Anime / Doraemon Film Series

"I'm here inside your pocket,
Here to travel along with you.
I have been waiting for you to notice,
What you really saw in your dreams.
Let's go there together right now!
It's a far away place, but in our reach.
Even inside my pocket, there's an endless sky!
Inside there, clouds roam!
There's a wonderful world just like this out there,
Which we will travel together!"

— Inside Your Pocket, ending song for the first two films

In 1980, the Doraemon Franchise got its first film, Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur. This became what would be the first of a series of movies that release yearly, with the only break being in 2005.

While the series is about Doraemon giving Nobita gadgets to help him (and invariably give him a hard time when he abuses them), being a mixture of a Slice of Life and Science Fiction series, the films have much wider plots that often have Nobita, Doraemon, and their friends go to new worlds.

The first 25 movies are adapted from the manga Doraemon's Long Tales, with one exception.

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Films:

• Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur (1980) — The first movie of the franchise. Nobita finds an actual Dinosaur's Egg Fossil and makes it come to life. After accidentally sending him back in time to the wrong region, he and his friends must carry the dinosaur back to where he belongs, while avoiding the criminals who want said dinosaur.
• Doraemon: The Records of Nobita, Spaceblazer (1981) — Thanks to a portal between the Earth and a faraway planet, Doraemon and Nobita find themselves in a Space Western-ish adventure concerning the hostile takeover of a planet while the others bail on them after the first signs of danger.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Haunts of Evil (1982) — The gang's motivation to have a big adventure for their summer break turns into a discovery of an unknown civilization consisting of dog people in an Indiana Jones-styled adventure in Africa. It's one of the movies that is focused on a character other than Nobita (in this case, Gian).
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil (1983) — What could've been a simple hiking trip (albeit underwater) turns into a discovery of an underwater kingdom and the adventure to defeat the dark robot army under the Bermuda Triangle.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure into the Underworld (1984) — Nobita creates a parallel world where magic flourishes instead of science. Little does he know that he would find himself fighting actual Demons to save the Earth from them because of that.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Little Space War^note Originally known as Nobita's Little Star Wars (1985) — The gang gets involved in a literal space war with little aliens to save their planet.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops (1986) — Nobita finds a Humongous Mecha in the North Pole. The gang later find out that it was meant to help robots from another planet conquer Earth, and only they can stop it.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Knights on Dinosaurs (1987) — Underworld reptilian people descended from dinosaurs in the underworld are plotting to take over the above world because they believe the above world should belong to them, not the human race.
• Doraemon: The Record of Nobita's Parallel Visit to the West (1988) — Doraemon uses a game machine to create a Journey to the West mock-up to help Nobita prove that Sun Wukong is real. This ends up letting the demons out into the real world and change the history of humanity, so the gang has to go back in time to protect Xuanzang and defeat the demons. Notable for being the first movie not to have an original manga counterpart.^note There's a "Color Theatre" manga release that took screenshots from the movie and put bubble texts on it.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Birth of Japan (1989) — The gang wish to create a prehistoric Utopia only to find out that the prehistoric people were attacked and kidnapped by a dark tribe, led by a villain from the future^note called a time criminal in-universe who plans to rule the past.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Animal Planet (1990) — Nobita finds a dimensional portal to a World of Funny Animals, who get attacked by mysterious evil aliens not long after.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Dorabian Nights (1991) — Shizuka gets herself lost inside the Arabian Nights tales, forcing the gang to go back in time to rescue her.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Kingdom of Clouds (1992) — The main cast creates a sky-bound Utopia for them, only to end up in the land of the sky people, and have to stop their plan to cleanse the Earth of all humanity's misgivings, Biblical style.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Tin Labyrinth (1993) — The gang must save humanity from another planet where robots Turned Against Their Masters, led by an evil Mad Scientist robot king, for those humans relied on robots too long and are too weak to save themselves.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Three Visionary Swordsmen (1994) — Nobita uses the dream machine to have a good dream, only to accidentally unleash a great evil within the Dream Land, and he must return to save it.
