SAPPORO, JAPAN - Crayon Sin-Chan is freaking out the little boy in the overstuffed red ski parka and too-long snow pants. Sure, it's the familiar cartoon character he loves - "Japan's most mischievous kindergartner."

But this isn't the friendly animated cherub, star of 10 saccharine- sweet kid flicks. Crayon Sin-Chan is a stark, icy-white mountain, towering 2 stories tall with a head the size of a minivan. "Kudasai! Kudasai!" - Please! Please!" - the boy shouts to his mother, politely but insistently tugging at her hand to head instead toward a stand selling barbecued mutton sausage on a stick.

The frightened first-grader is a rarity at Sapporo Yuki Matsuri, Japan's legendary winter snow-sculpture festival.

Legions of other winter-clothing-clad children are happily clambering through tunnels, sliding down ice slides and loudly slurping hot bowls of thick, sweet, golden corn soup. They scamper across Makomanai Site, the biggest and best of the three ice sculpture displays spread about this northern Japanese city of 1.8 million people.

Children squeal with anticipation as they walk up to "Let's Play With Shimajiro," a doe-eyed baby tiger and his buddy, a hyper-happy rabbit, who party with a portly, smiling snowman. At one side of the display, a long line of little ones squirm while waiting their turn for a quick, wet swooshing ride that plops them onto a plastic tarp.

With red and blue pennants flapping in the breeze, a brass band playing Sousa marches, and cadres of hawkers from major whiskey, wine and cigarette companies handing out freebies, Makomanai had the feeling of a snowbound county fair. Except for the gobs of fatigues- uniformed soldiers and drab-green military versions of the Hughes 500 helicopter circling overhead. The extra troops are on hand to ensure that al-Qaida doesn't launch a surprise attack on the acres of frozen unicorns, Pokemon characters and ice castles. After all, Makomanai is a military base, and most of the sculptures were erected by army units on government time.

COLD COMFORT

"For an American, it seems an odd use of your army, but everybody seems to be happy they did it - the results are fantastic," said Tanny Petchor of Atlanta.

Petchor and I are among a smattering of Americans and Europeans amid the 2 million visitors to the weeklong festival that might be best described as snowmen on steroids.

Since 1950, the people of Sapporo have warded off the winter cold and dark by fashioning snow sculptures in a city park. Things got supersized five years later when the Self-Defense Force, the post- World War II euphemism for the army, signed up. In came the trucks and tractors and troops to build the now world-famous cities of snow. The displays are in three districts - Makomanai, Odori Park in the city center, and Susukino, the neon-sprinkled home of Sapporo nightlife. I arrived late in the weeklong festival last winter. The thermometer in a pharmacy outside my hotel hovered at 21 degrees, but the headlines and photos on the local newspapers in the shop window were full of stories about the two-day "heat wave" earlier in the week that had pushed temperatures into the low 40s. The defrosting heat had turned some of the smaller sculptures into blobs that froze solid again when the winds shifted a winter storm south from Russia.

I turned the corner to Odori Park and ran smack into a familiar, if monstrously huge, face. Mickey is king mouse in this land of the ice giants. A smooth white hill of carved snow with a cute nose the size of a truck tire. More than 2 stories tall, the grinning Disney icon dwarfed simpler sculptures along its flanks.

SPECTACULAR SIZE

I shuffled pigeon-toed along the slippery sidewalks with the huge coat-wrapped crowd, cuddling a paper cup of hot sake that was rapidly cooling in the February night chill. I stopped to watch a pierced and dyed self-styled Japanese punk band churn out an off-key rendition of Eddie Cochran's 1950s rockabilly chestnut "C'mon Everybody" on a stage in front of a massive frozen replica of the Bavarian State Opera House.

Odori Park is a long, thin strip that runs between two boulevards, from the Sapporo TV Tower toward the Olympic ski jump looming out of the snow-cloaked evergreen forests on the mountainside.

The tower is the city's land mark, a red-painted version of the Eiffel Tower with a huge digital clock in the middle, so no one need ever wear a watch in central Sapporo.

