Stand By Me Doraemon

Nobita Nobi is an elementary student who hates studying, is bad at sports, and does everything half-heartedly. He is a pushover, unlucky, and fearful of many things. His personality makes him a failure in life, even affecting his progeny. This causes his great-great-grandchild, Sewashi, to take control of the situation.

Sewashi travels back in time from the 22nd century to the 20th century to meet Nobita, who is shocked to see him appear out of his drawer alongside a blue robotic cat. The robotic cat calls himself Doraemon, who claims to have been pressured by Sewashi to assist Nobita, with their ultimate goal being to provide Nobita happiness. Frustrated after seeing Nobita's hopeless state, Doraemon decides to go back to the future. However, Sewashi activates a program within Doraemon that prevents him from doing so.

Forced to stay, Doraemon helps Nobita using futuristic gadgets through his four-dimensional pocket—a bag containing anything inside it. Can Doraemon bring Nobita happiness and return to the future?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Doraemon Main

Mizuta, Wasabi Japanese

Nobi, Nobita Main

Oohara, Megumi Japanese

Minamoto, Shizuka Main

Kakazu, Yumi Japanese

Honekawa, Suneo Main

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Gouda, Takeshi Main

Kimura, Subaru Japanese

Dekisugi, Hidetoshi ing

Hagino, Shihoko Japanese

Nobi, Tamako ing

Mitsuishi, Kotono Japanese

Nobi, Nobisuke ing

Matsumoto, Yasunori Japanese

Gouda, Mother ing

Takeuchi, Miyako Japanese

Gouda, Jaiko ing

Yamazaki, Vanilla Japanese

Okada, Maiko Producer

Yamazaki, Takashi Director, Screenplay

Hata, Motohiro Theme Song Composition, Theme Song Lyrics, Theme Song Arrangement, Theme Song Performance

Fujiko, Fujio F. Original Creator

Reviews

May 5, 2022

Mur-CuoreDiVirgo

Recommended

Can’t tell enough how much I enjoyed this anime movie, and how much it brought me back so many good memories of my childhood. Something I always loved Doraemon for and which I luckily found again in this movie, was the usual representation of Japan life in the ‘80s and those typical nostalgic suburbs of Tokyo.

And after all these years, this anime movie nicely managed to catch again all its original spirit, by making use of a more modern computer graphic compared to the original series, which I still found pleasant and well executed.

When it comes to the story and characters of course, ... including its popular protagonist Nobita, it’s quite soft and more kid-oriented, with the main and clear purpose of being nothing but a great celebration of this widely beloved and historical Japanese mascot. All in all, I enjoyed this movie very much and I feel to recommend it to all Japan and Doraemon lovers! Cheers and thanks for reading me!

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Aug 11, 2021

code_NKMNCR

Mixed Feelings

I just finished this movie and honestly, it makes me feel bad. I adore Doraemon so much, I wanted to love this movie, but I didn't, at all.

I'm gonna keep things short, let's start by the good things.

Art and Sound are amazing, absolutely fantastic, the visual style is great, with amazing attention to detail.

The characters stay true to the original source, which might be a good thing but, let's elaborate a little bit on this, later.

Now let's go to the bad things: The story is awful. I've seen Doraemon since childhood but I don't the episodes in great detail, I take it that this ... is composed of several episodes mashed together to make a movie, and some people think this is great but I personally didn't. The movie has to stand on its own two feet, so let's judge this as its own thing, and as its own thing, its so poorly developed.

Nobita is irredeemably useless throughout the whole movie. Most of the problems are caused by him. Which, yeah, it's how the show is. But no, it doesn't work, here. Not when you have a string of him mes all the way through.

His motivation is so dull, too. He wants Shizuka to fall in love with him, and not to change as an individual. And when it is, he gives up at the slightest inconvenience. He NEVER wants to improve himself, despite knowing that he will only make Shizuka miserable if she chooses to stay with him. Even his future self hasn't changed much, and the only redeemable quality he's was given, was only exposed by Shizuka's dad's dialogue (The worst possible way, exposition).

Then comes my main issue with the whole thing. The ending.

Look, the *SPOILER WARNING* I'm doing here is only out of courtesy, because you could see this "twist" come from the first 10 minutes of the movie. But when Doraemon has to leave, there had been ZERO development to his friendship with Nobita. Up to that point he still didn't seem to even like him and they hadn't done anything substantial together. The snow scene was the perfect chance for them to work together and they DON'T DO IT. So yeah, The scene that should've hit my feelings hard, didn't do it. And I cry extremely easily. Not to mention they decided to undo it to force a happy ending.