• Doraemon Nobitas Diary Of The Creation Of The World (1995) — Nobita plays God and created a Crapsack World, interfering in favor of humans and angering primitive insets in the process, forcing him to go save that world's humanity from the wrath of the evolved insect people.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Galaxy Super-express (1996) — The gang goes on a space Mystery Train, where the destination is an upcoming planet theme park, when an alien virus strikes, wanting to take them as host bodies.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Spiral City (1997) — Nobita finds an actual planet from Doraemon's consolation prizes, so they create a town with toys that are capable of acting like humans. Hijinks occur when a thief ends up on the said planet, and then clones himself intending to rule the planet. Notable as being the last work of Fujiko F. Fujio worked on before he passed away.^note The work was finished by his company due to his passing.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas (1998) — Nobita wants to have a Pirate adventure, only for he and his friends to end up in the 18th century, forcing them to get back to the present without most of Doraemon's gadgets while Nobita gets separated from all the others.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Drifts in the Universe (1999) — The 20th movie of the franchise. The gang's space game turns real when Gian and Suneo get stuck in the game and end up in a real spaceship by accident, forcing the others to save them to get stuck in space themselves.
• Doraemon: Nobita's the Legend of the Sun King (2000) — Nobita swaps roles with a Mayan prince who looks just like him. Then they have to work together to defeat the witch who wants to rule the land.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Winged Braves (2001) — Nobita, Shizuka, and Doraemon find a birdman from Birdopia, the land of bird people. After Gian and Suneo accidentally board said birdman's plane, the others go after them to get them back and later have to stop the bird people from destroying humanity.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Robot Kingdom (2002) — The gang goes on a journey to save the Robot Kingdom from its tyrannical queen, Jeanne.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Windmasters (2003) — The gang finds a wind village by accident, and they have to stop the dark tribe's plan to rule the world involving Nobita's new pet, which is a little typhoon.
• Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey (2004) — The 25th movie in the franchise, concerning a Stable Time Loop involving a civilization formed by abandoned cats and dogs. Contains many Shout Outs to gadgets and scenes in the other movies.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur 2006 (2006) — First movie from the 2005 anime series. Remake of the 1980 movie, Nobita's Dinosaur.
• Doraemon: Nobita's New Great Adventure into the Underworld (2007) — Remake of the 1984 movie, Nobita's Great Adventure into the Underworld.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Green Giant Legend (2008) — A young tree is brought to life by Nobita and Doraemon. They later go on a journey to stop plant aliens from turning the Earth into a plant-infested hellhole. Notable for being the first original movie in the 2005 anime series.
• Doraemon: The New Record of Nobita's Spaceblazer (2009) — Remake of the 1981 movie, The Record of Nobita: Spaceblazer.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King (2010) — A movie that celebrates the 30th anniversary of the movie franchise and the 40th anniversary of the series. A loose adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tale, "The Little Mermaid".
• Doraemon: Nobita and the New Steel Troops: ~Winged Angels~ (2011) — Remake of the 1986 movie, Nobita and the Steel Troops.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracles ~Animal Adventure~ (2012) — The gang go on a journey along with a young Nobisuke (Nobita's dad) to find and protect the Golden Beetle.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum (2013) — Doraemon's cat bell has been stolen by a 22nd century Phantom Thief called Kaitou DX, Clues lead them to the Secret Gadget Museum where all gadgets Doraemon have been using are displayed.
• Doraemon: New Nobita's Great Demon ~Peko and the Exploration Party of Five~ (2014) — Remake of the 1982 movie, Nobita and the Haunts of Evil.
• Stand by Me Doraemon (2014) — The franchise's first CGI movie, that combines some of the most famous manga stories into a new complete (but still a Tear Jerker and heartwarming) story. It's the most successful (non-numbered) entry of the movie franchise (earning nearly 1 billion yen in its first weekend).
• Doraemon: Nobita and The Space Heroes (2015) — A movie that commemorates not only the 35th anniversary of the movie franchise, but also the 10th anniversary of the 2005 anime. The gang decides to make a movie based on space superheroes, until things get too real.
• Doraemon: Nobita and the Birth of Japan (2016) — Remake of the 1989 movie, Nobita and the Birth of Japan.
• Doraemon: Great Adventure in the Antarctic Kachi Kochi (2017) — After Nobita finds a ring inside a 100,000-year-old block of ice, the gang go back in time to seek the original owner of the ring.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Treasure Island (2018) — A loose adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel, Treasure Island. Nobita discovers a treasure island by pure luck. However, said island has more than what meets the eye.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicles of the Moon Exploration (2019) — Nobita believes that a real rabbit lives on the Moon. Doraemon then uses one of his gadgets to make a theory of rabbits living on the moon come true, prompting Nobita to invite the gang, along with a mysterious new classmate to join the experience.
• Doraemon: Nobita's New Dinosaur (2020) — Celebrates the 50th anniversary of the series. Nobita discovers two newly hatched dinosaurs and the gang travels back in time to the end of the Cretaceous to put them back where they belong.
• Stand by Me Doraemon 2 (2021) — A sequel to Stand by Me Doraemon.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Little Space War 2021 (2022) — Remake of the 1985 movie, Nobita's Little Space War.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Sky Utopia (2023) — Doraemon, Nobita, and friends go on a journey on Doraemon's Cool Airship to explore a new skybound utopia. It nearly coincides with the anniversary of Kingdom of Clouds, another sky-themed adventure from 31 years earlier.

