Back in 2014, while watching the local evening news, I learned that our beloved Doraemon was to make his debut on US television that year.
Doraemon, a robot cat from the future with a magic pocket on his tummy, is one of the most popular children’s (and even adults’) cartoon characters in Japan. When I was a child, I used to sit in front of the TV and watch Doraemon with my brothers every single evening without fail. We used to even beg our grandpa to take us to the theaters every summer when the new Doraemon movie was released. With so many great nostalgic memories connected to it, I felt so happy when I heard about Doraemon’s US debut!
Doraemon’s mission is to protect, educate, and entertain his (human) friend, Nobita. Whenever Nobita faces some kind of challenge in his life, Doraemon takes out a relevant gadget from his magic pocket to solve it. Each Doraemon story covers some important lesson, and as a child, I learned a lot about perseverance, teamwork, family, dedication, and diligence.
There are a lot of popular Doraemon tools that literally any Japanese person will recognize, such as “dokodemo doa”, a bright pink door that lets you travel anywhere, and “takekoputaa”, a small propeller that can give you the ability to fly once placed on the head. My favorite Doraemon tool however, is the edible “honyaku konnyaku”, which lets you understand any language in the world. The fact that I loved this tool so much perhaps reflects my dream as a little girl to communicate with people from all cultural backgrounds–something I definitely still feel passionate about.
Have you ever seen Doraemon?