Police politely but firmly en force a one-way walking rule, so I moved along with a sea of Japanese past the ice-block versions of the Brussels Stock Exchange the Gate of Enlightenment in Seoul, and the Statue of Liberty. There were icebox versions of bullet trains and tanker ships touting the island's economic might.

"The size and magnitude just bowls you over," said Mike Kellogg of Redding, Calif., a businessman living in Tokyo. "I'd seen pictures of the festival but you don't get a feel for how big these things are unless you are standing right in front of them."

The most intriguing refrigerated renderings were of Japanese cartoon characters - obviously well-known to locals, and total strangers to Westerners.

"Racing With Botchan-ressha" showed a competition between a steam train and a raccoon - with two children sitting atop a pagoda watching the action.

"Detective Conan," a kind of a Japanese version of Harry Potter, played at the Great Wall of China with two ancient warriors, while at the side his pensive, suited father brooded and a happy mother waved in support. A sign told viewers that it's all actually a salute to "20 years of normal relations between Japan and China." Saturday morning cartoons meet realpolitik.

Every 50 yards or so, strollers could step into a large tent with a potbellied stove where free tea was poured from a big brass kettle. Lines backed up at windows selling piping hot bowls of cuttlefish and noodles, or deep-fried pancakes stuffed with octopus. I opted for a pork bun, white and puffy like the sculptures outside the steamed-up plastic windows.

I made the long, cold hike up to Susukino, home to a reputed 5,000 bars and nightclubs. With its gaudy neon and Pachinko parlors full of glum chain-smoking men, it's a cross between Las Vegas' Glitter Gulch and Times Square before it was scrubbed clean a few years ago to make way for upscale tourists.

Here, the warm days had taken their toll. The sculptures were slightly larger versions of what you'd see at a big wedding or bar mitzvah. The heat had dulled the edges and caused a few to tumble over into unrecognizable lumps of dirty ice. I climbed down into the subway and headed back to Odori and my hotel. The landmark bell tower was tolling 10 p.m. The central city was closing up tight. Beyond Susukino, nightlife in Sapporo was nonexistent.

I found the best ice sculptures the next morning after a short train ride up to the Japanese Self-Defense Force base in the suburb of Makomanai. Being closer to the mountains, Makomanai was also wonderfully, bitterly cold despite a brilliant sun. No melting problem here.

The ice statue of "UHB Tododacchi" had what looked like an overweight, sweating version of Pikachu from Pokemon, alongside the massive head of a little girl and what appeared to be a sleeping bear with a bad toupee.

"Nature's Table Overflowing With Life" had a pair of icy dolls with spiky hair celebrating various vegetables on an ice-carved version of a wicker basket.

The scale of the effort was shown at a snow-white version of Sapporo's great 19 th-century red-brick Hokkaido Old Government Building. The 11 th Engineer Battalion took 13,835 man-hours and 718 "dumps" from fully loaded 5-ton trucks to construct the icy edifice.

THE END

Snow sculptures are the height of impermanence. At the end of the week, those statues that haven't succumbed to the sun were destroyed in a frenzy of hammers, cranes and hands.

The deconstruction offered a glimpse into the engineering of the sculptures, exposing steel poles and wooden planks that supported the tons of snow. For many children, it was a highlight of the trip to see Mickey Mouse decapitated and lowered onto the street while towers and fantasy worlds were ground down to icy chunks, all the while knowing that in 12 months another magic world would rise again. CONTACT THE WRITER: Warner can be reached at (888) 436-0026 or by e- mail at gwarner@freedom.com.

Checklist

COLD, HARD FACTS: The Sapporo Snow Festival is held each February. This year's festival - the 54th - runs Feb. 5-1 1. For more information, see www.snowfes.com/english /index_e.html.

For more information on visiting Japan, consult the Japan National Tourist Organization in Los Angeles at (2 1 3) 623-1 952, or check out the organization's main Web site at www.jnto.go.jp.

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