I’ve been watching the genuinely still very good Phineas and Ferb for the first time in over a decade recently, a show that is essentially about doing absolutely everything you can on summer vacation. The absurdity of it is wonderful, but if we reduce it to just ‘doing a LOT while it’s summer,’ it’s not that relatable to me. Which is why it’s slightly ironic that I’ve been playing Shin Chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation, a game where you do almost nothing, something I find reflects me much better. And it lets you do nothing in the most soothing ways possible.
Before I go into why a game where you don’t do much is somehow a good thing, we need some important context. Shin Chan might be familiar to you if you, like me, watched it on Cartoon Network as a kid, but the Summer Vacation series is one you’re less likely to be familiar with.
Boku no Natsuyasumi (or My Summer Vacation) originally appeared on the first PlayStation in 2000, but unfortunately was never released in English. It was made by developer Millenium Kitchen, who also made Shin Chan: Me and the Professor, and is quite simply a game about a young boy exploring a countryside village. You collect bugs, bottle caps, and meet the locals, and not much else. And while I’ve not had the opportunity to play the game due to the language barrier, it looks like exactly my shit.
