Anime / Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō

Shimajirō and his friends.^note Clockwise from top: Shimajirō, Mimirin, Torippi, and Ramurin. Not pictured: Nyakkii Momoyama.

Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō (しましまとらのしまじろう, lit. "Striped Island Tiger Shimajirō") is a 1993 Japanese children's Slice of Life anime series primarily aimed at preschoolers. It is based on the Kodomo Challenge educational program by Benesse, which debuted in 1988.

The entire series focuses on Shimajirō Shimano, a curious tiger boy living in Challenge Island, as well as on his friends to a lesser extent. Being the eldest in a two-child family, Shimajirō attends kindergarten alongside his friends- Torippi the parakeet, Mimirin the snow rabbit, and Ramurin the lamb (later replaced by Nyakkii the kitten) as they all discover everything around them, and learn valuable lessons as they grow up.

The show currently airs every Saturday at 8:30 AM on TV Tokyo. The Qiao Hu dub, meanwhile, airs several times a day on ETTV Yoyo in Taiwan which is also available through select Pay TV providers throughout Asia.

The series first started as a segment in the Kodomo Challenge direct-to-video tapes in 1988, but broke out into its own show in 1993. It has had several retools since it's launch, each time getting a new name:

• Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō - the 1993 launch title. Longest running incarnation of the show, lasting from 1993 to 2008.
• Hakken Taiken Daisuki! Shimajirō - the first retool, started in 2009 but ended after just two years, in 2010. Switched to the Three Shorts ABA format with a live action Shimajiro as the B short in this version. The retool also introduced Shimajiro's other classmates- Boota, Kanta, Kento, Kikko, Kirinta, Marurin, Monta, Sakurako and Zouta.
• Shimajirō Hesoka - the second retool, started in 2011 but again ended just after two years, in 2012. Most notably, this incarnation ended with Ramurin leaving Challenge Island and the Oshiete! 3 Shimai segment was included.
• Shimajirō no Wao! - the current reincarnation of the show, started in 2013. Second longest running incarnation of the show behind the original. The show switched from traditional animation to digital animation (with a hint of Cel Shaded CGI) in this incarnation, and introduces Ramurin's replacement, Nyakkii. Also starting from this incarnation, the live action segments occasionally features person of interests showcasing their craft or celebrities performing an educational skit or song and general topic of the B-Segment switched from School Curriculum to STEAM.

It should be noted that while Shimajiro no Wao! is considered a retool of Shimajiro Hesoka (the B-segment changing focus from school curricular subjects like hiragana writing to STEAM and general topics) internally at Benesse they are considered the same show (or the former is considered a continuation of the latter) and the episode number from Shimajiro Hesoka is not restarted after the retool. As such, Benesse celebrated Shimajiro no Wao! 's 10th season in 2021.

In April 2020, Benesse and WildBrain partnered up to create an online-exclusive English dub of Shimajiro no Wao! called Shimajiro: A World of Wow! (Or Shimajiro: A Wonderful Adventure, depending on which market Benesse thinks you're in). WildBrain would further engage Funimation as their dubbing partner. The dub is overseen by Iyuno Media Group and uses talents from Bang Zoom! Entertainment with feedback from Benesse. Several segments from the Kodomo Challenge program were also dubbed. The dub is primarily uploaded to it's own Youtube channel, but notoriously, the channel on and off blocks access to the episodes from half of the world. The dub is also uploaded onto Wildbrain's numerous Youtube channels. This dub is also streamed in Japan on Netflix alongside the original Japanese show, and a selection of it was eventually made available to the rest of Asia (and even the Indian subcontinent) on Netflix in 2021.

