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In General
- Badass Family: Generally, all of them have awesome moments in the main series, but this feature is more prominent in the non-canonical special episodes and movies.
- Determinator: A prominent trait of all of them is that they wouldn't stop no matter what in order to fulfill their goals.
- Dysfunctional Family: They're a family who often fights over petty things, lust towards other people outside the family, and is prone to physical violence towards each other. Despite this, they all love and support themselves.
- The Dreaded|Persona Non Grata: There are many episodes where the family becomes this trope to a business local, with their antics driving the owners or workers mad to the point of being banned from ever entering again.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: They often keep secrets from each other, often having those secrets exposed by each other due to failing to hide them. Misae and Hiroshi often keep their secret savings from each other, Shinnosuke tries to make sure some of his antics are unnoticed as well as secret snacks and Himawari hides the jewelry and shiny things she manages to grab for her hidden collection.
- Nuclear Family: They are an archetypical nuclear family.
- Not Allowed to Grow Up: The family hasn't shown signs of age since the nineties.
- Shared Family Quirks: Every member of the family has fantasized about young adults of the opposite gender, this trait being passed by Ginnosuke Nohara, Hiroshi's father.
Shinnosuke Nohara (Shin)
"Ass dance! Ass dance!"
The main star of the series, Shin is a 5-year-old boy who tends to act demanding if his way is not handed over to him and has many idiosyncratic habits like pulling down his pants to bare his buttocks and genitals.- Animal Disguise: He is often seen dressed as various animals for the sake of a gag. This is expanded in the videogames, where he changes his playstyle to match the animal outfit he's going to use.
- Ascended Fanboy: In the movies where Action Mask plays a role, he often plays the role of his sidekick and even joins in defeating the villain.
- Big Brother Instinct: Towards Himawari, especially in the movies.
- Bratty Half-Pint: No matter the situation, Shin will always whine to his mom in order for her to give into his negotiation.
- Character Tics: He has an obsession with pulling down his pants to reveal his buttocks and genitals.
- Collector of the Strange: One episode reveals him to have a disturbing fixation on going through the school toilets to collect feces.
- Dirty Kid: He often flirts with women above his age and has already seen erotic magazines on his own.
- Does Not Like Spam: He absolutely hates green peppers. He thinks they taste like crotch. This came into play in "Action Bastard Says 'Put Your Mouth on a Sausage!'", where he is destined to win a free Action Bastard belt by collecting ten stickers from sausage packages, but his mom will only buy it if he eats all of the sausages. Shin is absolutely reluctant to do so since they contain green peppers, so he eliminates all of the peppers and eats the sausages plain. Towards the end of the episode, he tries to prove to a man at the store that he can eat the sausages, but struggles to chew and swallows them as a whole to get it over with.
- The Dreaded:
- He is well-known in the local library for causing trouble and is on the top of the blacklist of undesirable visitors.
- He is dreaded in the department of lost children of the mall as Shin often purposely "gets lost" in order to get free snacks.
- Food as Bribe: If one of his parents wants to keep a secret he found out, he offers to shut his mouth as long as he gets bigger Chocobi cookie packages to eat.
- Gasshole: He does fart pretty often. Connects closely to his obsession with his own ass.
- Girls Have Cooties: Zig-zagged and Played With: He rejects girls around his age who have crushes on him like Ai, yet he likes young adult women.
- Hates Baths: He's not The Pig-Pen by any stretch, but when told to wash his hands before eating he'll barely poke his fingertips into the water.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Subverted. He believes himself to be this with Georgie, but he really isn't. The latter acts notably dismissive of Shin's unwanted romantic affection and regularly tries to incorporate logic and reason into him.
- Intentional Weight Gain: There's Diet Episode where he gains some weight due to slacking in the summer, but after Shin-Chan had slimmed down, he overheard his crush, Nanako, talking on her phone that she thinks "sumo wrestlers are so cool..." cue Shin-Chan suddenly going back to binge-eating while daydreaming he's a sumo wrestler.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He may be a mischievous and obnoxious Bratty Half-Pint, but there are many times where he has exhibited selfless acts of kindness, like saving a frog from a truck when it was raining. In another episode, he gives Masao his remaining cash even though he knows his mom will punish him later. There are also genuine moments where he shows his love for his family, particularly his dad and dog, and he does have a soft spot for Georgie as much as Shin's antics annoy him.
- Karmic Trickster: Some of his victims are quite mean towards others.
- Like Father, Like Son: Shin seems to have a better relationship with his father than his mother, there being many moments where they bond together, and he doesn't whine to him as often as he does to his mom.
- Likes Older Women: Downplayed. He's only interested in younger adult women.
- Mooning: He is an expert on this, to the point where he can hold objects at will with his ass and even weaponize it.
- Nighttime Bathroom Phobia: In one chapter he becomes terrified of going to the loo after watching a horror movie late at night, despite his mother Misae telling him not to. In the dead of night, Shin Chan, waking up to use the loo, ends up being scared by Misae in a cucumber mask - Bring My Brown Pants ensues.
- Nose Nuggets: He's a consistent nose picker. When Ai tries to ask him out, he fakes an excuse not to hang out on account that he'll be busy picking his nose after school.
