Due to the death of author Yoshito Usui, the manga in its original form ended on September 11, 2009.

Set in the city of Kasukabe of Saitama Prefecture within the Greater Tokyo Area of Japan, the series follows the adventures of the five-year-old Shinnosuke "Shin" Nohara and his parents, baby sister, dog, neighbours, and best friends.

Many of the jokes in the series stem from Shin-chan's occasionally weird, unnatural and inappropriate use of language, as well as from his mischievous behaviour.

The series is mainly of comedy style with a lot of sexual innuendo, leading to parents forbidding their children to watch it.

It started as a spin-off of the character Shinnosuke Nikaido (二階堂信之介) of another series by Yoshito Usui, Darakuya Store Monogatari (だらくやストア物語).

The chapters were collected into 50 tankōbon volumes, which were published under Futabasha's Action Comics imprint, from April 11, 1992, to July 10, 2010.

Upon discovering new manuscripts, Futabasha decided to extend the comic's run until the March 2010 issue of the magazine, which shipped on February 5, 2010.

[11] ComicsOne translated ten volumes of Crayon Shin-chan into English and released it in the United States of America.

[12] Starting with the sixth volume, many of the names were changed to the ones used in the Vitello and Phuuz English version of the anime, even though the dub never aired in North America.

[13] Since then, American publisher DrMaster took over the licenses of several manga series, including Crayon Shin-chan, from ComicsOne.

The CMX version is rated Mature instead of Teen from ComicsOne, because of nudity, sexual humor, dirty and bad language.

On April 11, 2012, One Peace Books announced their release of the manga, which is a reprint of the CMX version, in an omnibus format.

The Crayon Shin-chan manga spin-off, Action Mask, is currently available as read-only/print-only subscription from Crunchyroll and Futabasha.

[20] Another spin-off series called Crayon Shin-chan Gaiden consisting of four seasons is exclusively streaming on Amazon Prime Video worldwide with English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese subtitles.

Kimiko Ueno handled series composition, while Tomohisa Shimoyama served as chief director.

[31] On 23 November 2018, Arashi member Masaki Aiba appeared as his character Tatsuya Kōenji, from drama Boku to Shippo to Kagurazaka, in a short at the end of episode 983, called Ora to Shippo to Kagurazaka dazo, where he examines Shinnosuke's dog at the veterinary clinic.

The dub is of American origin, with veteran voice actors such as Kath Soucie, Russi Taylor, Grey DeLisle, Pat Fraley, Eric Loomis and Anndi McAfee playing the characters.

But their episodes featured a new cast of voice artists (among others Diane Michelle, Julie Maddalena, Peter Doyle).

For instance, the unseen father of Nene (known in the dub as "Penny") was suggested to be physically abusive toward both his wife and daughter, and this was used as a source of black humor.

Principal Enchou was rewritten as a half-Peruvian, half-Romani man with a complicated prior life that includes a stint as a magician, in which he accidentally injured scores of audience members.

[49] As of October 2024, 22 films have been dubbed in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu and aired on Hungama TV and Sony YAY!.

[83] As of March 2021[update], Bandai Namco has sold 227.02 million Crayon Shin-chan Chocobi food packs.

[85] There were complaints from parents over the main character's behavior and the attitudes exhibited towards elders on the show, both of which were seen as a negative influence on children.

[86] The series was banned in October 2008 by the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on account of heavy nudity.

[87] After many requests from fans, the show returned to Hungama TV in 2009, albeit censored; scenes containing nudity were cut, and there were several changes to the dialogue to remove adult humor and better appeal to Indian culture.

[88] A Portuguese dub of the anime has also aired on Biggs, with the segment of the 165th episode "Dad's Hospitalized Life" causing major controversy in 2016, due to a scene where the nurses examine Shinnosuke's anus, and compliment it, all while he acts and looks uncomfortable.