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Tropes featured in Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō include:

• Alliterative Name: Shimajirō Shimano, and Mimirin Midorihara.
• All Just a Dream: The ending of the Sega Pico game Shimajirō: Yume no Kunihe Daibouken! implies that the entire four page StoryWare adventure was this to Shimajiro. Then Shimajiro notices this thank you card on the top of his dresser...
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Ramurin Makiba and Nyakkii Momoyama are both pink.
• Animal Gender-Bender: An episode in the 2009 remake averts this. In the toilet training episode, a kangaroo superhero◊ shows up to help teach Shimajiro learn to use the toilet, and brings his son along with him; because he's specifically a boomer^note male kangaroo, he has to wear a separate pouch so he can carry the joey while leaving his hands free.
• Animals Not to Scale: Adult rabbits are the same size as adult tigers, which are the same size as adult cats and adult hippos. Averted with Torippi’s family tho, who’re smaller than normal adults.
• Animate Inanimate Object: Some inanimate objects are turned anthropomorphic, in order to demonstrate lessons. However, this is sometimes taken to the next level. For example, in an episode about diseases and the immune system, the germs are portrayed as apes and rats, while the antibodies are portrayed as miniature versions of the body they live in. After all, this is just Japanese weirdness. And perhaps this is the one thing that makes the potty training episodes unusual to the west- the show anthropomorphizes toilets and toiletries, something that never happens with potty training videos in the west.
• Art Shift: The earliest episodes were traditionally animated, but the show had shifted to cel-shaded CGI and digital animation (via Toon Boom or Adobe Flash) when the Shimajiro no Wao! Retool started. And of course there are the live action costume segments. Some later content on the Kodomo Challenge DVDS are full CGI and some are puppetry. The franchise is very mixed media.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In one episode, the kids were playing when it started to rain. Torippi wishes that it would never rain ever again. Later, while they were playing at Professor Gaogao's lab, Torippi accidentally uses one of Gaogao's inventions that sent him into a book where he was turned into a Kappa. In the middle of a draught. And the worst thing is, he nearly dies as the water bowl on the top of his head^note A kappa's source of their life force and energy dries up and he is unable to find water anywhere.
• Bowdlerization: In the English dub Shimajiro episode Dad is Embarrassing, there is a scene shown in Asia regions including Japanese and Indonesian versions which depicted Shimajiro who was angry and upset with his dad. Shimajiro's mother then threatens to slap Shimajiro's face only for Shimajiro's dad who intervened and stopped her. This clip was cut out in the English dub version shown on Youtube.
• Cinderella Plot:
  • In one episode, Professor Gaogao uses a device to put the kids into a book of the story so they could act it out. Hilarity Ensues as the device decided to put Shimajiro and Torippi in the roles of two of the stepsisters, bringing back their girl disguises in the process. It also decided to make Nyakkii the prince.
  • In another episode. The kids basically just have to act out the story for the school play.
• Childhood Friends: Shimajiro, Mimirin, Torippii, and Ramurin later replaced by Nyakkii.
• Dub Name Change:
  • Surprisingly, this is mostly averted. While a few of the characters had their names slightly changed in the English dub, (Professor Gaogao to Mr. Roarson, Kumagoro Sensei to Principal Bearkins, Torippi to Flappie, Nyakkii to Nikki, Mimirin to Mimi-Lynn and Marurin to Mary-Lynn), many other characters (Zota, Boota, Kirinta, Pontaro, to name a few examples) kept their original Japanese names in the English dub. The English names were apparently decided by Benesse themselves tho, as the Indonesian dub uses the same set of names despite Funimation and WildBrain having no part in that version's dub process.
  • The Chinese dub. Even if you know the Japanese names by heart, watching the Chinese dub is an exercise in confusion management as half of the names are changed and those that aren't are pronounced so differently that it barely sounds like the original Japanese name. Some can be brute forced^note Qiao Hu has to be Shimajiro, and Miao Miao may be Nyakkii due to how that's an onomatopoeia of a cat's mew. Also, Tao lerr pii sounds vaguely like Torippi that one could hazard that guess but others^note Which one of them is Chii Chii? require repeated watching and maybe basic knowledge in Mandarin Chinese to make sense.
  • The Korean dub. Shimajiro in Korea is renamed as Hobi in the Korean dub version, and other characters like Nyakkii, Mimirin, Torippii and even Professor Gaogao which have their own Korean names.