**END OF SPOILERS**

Now, about the characters. I know that Nobita has always been like this in the series, I get it. But it doesn't work here. I think he should've actually made progress to better himself for real during the movie, and it doesn't really happen.
Suneo, I don't mind. Shizuka is treated like a trophy. Takeshi is just the way he is in the anime, and it doesn't really matter too much. But yeah. The characters that should've been handled a bit differently, but without removing their essence, were kept completely unchanged.

And, man. I wanted to love this. I love Doraemon so much, that I feel terrible for not liking this movie. But ultimately I don't. So, I painfully give it a 5. And that's only because it's Doraemon and because of the excellent visuals.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 16, 2024

albertonykus

Not Recommended

Spoiler

My overall take: As a big fan of Doraemon, not a fan of this movie. It doubles down on some of the less tasteful elements of the source material and does not stand out much from previous anime adaptations of the same stories.

This movie is a retelling of some of the most iconic stories from the Doraemon manga, woven into a continuous narrative and represented using 3D computer-generated imagery. It is a special Doraemon movie that not only has a distinct art style and story structure from typical films in the franchise, but was released independently of the annual Doraemon movie lineup (coming out during ... the same year as New Nobita's Great Demon). This approach evidently paid off, because Stand by Me Doraemon is the highest-grossing Doraemon film to date, earning over $183 million at the box office. It and its eventual sequel are also the most internationally accessible Doraemon works-as of the time of writing, they are the only Doraemon movies available on American and British Netflix, and are among the few to have received official English dubbing and subtitles.

All of that probably sets some lofty expectations. From what I've seen, plenty of viewers loved this movie. As for me though... to be honest, as someone who was already familiar with the stories adapted into this movie thanks to either the manga or classic anime, my initial impression of Stand by Me Doraemon was that it seemed like a straightforward compilation of stories I knew, except with slightly creepier character designs. Don't get me wrong; the character models here are far from the worst examples I've seen of 2D characters being converted into 3D, but I still found them a bit uncanny. Doraemon's gadgets, on the other hand, look very good in this film.

Upon further reflection, however, I think there's more that bothers me about this movie than just the art style. Those who know Doraemon lore well are likely aware that one of the most dramatic changes to Nobita's life as a result of Doraemon's arrival is that Nobita ends up marrying his childhood crush Shizuka in the future. There are sound criticisms that could be leveled at how that storyline was written in the manga, but Stand by Me Doraemon performs worse here than the source material in at least one major way: it treats Shizuka as essentially nothing more than a prize for Nobita to win. In this movie, Doraemon makes it his explicit goal to ensure that Nobita and Shizuka get together, with little regard for how Shizuka feels about the whole thing. Meanwhile in the manga, even though Doraemon's presence results in Nobita and Shizuka marrying, and the marriage is by all appearances meant to be a happy one, Doraemon never claims that this is the specific outcome he is striving for. In fact, in the manga story "The Night Before Nobita's Wedding", when Nobita gets agitated about the possibility that his future might change yet again and he won't get to marry Shizuka, Doraemon's response amounts to "that is not my responsibility".

Furthermore, I can't help but feel that most of the stories adapted in Stand by Me Doraemon had already been done justice in previous anime renditions. I found the 1998 adaptation of "Goodbye, Doraemon" and 1999 adaptation of "The Night Before Nobita's Wedding" to be more enjoyable than this film, for instance. In "The Night Before Nobita's Wedding" (1999), it's believable when Shizuka's father appraises Nobita as a kind and comionate person, because the episode takes the time to show Nobita doing nice things for others throughout. In Stand by Me Doraemon, the same statement is a more difficult pill to swallow.

This highlights another limitation of Stand by Me Doraemon. Although Nobita can often be unlikable in the regular series, at least the sheer volume and diversity of stories provide him with opportunities to display other facets of his character, giving his friendships with Doraemon and Shizuka slightly more depth and credibility. Stand by Me Doraemon is tasked with introducing the premise of the entire franchise and constructing a complete arc out of a set of pre-selected, largely standalone stories in the time frame allotted to a standard animated film, leaving little room for asides or tangents that could potentially flesh out the characters beyond their most basic core traits.

At the end of the day, Stand by Me Doraemon is such an atypical Doraemon entry that I cannot truly recommend it as an introduction to the franchise. Simultaneously, its value to hardcore Doraemon fans also seems questionable (though I suspect that many of those same fans would disagree with me there!) given that the stories it's based on have been adapted multiple times over, often in more satisfying ways. I can guess at a large part of why the movie has been so successful, however: the retelling of classic stories using "modernized" graphics probably appeals especially to those who are nostalgic for Doraemon but haven't revisited the franchise in a long time, a demographic that most likely represents the majority of the audience in regions where the franchise is popular.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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