Shinchan is swapping summer fun for spooky business. Toho has unveiled press notes and images for Crayon Shinchan: Spooky! My Yokai Vacation, the 33rd theatrical film in the long-running anime franchise, which opens in Japan today.
The latest outing sends the Nohara family on a holiday that takes a decidedly eerie turn. What begins as a peaceful trip to Hiroshi’s hometown in Akita Prefecture quickly goes off the rails when mysterious flyers for “Obake Village” appear in their room.
Naturally, Shinchan cannot resist the bait, especially when the flyers promise all-you-can-eat Chocobi. The family heads into the mountains, only to stumble into a strange space that turns out to be the forbidden “Land of Yokai”, where humans are not welcome.
Things get even cheekier when Hiroshi and Misae are discovered to be human. Their “butt balls” are stolen, transforming them into yokai. Worse still, the pair gradually begin losing their memories of their human lives.
The clock is ticking. Unless Shinnosuke and his friends recover the missing “butt balls” by the Hour of the Rat the following day, Hiroshi and Misae may never return to their human forms.
The film follows Shinchan and his friends as they take on the yokai-filled world in a bid to save the Nohara family. Expect supernatural shenanigans, plenty of laughs and a summer holiday that goes spectacularly off-piste.
The franchise has been entertaining audiences since Yoshito Usui’s manga began serialisation in 1990, followed by the television anime in 1992. The first theatrical film, Crayon Shinchan: Action Mask vs. Leotard Devil, arrived in 1993. The series now reaches its 33rd film following last year’s Crayon Shinchan: Super Hot! The Spicy Kasukabe Dancers, which sent Shinchan and the Kasukabe Defence Force dancing across India.
Masaki Watanabe directs the new film. He has worked as an animation director on the television anime since 2022 and has handled storyboarding and segment direction for the films since 2024. Yoshiko Nakamura, a writer for the television anime, has penned the screenplay.
With yokai, missing memories and a race against the clock, Shinchan’s latest holiday is anything but restful. A summer trip has turned into a supernatural scramble, with the Nohara family’s fate hanging on a race against time.