• Everyone Owns a Mac: In a costumed segment made specifically for the Taiwanese market, Professor Gaogao is shown to own a green 2021 24" iMac, but with the Apple logo removed.
• Expansion Pack: A lot of their toys supports add-on expansion modules or additional program cards which has to be purchased separately to expand their functionality, making getting them even more frustrating than it already is if you don't live in Japan and qualify to sign up for their programs.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • In one episode, Torippi manages to trick Shimajiro into thinking he’s Torippi’s robot alien friend from another planet (in the English dub, they made him claim that he knows everything instead). Despite the Paper-Thin Disguise^note a bunch of cardboard boxes and cardboard tubes, and a pair of cans glued to his shoes, with parts of his body, ie his unmistakeable green wing and bird feet, exposed and the fact that he did not really bother with disguising his voice, Shimajiro buys it. ^note In comparison, even Torippi's siblings know better and demanded to see "what's inside the box" when he pulls a similar prank in a different episode to get them to stay on their mission to deliver a karaoke mic to their grandma.
  • And then Torippi fails the spot check in the episode where Shimajiro cross-dresses to placate Hana. He introduces himself to Torippi as Shimajiro's cousin. Torippi, despite being somewhat nervous at first, became clearly enamoured with him, and was clearly confused and blushing after the encounter.
• Free-Range Children: Shimajiro and company are always seen going around town on their own without adult supervision. Keep in mind that they're basically kindergarteners, Shimajiro can only barely read basic kana forms if any of the toy advertising anime are canon. Sure, they're on an island which statistically always have very low crime rate, they have a police station, and they have a neighborhood association which means everyone knows each other, but the island is shown to be quite huge with a large town encroaching the entire west and south side of the island, and several smaller villages on the outskirts towards the central north-east, and a working shinkansen line circling it. The probability of getting lost on the island is still very real.
• Forgot About His Powers: It seems that Torippi sometimes forget that he can fly.
• Funny Animal: The entire cast are anthropomorphic animals.
• Funny Background Event: In the episode Nurse Mimi-Lynn, after Mimirin slaps Tamasaburo into the bushes, Shimajiro arrives and Tamasaburo complains to Shimajiro about how Mimirin slapped him. While they were arguing, Mimirin can be seen in background giggling uncontrollably with a huge pink cartoon heart growing above her head until it floats away like a balloon.
• Furry Confusion: On an island full of Funny Animals, regular animals like turtles are shown to also exist. And to make things worse, there are also both anthropomorphic and zoomorphic animals of the same species, for example, dogs^note Although the dog example is downplayed in that the zoomorphic dog was a robot built by Mr. Roarson, it only brings on more questions., birds^note egregriously, the Sorano family and the crows and turtles ^note Gaogao's mentor was a turtle, but so is Kanta's pet, Noshi Noshi. Heck, they even have a zoo with zoomorphic versions of many animals!
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The core characters consists of two males (Shimajiro and Torippi) and two females (Mimirin and Ramurin). When they wrote off Ramurin, they were careful to maintain balance by making sure the replacement, Nyakkii, is also female.
• Giant Enemy Crab: The 2014 movie has a giant crab as the antagonist. Apparently it's weak point is it's extremely ticklish and it can't stand whalesong. Although it undergoes Heel–Face Turn and Defeat Equals Friendship at the end of the movie, and gets over its weakness to whalesong.
• Giant Squid: Being an anime, these have appeared in the show more than once. Usually battling Monster Whales.
• GIS Syndrome: The episode for the third week of November has a costumed segment skit that shows a picture of a storefront for a Shoe Carnival store that is clearly in the US.
• Green Aesop: In one episode, Shimajiro and his friends come across a magical catfish, who has been depressed over the ruined environment he lives in. They, with help of adults, clean up the place and the catfish becomes happy once again.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Originally in the earlier episodes in the 1990s. Torippi didn't wear pants and was seen wearing a shirt and his green feathery bottom show. Later on, Torippi was given a pair of shorts which he wears in the recent episodes.
• Happy Birthday to You!: Averted. Historically, Benesse has always paid Warner Music Group the royalty fees which allows the song to be shown on TV, as well as sold on DVD, VHS and Music CDs, and appear on their toys^note this could also explain why the songs on Spotify are not accessible from outside Japan. However, the English dub was released half a decade after the Supreme Court in the US and many other countries agree that WMG had no valid claim tho the song and that it should pass into public domain.
