspired are very popular in Japan, and as I recently discovered also in Spain and Argentina. I highly recommend these comics to all who have had to deal with small children or would like to read something funny, cute and semi-obnoxious from Japan. Shinchan is a real character you'll love him! I know I do! Personally I cannot wait till the release of the anime in the US.

Awesome, Hilarious. Love the show? You will love the manga. Orig price is 10 dollars. but I wouldnt spend more than 7. The book was clearly new. Ive ordered from other places and I could tell the book had been lightly used or the cover was yellowing. . .but not with this company. Very happy.

I have all 10 books available now and they are outrageously funny. I would recommend if you like cute characters and a good laugh. (If you love hello-kitty, this is no for you then. Shinchan is a good-hearted boy who does bad things unintentionally, or intentionally)

Soft cover is very thick and protective, in fact it actually makes holding the book open kind of hard. I sometimes got a cramp in my hand! Some of the comics have color, most are black & white. This is the first volume of Crayon Shin Chan manga so you are probably already a Shin Chan fan if you're reading this. It's a good book and of course the cartoons are very funny, but the book is just not very thick. You will get through it far too quickly & immediately want more. I would have rather had the book be physically less impressive and gotten more of the content. It's more like a coffee table book, something light for the bathroom, or a primer for people new to Shin Chan. If you know how long Crayon Shin Chan's been running then I cannot imagine how many of these thin books one would need to collect to get the whole series, because you'd need a thousand of them! But it's neat to see how the art style was in the very beginning. I just would rather have the content in bulk, but it seems like very little of this hilarious Japanese comic book has gotten translated to English over the years. Guess I'll have to go to fan translation since the "official source" doesn't provide much.

The book is good

This book was hilarious. Follow the life of 5 year old kindergartener Shinchan Nohara as he causes all sorts of trouble for his parents. If you didn't already know this is a Japanese comic (manga). Although it's not drawn very well, the humor makes up for it. For a 5 year old Shinchan is smart at times but dumbfound at others. He already knows pickup lines, uses children books to hide porn at the bookstore and outsmarts his mother. Other times he goes home to ask his mother their phone number so that he can tell the grocery lady so she can call his mother and ask how much ground beef she needs. Although the book suggests it should be okay for 13 year olds and up, I still thought it had some adult themes to it (from an American point of view anyways. They see things differently in Japan). My only complaint is that the book is read from left to right. The original Japanese version would be the opposite, since that's how they read. Definitely worth picking up.

It is very hard to describe this manga. It is one of my favorite and I even went to the extent of translating a few of the stories and placing them on my website in the hope that it would help to create more US fans for it. Very recommended.

I love Crayon Shinchan, and the price for it was great. However, I will say I'm not a huge fan of the translation or the fact that the pages were flipped to be western style. If that doesn't bother you, this is still a good read and will offer a nice bit entertainment to a slow day.