Bob Marshall Doraemon talk Japan Week

2004

Doraemon Notes

 2004 is the 25th anniversary of Doraemon TV series (anime first

in 1979, introduced in manga form in 1969). Fifteen minutes,

two episodes, every Saturday evening at dinner time.

 coincidentally, it may be that Doraemon and I share a common

birth month and day, Sept. 3. (2112-9-3)

Web Links

1) www.doraemon.wingsee.com/index.html

2) www.nephco.com/doraemon/

Points to start:

1) Ubiquity: 2 x 52 x 25 = 2600 episodes (2 episodes take 15

minutes)

2) Saturday night marathon: a two-hour Doraemon retrospective

3) “Red Feather Drive” pin has Doraemon image

4) Bill’s Doraemon necktie

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One long, and then one short plot summary:

1) “Let’s build a subway”

Nobita, Doraemon and Mama are downtown walking and

Nobita is complaining about it. They near Papa’s office.

Papa comes out and is surprised to see them. The family

takes a crowded bus home. Papa is used to it but Nobita

and Doraemon find it exhausting and complain.

Papa’s birthday is coming up soon and Nobita wants to

think of some way Papa won’t have to ride the crowded

bus. He tells Doraemon he will give Papa his own private

subway for a birthday present. Doraemon is overwhelmed,

but Nobita wants him to do it. Doraemon is flattered that

Nobita has so much confidence in him and his tools, and so

produces a digging machine that is like a small submarine

with treads and a big screw tip on its front end. The two of

them get in it and immediately start digging into the back

yard. They get lost and come out in the ocean.

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They keep trying. The digging machine is evidently hard to

direct: it wanders around under the earth like a drunken

mole as the calendar pages flutter down across the screen.

They come out in a women’s public bath, in the lion cage

at the zoo, in a prison exercise yard. More days pass and

Papa’s birthday gets closer, but still no personal subway for

him. Now the earth below their house looks like an ant

farm or Swiss cheese.

At last Doraemon believes he has the right map. And

away they go once again. But then they strike a really hard

area. They get out and think they hear digging nearby, but

conclude that that it’s only their imagination. Act 2 finishes

with Nobita telling Papa just as they are all turning in for

the night, “You’ll really like your birthday tomorrow, Papa.

So good night.” It seems they must have pulled it off in

time.

Act 3 begins with Papa waking to a present beside his

futon. In the box is a subway commuter pass for the

“Nobita Private Subway,” good for the “home to office”

ride. After breakfast Nobita and Doraemon take Papa into a

hole in the back yard and Mama comes too. Sure enough,

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there is one subway car there; Doraemon is the driver and

Nobita is the conductor. Itte kimasu from Papa, itte ‘rasshai

from Moma and off they go, Papa sprawled out on the seat,

dozing. As they ride along Nobita and Doraemon cheer for

how fine their subway is.

But then they see a light in their tunnel and slam on the

emergency brakes. They stop just in time to avoid colliding

with a real construction crew putting in a real subway.

Nobita claims that the tunnel is his, and the crew chief

accuses him of selfishness, when there are lots and lots of

people who need to ride a public subway. Doraemon

agrees with the crew chief.

So they try another route with their digger, but it stalls and

Papa has to start digging with a pick. Papa realizes this is

impossible and Nobita weeps bitter tears of apology.

Doraemon too cries and apologies to Papa. Papa forgives

them, recognizing that they meant well. Doraemon then

spots a thin crack of light, thru which they break into the

sewer directly below Papa’s office and he arrives at work on

time, not much worse for the wear. The end.

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2) “For once in my life I’d like to get a hundred”

Nobita is a terrible student but wants good grades without

studying. Doraemon says “You’re hopeless” and gives him

a “computer pencil” that simply writes the correct answers

automatically on the homework page. Nobita rushes over

to Shizuka’s house with it, despite Doraemon’s misgivings.

Along the way he does Giant’s and Suneo’s homework for

them. Then at Shizuka’s house he blasts through the

paper work mountain her father had to bring home from

the office.

Nobita wants to use the pencil on tomorrow’s test, but

Doraemon says that’s cheating. Nobita is adamant and

Doraemon pulls a long face filled with disappointment, but

finally gives in. Nobita struggles with his conscience all

night, and by the time of the test his good angel has won.

He writes his test with his regular pencil, one that has

always earned him Ds and Fs in the past.