• Japanese Ranguage: To possibly make it easier for kids to pronounce or understand, Mimirin and Marurin had their names slightly changed to Mimi-Lynn and Mary-Lynn respectively in the English dub.
• Limited Wardrobe: To an extent. The characters all have seasonal clothes, but every single set of their seasonal clothes are duplicates.
• Lost Aesop:
  • In the episode where Torippi in disguise tricks Shimajiro into thinking he's Torippi's robot alien friend, Shimajiro starts wanting to play with him more and less with Torippi himself. Torippi starts feeling that he has taken the prank too far and talks to Mimirin and Nyakkii about it and they suggest he should just go apologize to Shimajiro and tell him the truth. Instead of heeding Mimirin and Nyakkii's advice, he goes to Shimajiro in costume one more time and tells Shimajiro that he must return to his home planet, and pretends to fly off into space. If this episode is a two parter, the second part was never shown on the Qiao Hu channel.
  • Also, the episode where Zouta and company snatches Shimajiro’s treehouse from him. The moral does not make sense- patience is a virtue? People who steal your treehouse will eventually think it’s haunted? Your guess are as good as our’s.
• Long Runner: Appeared as a segment of the Kodomo Challenge direct-to-video tapes since 1988, and has been on the air as its own show since 1993, and new episodes are still being made. That's over three decades of Shimajiro- in Japan, Benesse celebrated Shimajiro's 30th year anniversary in 2018.
  • The first incarnation of the show, Shima Shima Tora no Shimajiro, ran a respectable 15 years before it was finally retooled.
  • In Benesse's internal archival records, Shimajiro Hesoka and Shimajiro no Wao! are the same show, and thus the records show Shimajiro no Wao! as having run for 10 years as of 2021.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: in April 2020, Benesse engaged with Sanrio (whom they already had a partnership for a while) to create a exercise video featuring Shimajiro and Hello Kitty to encourage children in lockdown to perform a simple exercise. About two months later, Cheburashka, Mell-chan, Kumamon, Gachapin and Mook from Hirake! Ponkikki and even Eddie from Chuggington were roped into a major remake of the video.
• The Magic Touch: In one episode, Shimajiro is granted the ability to turn anything he touches pink. This doesn't turn out to be well.
• Merchandise-Driven: The Japanese and Chinese YouTube channels occasionally release anime shorts that ties in to whatever new toy Benesse is currently releasing into the market. For example a "magical" machine that teaches the Kana writing system, or a toy slate that you write on with an ultraviolet ink marker that doesn't show anything until the light is switched on. A tasteful story would be written around the toy and made into an anime to tug on the heartstrings of the parent watching with the kid. Segregated Commercial is not a thing in Japan and Taiwan.
• Mood Whiplash: The 2014 movie. At the ending, we see Shimajiro almost drown, they have to part ways with their new baby whale friend, and they have a tearful reunion with their families. Then we cut to some puppets, and then costumed versions of Shimajiro, Torippi, Mimirin and Nyakkii waving goodbye and ending the movie. Then we segue to the full version of the incredibly cheerful "Tomodachi no Wao!" by Puffy AmiYumi.
• My Beloved Smother: in the CGI episode "Loved and Protected", Mrs. Shimano ends up becoming one while under the influence of a "love perfume" Mr. Roarson was developing.
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Seems to happen quite often in the series, as one of the series’ core values is to show what happens with poor communication. Case in point: the 2021 Mother's Day episode. Mimirin had made her mom an origami carnation for Mother’s Day. The next day, on the actual day itself, Mimirin’s parents were having a discussion about the sales of carnations, being the island florist, and Renge (Mimirin’s mom) makes a sarcastic remark on how she doesn’t want to see a carnation ever again. Mimirin overhears the sarcastic part of the conversation and thinks her mom does not want carnations on Mother’s Day. Cue the poor girl scrambling all over town for alternative gift ideas and having a breakdown near the end of the episode before being set straight by her parents.
• Parents as People: Unlike other similar animated works targeted at the same preschool demographic which shows adults as Stepford Smilers who would never hurt a child and are perfectly capable of solving every child's issues, the show is surprisingly deep and is not above showing that adults too are flawed people with a full functioning set of emotions.
• Product Placement:
