Special Episode: Hiroshi and Misae Alone in Crayon Shin-chan

Crayon Shin-chan airs an unusual new episode on September 19 in which Shinnosuke is almost entirely absent and Hiroshi and Misae Nohara take center stage instead. The episode "ある午後の野原夫婦だゾ" airs at 4 p.m. in Japan on TV Asahi and is the first to come from the pen of Sho Hasumi, head of the theater and comedy group Dow 90000.

As TV Asahi explains in its official announcement, the episode was created as a collaboration with the show "Buzzman TV." Hasumi deliberately chose a single everyday situation in the Nohara family's living room. Shinnosuke is out, Himawari is asleep, and Hiroshi and Misae talk about dinner, the smell of crayons, and a secret involving Hiroshi's socks, among other things.

One-Cut Staging Instead of a Conventional Plot

The distinctiveness lies not only in the focus on the parents. According to TV Asahi, the conversation is staged as a one-cut animation. The episode thus largely dispenses with the usual dynamism and concentrates on timing, pauses, and the everyday relationship between Hiroshi and Misae. Hasumi received the Kishida Kunio Drama Award this year and describes the episode as a deliberate continuation of his own style, built on a single situation and long dialogue.

Voice actors Toshiyuki Morikawa and Miki Narahashi also highlight the experimental approach in their comments. Morikawa sees it as an example that the long-running series can still try out new forms. Narahashi describes the episode as an unusual, theater-like conversational situation.

For Crayon Shin-chan, this is therefore a regular TV episode that is clearly different from the norm. The series has another appearance at the ABEMA Anime Festival 2026, while TV Asahi recently also featured an established long-running series with a special episode in the form of a Doraemon birthday special. The official announcement lists only the Japanese broadcast on September 19 for the new Crayon Shin-chan episode.