When he returns the computer pencil to Doraemon, tho,

Doraemon instantly identifies it as a fake. What happened

to the authentic computer pencil?

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Next day, teacher praises Giant as the only student who

got a hundred, or who even did well on the test. But

Giant’s dad realizes that Giant must have cheated, since

he has never in his life gotten a good grade, let alone a

hundred, and so gives him a good beating. Giant returns

the computer pencil and is mad at Nobita and Doraemon

for getting him in trouble.

Also, “transformation cookies” and kaeru joke. The frog-headed guest

says “Ja, kaeru.”

Two essays in English easily available here on campus:

1) Mark Shilling: Doraemon. In The encyclopedia of Japanese pop

culture. 1997.

2) Saya Shiraishi: Doraemon goes abroad. In Japan Pop! 1997.

Shilling’s original article appeared in The Japan Quarterly. Shiraishi’s

essay is also revision of an earlier essay. They see largely eye-to-eye

on Doraemon. Shiraishi quotes Shilling in agreement that Doraemon

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offers “a breath of freedom and a glimpse of a funnier, friendlier world

where all dreams, even foolish ones, can come true.”

Shiraishi writes further: “In Doraemon, science and technology are

intimately associated with children. Nuclear-powered Doraemon is a

symbol of the confidence and hope people place in technology as the

trustee of the future of their children. Technology, which once caused

total devastation, is purified by its association with and use by an

innocent child, and children are conceptually empowered as those who

are responsible for befriending and advancing science and technology.”

Well, I just couldn’t disagree more. More accurately, Doraemon is the

negation of this technological part of present reality, a sort of reducto

ad absurdum. The technology only seems to work; it works

mechanically, but not socially. It doesn’t finally add anything to the

world and actually causes a lot of problems. In the cartoon, at least,

these problems can be sorted out and life can return to normal without

the technology. As a cartoon, of course, there is no reference at all to

the invention of technologies of all sorts as a way for large companies

to earn profits.

Doraemon is Japanese, after all, so the cartoon is about the paramount

importance of ningen-kankei. Social relations are what matter and

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what must be preserved in the face of the ever-appealing temptations

of technological fixes, which the cartoon demonstrates relentlessly to

be actually the road to disaster.

In every episode, Nobita wants Doraemon’s technology to save him

from himself and others, and it just makes things worse. It does all get

sorted out, tho, and by the end things are back to the status quo ante.

Each episode traces a similar dramatic arch of elevation above the

norm by using the technology, a plunge into the depths by its

extended use, and then a return to the starting point, accompanied by

abandonment of the tools. Such a resolution is portrayed by the

cartoon and evidently greeted by audiences as success or triumph.

Shilling even quotes Doraemon’s creator on this exact point, evidently

without understanding the remark at all: “When a manga hero

becomes a success, the manga suddenly stops being interesting,” said

Fujimoto. “So the hero has to be like the stripes on a barber pole; he

seems to keep moving upward, but actually he stays in the same

place.” From the point of view of social relations vs the inevitable

changes brought on by technological innovations, Doraemon is utterly

conservative, if not actively Luddite in its sentiments: there’s no place

like home, whatever home is like.

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The self-referential and paradoxical irony of it all is that Doraemon was

sent by one of Nobita’s descendants from the 22nd century back to our

time to save Nobita, and so the descendent, from his destiny. But it is

clear that Doraemon has failed to change Nobita at all. The most he

has done is make time stand still. Now, the future will not experience

the effects of Nobita’s adult life if time stands still in his childhood life,

which it clearly has for the past 25 years. Who’s to say it won’t stay

stopped into a barber-pole-like or mobius strip-like atemporal,

indefinitely distant future? Is this progress? Is this why Doraemon is

funny? This paradox of self-reference, however, encapsulates them,

and so is made unavailable for inspection or reflection by Doraemon’s

young viewers.

Unfortunately, when he has the gadget, Nobita usually gets into deeper trouble than

before, despite Doraemon's best intentions and warnings. Sometimes Nobita's

friends, often Suneo or Gian, steal Doraemon's gadgets and end up misusing them.

By the end of the story, the characters who do wrong are usually grounded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doraemon

But it is not that the characters get grounded, but that the everyone is returned to

the status quo ante, and then grounded.

Do writers take it for granted that the changes the dogu make are reversed?

What to make of the fact that Doraemon is defective from the start? Defective, to

save him? Moses, Oedipus? Tragedy in a lighthearted cartoon? Wizard of Oz?