Have you heard of Doraemon?

We guess that very few people visiting our page know Doraemon. In this article, we explain what Doraemon is, its movie and the latest movie.

Doraemon originally was a comic book character by Fujiko Fujio (two creators under one name till they separated in later years. After separation, Fujiko Fujio (F) remains the creator of Doraemon). These creators are as famous as Tezuka Osamu, Fujio Akatsuka, Mitsuteru Yokoyama, Tetsuya Chiba- the big ones from Showa time.

It is about a boy, Nobita Nobi, who is not good at almost everything (study, sports etc.) and the cat type robot which was sent from the future. The cat robot is called Doraemon who can store so many future gadgets (many useful and some not so useful) in his pocket. 

Notable gadgets are such as Dokodemo Door ("anywhere door" with this, you can just go anywhere by instructing this door where you want to go and opening the door.), Small light (with this torch type item, you can make things small), Time machine (yes, the time machine as you know).

Nobita has good friends such as Shizuka, Suneo and Gian (Suneo and Gian are kinda bullies but good friends "at some occasions").

We collected the comics and still have some of them. As we read them quite a lot these comics are so old and almost began falling apart (!). 

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How he got this idea for Doraemon?

Fujiko Fujio wrote: he was trying to create a new character for the cartoon magazine but not successful. Was not sure what to do, he started taking some flea from his cat. That was the time he thought up the idea to make a cat character.

Some cartoon expert says the creator might have been influenced by Felix the Cat, by Pat Sullivan, where the cat gets useful items out of his bag.

Doraemon has no ear unlike cat.

Actually, if you see the same type of robots. All have triangle shaped ears. But Doraemon's head is quite bald like a ball. Why? Because his ears were eaten by a mouse. 

This is why Doraemon is so afraid of mice. It is funny because normally cats are not scared of mice!

Doraemon jumped out of paper comic book to be on TV.

It was first aired on Channel Nihon TV (NTV) in 1973 on 1st of April till 30th of September. There happened several issues inside the animation production company, broadcasters etc. which stopped the animation.

By the way, do you who voiced Doraemon that time? It was Masako Nozawa who is the voice of Goku of Dragon Ball.

Later on, channel TV Asahi produced the animation from 2nd of April, 1979 - 18th of March, 2005. Nobuyo Oyama joined the member as the voice of Doraemon this time.

Then, it started with the current voice members in April, 2005 (referred below) on the same channel TV Asahi.

Voice actors were basically all replaced in 2005 which saddened people in my generation.

The voices we were familiar with like Nobuyo Oyama for Doraemon are all gone. The possible reasons are: 1) the original actors were getting old and 2) the salary of the original actors were getting too high (despite the decline of view rate of TV in modern time).

( Another famous animation in Japan called Sazae-san also has the same issue. )

But, well, it is not a big deal for the little kids who watch Doraemon today.

As of today (2017), Noboyo Oyama is reported to be suffering from a heavy dementia. It is sad that she may not be able to come back as the voice of Doraemon any more.

The old voice actors of Gian and Suneo passed away also.

It started releasing movies since 1980. Since early March 34th Draemon movie is in cinema.

It has been common for Japanese kids to go and watch Doraemon movies in holiday seasons.  The story is usually based on some old episodes of Doraemon cartoons and mainly targeting the kid audience.

Kaeru team also watched some of them when we were little with my parents. You can get some toys in the theater. 

But in recent years, Doraemon movies started being aired outside Japan and also the story line is more or less "appreciable" by adult as well.

In 2014 Doraemon Stand By Me has been in cinema in many countries. Team Kaeru also watched it. Quite nice story even for adults.

Doraemon the Movie 2017: Great Adventure in the Antarctic Kachi Kochi opened in March, 2017. 

In the middle of summer, Nobita and friends playing with some ice found a mysterious ring trapped in an ice. They started looking for its owner and on the way they found a hidden city under the South Pole...

We saw a lot of items with pictures of Doraemon on our trip to China, Thailand and Vietnam. In Vietnam we saw Doraemon Tofu as well. It seems it is quite popular out there.

We hope Doraeom lasts forever and make kids happy around the world.

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