  • The Miracle Donuts toys shown in the episode “Would you like a donut?” are real and can be still bought from Benesse if you live in Japan and have a child enrolled in the Kodomo Challenge program. Zig-zagged in that the episode made it to the US, but of course getting the toy is not possible (unless you try to get them from Japanese auction/marketplace sites).
  • One anime episode ends with an image of Tomy's special edition Plarail Shimajiro Shinkansen.
• Potty Emergency: Shimajiro has one in the first version of "Any toilet can be a piece of cake!", as well as in the short "The Pee Bucket" on the "Do It By Yourself!" DVD. In both instances, he makes it.
• Potty Failure: In an early episode, Shimajiro wets the bed, and leaves his pants out to dry on his window. Toriipi helps the pants to dry by putting magic crystals on them.
• "Sesame Street" Cred: The show has a fair share of Japanese TV and music personalities appearing as guests in live segments of the Shimajiro no Wao! retool. A recent episode featured Takashi Fujii, a.k.a. Matthew Minami, in a singing role to highlight his lesser known musical talent no less, as Etiquette Man.^note And for the records, the song was composed by Japanese EDM artiste Dé Dé Mouse
  • Also, the current ending theme is performed by Puffy AmiYumi, who also contributed to some of the music in past Shimajiro movies.
  • Another song about the sun was written (but not performed) by Anri. Yeah, that Anri. She was given top billing in the credits at the end of the music video.
  • Another song, Kangaroo ha doko ni ittanoka by a group called Uchikubi Gokumon Doukoukai - the same guys who wrote and performed the theme song for the Netflix adaptation of The Way of the Househusband, although they're better known for the song I Don't Want To Get Out Of My Futon that has been making rounds on the osu! Let's Play circuits.
  • Another song, Kotoba-Rhythm, was composed and performed by Sukima Switch (although they were given Funny Animal avatars to fit the style of the music video).
• Stranger Danger: Dangerously inverted in a recent CGI story released onto the English channel which encourages children to help strangers.
• The Moving Experience:
  • Averted, Ramurin really did move away in the 2012 Very Special Episode.
  • Double-averted when the plot was recycled and Boota has to move off the island at the end of the 2016 season.
• Three Laws-Compliant: Averted with MomBot, who has no qualms threatening Shimajiro with a beatdown when he interferes with it's attempt to clean the room.
• Three Shorts: This show does the ABA format starting with Hakken Taiken Daisuki! Shimajiro, with a live action segment featuring a costume Shimajiro being the B.
• Toast of Tardiness: Shimajiro is seen biting one while running into the bus in the episode I Won't Cry. His dad was also running after him because he had forgot his schoolbag.
• Toilet Training Plot: There are at very least 3 episodes teaching kids about potty-training. The first was the one everyone knows and loves, the second was about public restrooms, and the third had a superhero named "Pants Man", an anthropomorphic kangaroo.
  • The first was "If You Can Use The Toilet, You're A Pantsman", about Shimajiro learning how to use the toilet. It also got a remake in 2009.
  • In "Any Toilet Can Be A Piece of Cake!", Shimajiro learns how to use a squat toilet while at the mall. There was a remake of this in 2015, but it was different from the original, which also featured a segment similar to the third example.
  • A "Do it by yourself!" segment introduces a character called the Pee Bucket, who teaches Shimajiro to go to the bathroom before his bladder is full on a car trip.
  • Another episode from the Kodomo Challenge set of videos has a younger Shimajiro learning to knock on the door of the toilet to make sure the toilet is vacant before trying to enter. This version was one of the initial Kodomo Challenge Shimajiro shorts dubbed into English.
  • A much later episode involving this taught viewers how to make using the toilet after having dinner fun by imagining that you're someplace else.
  • The latest one has Shimajiro imagine the toilet as a shinkansen and him riding it while doing his business.
• Very Special Episode: The episode where Ramurin moves away. Unlike most other Western Animation and anime series, the moving is final and sticks. It’s not surprise then that the episode is advertised and played as a major tearjerker by the creators of the show themselves.
• Wingdinglish: While the language spoken is Japanese, the written language on smaller prints (like those found on books or packaged goods) appears to only consist of Playstation button symbols. The show appears inconsistent with bigger characters- sometimes it's hiragana, sometimes it's the Alphabet, and sometimes it's those Playstation symbols but in differing colors.
• World of Funny Animals: The world in the series is populated by anthropomorphic animals.

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