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Tropes found in the films as a unit:

• Adaptation Expansion:
  • Many of the films themselves are expansions of either a single or several chapters with an example being the first movie being an expansion of the 1975 chapter with the same name.
  • The manga adaptation of the 2005 series movies tend to expand on the story in general. Showing more background stories or having some events played out differently compared to the movie it was based on.
• Adaptational Heroism: For the main five, where the "ass" part of Jerkass was removed and replaced with Jerk with a Heart of Gold, and that was at its worst.
• Big Damn Movie: LOVES this trope. The regular manga and TV series involves just the mundane daily life of the protagonist, his robotic cat, and his other elementary school friends in suburban Tokyo. However, the series' movies will always be huge epic adventure stories (often set in elaborate sci-fi/mythological/high fantasy locations) and the main characters are inevitably portrayed as the brave action heroes.
• But Now I Must Go: In the majority of the movies, the movie characters and the regular main characters say farewell to each other and never see each other again after said movie (discounting their original manga/later anime adaptions if existent or their original/remake version), bar one outlier.
• Demonic Possession:
  • Happened to Suneo twice in two movies, first possessed by one of the Yadori Alien and latter by the Big Bad evil sorcerer Uranda.
  • Also happened to Nobita once in the same movie. He, however, is prepared for it the second time and defeat the Yadori Emperor.
• Deus Exit Machina: To avoid Doraemon easily solving the main conflict, many movies have him knocked out, defeated, or separated from most if not all of his gadgets by the time the climax kicks in.
• Disneyfication: The whole Doraemon series mellowed down most of the fairy tales and famous stories they adapted, most notably in Doraemon: Nobita's Great Battle of the Mermaid King movie. The plot was closer to the source than the Disney movie, but in the end, Sophia and the entire mermaid tribe live happily ever after anyway.
• Foreshadowing: These movies love to foreshadow scenes that are very important.
• Forgot About His Powers: The movies will always have a big war towards the end. And yet despite the overabundance of useful gadgets, Doraemon only remembers the rather weak Air Cannon. Cue a Curb-Stomp Battle delivered by the enemies until the protagonists have to rely on Deus ex Machina or Heroic Sacrifice. Often, though, the trope is subverted because Doraemon usually has his gadgets in repair of out of power (makes sense due to the sheer number [over 4 digit] of them). He's only got multiple versions of the most common (and likely cheapest) gadgets in hand for most of the time. (Even the iconic takecopters are often lacking in battery power.)
• Girl of the Week: The movies, especially later ones, where there will be a token girl even though the main focus isn't on her at all...most of the time.
• Green Aesop: Used frequently in the movies. In most stories, and especially in movies, humans destroying the environment won't result in a disaster on its own; that would take too long. Chances are, alien civilization will plot to intervene and destroy humans first to prevent said environmental disaster from happening.
• Holding Back the Phlebotinum: It's common for Doraemon to lose his pocket at some point in the movies, sometimes leaving the heroes with only a handful of gadgets that they have to try and make the best of.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Almost every civilization Nobita and his friends run across in the movies has some sort of grudge against humans. Usually paired with Green Aesop above.
• Letterbox:
  • Some movies have this when released on VHS or DVD. As the movies were produced in the 16:9 aspect ratio since Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas onward.
  • Interestingly, this is inverted with the older movies when they're first released in Japanese theatres. The first 18 movies were made in the 4:3 aspect ratio but were shown in theatres in the 16:9 aspect ratio. They were generally good at not making important details got lost from the crop. So this is a non-issue for the most part.
• Non-Serial Movie: All of them.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: The Big Damn Movie villains are especially fond of this.
• The Movie: It will have more than 30 movies in a year or two, but since the story doesn't have a real ending nor it has any development, plus what most of what the studio's doing nowadays is to remake em'all for new generation's kids. All Doraemon movies (except some short movies and spinoffs) are considered not the Non-Serial Movie.
• The Remake: Starting with the 2006 movie, Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur (2006), which is a remake of the first movie. After that, several movies were given the remake treatments.
• Scenery Porn: The TV series and the older movies (1980 to 2004) are not known for their good animations, but Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey, alongside the newer movies (2006 onward), are just simply gorgeous.
• Tender Tears: Loads and loads in the movies, especially those that started to be done in the 2005 anime era.
• Title: The Adaptation: All movies are titled Doraemon, later Doraemon the Movie, followed by a subtitle. Which also have to have the word Nobita in it (Stand by Me Doraemon and Stand by Me Doraemon 2 being the only exceptions).
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: Most of the main villains of the movies are shown to be outright malicious and evil, to the point where they try to kill the main cast as means of eliminating those who oppose them. Keep in mind the main cast mostly consists of children.

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