- Rooting for the Empire: In-Universe. He openly roots for the villain Shila of the Mysterious Magical Girl Mari-chan tv series as he finds her more attractive than Mari-chan.
- Shaking the Rump: His signature "ass dance" involves him pulling down his pants to expose his bare buttocks and utilizing a centric dance move to taunt someone.
- Signature Move: His ass dance. He does it in a majority of the episodes, often with little relation to the plot.
- Spoiled Brat: His mother usually gives him what he wants to prevent him from coercing anymore.
- Toilet Humor: Pretty much a majority of the scenes that feature him will have him make some crude remark related to bodily functions or show him exhibiting a physical interest in them.
- Trademark Favorite Food: His Chocobi, which are star-shaped chocolate cookies.
- Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Depending on the Writer. He's usually a mischievous self-admitted brat who often brings trouble to those closest to him. Despite this, he's clearly meant to entertain because he's too damn funny to hate. It doesn't get any funnier than a 5-year-old boy constantly making sexual innuendoes and dancing with his ass in the view.
- Vocal Evolution: His voice gets higher and gains a wide range of emotions as the series progresses.
Hiroshi Nohara (Hiro)
To be a man you must have honor and a penis
- The Alcoholic: He often comes home late at night drunk.
- Berserk Button: He really doesn't like others freeloading off him and his family.
- Henpecked Husband: Hiro is Misae's bitch.
- Papa Wolf: Don't threaten his family.
- Perma-Stubble: Hiroshi is always seen with perpetual stubble on his face.
- Salaryman: He works as an outside salesman in the Futaba Corporation.
- Smelly Feet Gag: He is known to have awful stinky feet and his socks are so smelly they can be used as a weapon against foes.
Misae Nohara (Mitzi)
- Abusive Parents: Of the Corporal Punishment type towards Shinnosuke, as she's often prone to hit him hard with her fist if he sets her off. Averted with Himawari.
- A-Cup Angst: His son often makes jokes about her flat chest. The Funimation dub has a running gag where she's saving up for a boob job.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: Before Shinnosuke was born, she was against punishing children with brutal force. Five years later...
- Berserk Button:
- She doesn't like Hiroshi and Shinnosuke hitting on other women. She goes easier on Shin-chan due to being her own son and due to his young age, but she doesn't give her husband Hiroshi any sort of mercy when caught.
- Also, don't say she has a fat belly, old, or that she is flat-chested in front of her, much less all of them combined.
- Corporal Punishment: How she deals with her son and her husband if they misbehave or provoke her.
- Damsel in Distress: One flashback chapter from the manga shows her being hit on and blackmailed by her boss to be his mistress. Hiroshi saved her by invoking Smelly Feet Gag against the big boss.
How Misae turned from a submissive woman who needed to be rescued to a scary violent housewife is unknown. - The Dreaded: She is by far the most feared member of the family due to her short temper.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: She's really easily annoyed by any nonsense.
- Housewife: Misae is the one who cooks and cleans the house like a typical Japanese housewife.
- Hypocrite: She is often seen beating Hiroshi when he fantasizes with other women or flirts with them, but she is never called out when she does the same thing to her husband.
- Informed Deformity: She's supposed to look unattractive, have wrinkles all over her face and have an oversized tummy, and yet she's drawn as a normal-looking woman.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Downplayed. While not on the same level as Nanako Ohara, one flashback chapter from the manga reveals that Misae used to be a fairly good-looking Office Lady in the past.
- Lazy Bum: She often naps during the day
- Mama Bear: She'll grow even more violent than normal if her family is in danger.
- Tranquil Fury: Often displayed when Shinnosuke and/or Hiroshi push her to her limits, and they know it won't end well for them.
Himawari Nohara (Hima)
- Baby Talk: She only displayed this on the special episodes.
- Baby See, Baby Do: Much to Misae's dismay, she is mimicking and developing the worst traits of the family.
- The Baby of the Bunch: She's the youngest member of the Nohara family.
- Brainy Baby: She's quite intelligent for an infant.
- Dirty Kid: Despite her still being a baby, she has developed a taste for young adult men.
- Likes Older Men: Downplayed. Like her brother, she is interested in beautiful young adult men but has no interest at all in older men.
- Like Mother, Like Daughter: She inherited her mother's taste for fashion, jewelry, and lusting over younger men.
- She Is All Grown Up: She can be seen as an adult in the distant future of "my future bride" movie.
- Smarter Than You Look: She often has tricked her family into believing she was asleep.
Shiro (Whitey)
- Abandoned Pet in a Box: In his debut appearance, Shinnosuke and his friends found him like this.
- Butt-Monkey: His master Shinnosuke often forgot his meals or neglects his daily walks.
- Canine Companion: For the entire Nohara family, especially Shinnosuke
- Colourful Theme Naming: His name, Shiro, means white in Japanese, referring to his fur.
- Even the Dog Is Ashamed: He always reacts this way to Shin's antics.
- Intellectual Animal: In the special episodes and movies, he is seen to be smart and often guides Shin-chan.
- Heroic Dog: So much that he is a superhero in the spinoff starring him.
- Put on a Bus: The only family member to suffer this when the Nohara family were forced to move onto Matazuresou while their house was repaired, due to the apartments not allowing animals inside.
- Talking Animal: He is only seen talking in the special episodes and movies, often with the help of a device.
