Trivia / Doraemon

• Accidentally Correct Zoology: In one of the 2017 episodes, the gang goes back to Late Cretaceous Alaska and encounters a tyrannosaur that is presumably Nanuqsaurus, although it is depicted as much larger. Fast forward to 2021 and it would turn out that Nanuqsaurus was not a dwarf as previously assumed, but a fairly large tyrannosaur similar to Albertosaurus.
• Adaptation First: German-speaking countries didn't get the franchise until Doraemon: Story of Seasons came out there in 2019, and German dub of Stand by Me Doraemon series was released in Netflix two years later.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: Having been around since 1969, the manga is one of the best-selling in the world, there have been three anime adaptations (1973; 1979-2004; 2005-present), and the films (which have been around since 1980) are among the highest grossing animated film franchises, as well as the highest of all anime film franchises. It's spawned so much merchandise, it can fill a house.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: Lucas Grabeel provided Gian/Big G's singing voice in "Big G's Big Show."
• Channel Hop:
  • The European Spanish dub used to be on Cartoon Network before it was given to Boing. Then it later aired on both Cartoon Network and Boing and now since Cartoon Network shut down in Spain, it is now only on Boing again.
  • The European Portuguese dub went from Canal Panda to Cartoon Network in 2015, Boomerang in 2019 and Cartoonito in 2023. A month and a half later, it currently airs on Cartoon Network.
  • The Hindi dub used to be on Hungama TV and Disney Channel India before it was moved to just Disney Channel India since 2018. However, since September 2019, Hungama TV still airs Doraemon films on their channel the same time Disney Channel India air it.
  • For the Filipino dub, the 1979 series used to air on GMA Network for a good part of the 2000's. By the time the 2005 series was released in the mid-2010's, it was shown on Yey!, a Kid-friendly digital channel owned by ABS-CBN. With the channel's closure in 2020, it later moved to A2Z channel 11^note  A channel affiliated with ABS-CBN that was the result of Loophole Abuse following the main channel's controversial closure back in 2020. Interestingly, the people who own the Channel 11 franchise used to be affiliated with GMA just a year prior. a year later.
  • In Korea, the 1979 anime series was aired in MBC2 in between 2001 and 2002. A few years later, an new dub and as well as 2005 anime series were aired on Champ TV since 2006.
  • In Malaysia:
    • The license for the manga series were passed from Tora Aman (which went defunct in 2017) to Gempak Starz in late-2010s. And Gempak only published the seventeen compilations manga volumes in Chinese, English and Malay, without ever bothering to reprint the manga series ever again. This transition of license appears to be because they managed to snatch up the rights to print all Shogakukan Manga in Malaysia after Tora Aman folded. However clearly they don't think too highly of Doraemon. It's also puzzling why they chose to pursue a deal with Shogakukan at all, being that the publishing firm was founded on publishing crude young adult humor magazines (think the Malaysian equivalent of MAD).
    • The show had always aired on the government-owned RTM1 since it’s inception in 1979, even lasting through the channel rebranding as RTM-TV1 in the mid-90s until the show was retired in early 2005. However, when it came time to air the 2005 reboot, RTM lost the rights to privately-owned Media Prima who has been airing it on their NTV7 channel, until they declared bankruptcy in 2020 and began revamping the channel lineup. However by then, Doraemon had also been simulcasting on the Astro Ceria satellite channel for over a decade and the English dub has been broadcasting on Disney XD for a while. With Disney XD shutting down South-East Asian operations tho, Astro Ceria became the new de facto home for Doraemon in Malaysia as of 2021.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Cinar's English dub of the 1979 anime has the vastly different title of The Adventures of Albert and Sidney. The 2014 American English dub aired by Disney XD, on the other hand, sticks with the original title.
  • An unlicensed Korean translation of the manga renamed the title to "따봉 개구쟁이" (Ttabong Gaegujaeng-i; Naughty Boy Ttabong).
  • An unlicensed Malaysian translation of the manga changed the title to Labu Labi ("Pumpkins").
• Creator's Pest: An obscure character who only appeared in 5 chapters in the original manga and its on-screen adaptation in the now inaccessible 1973 anime was Gatchako, a robotic duck. The character was quickly discontinued by the writers, Fujiko Fujio, as they found the character annoying and unlikable. Since then, Gatchako hasn't appeared in any incarnation of Doraemon outside of a seconds-long cameo in the 2000s series, due to the current writers for Doraemon wanting to respect the original author's wishes.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Doraemon is voiced by a woman in most languages, including Nobuyo Oyama (1979-2005) and Wasabi Mizuta (since 2005) in Japan and Mona Marshall in American English. With exceptions in Latin Spanish, Indian English (one of the Disney Channel India dubs), British English, Brazilian Portuguese (original series), Guangdong Chinese (the voice actor is courtesy of Wolffy from Pleasant Goatand Big Big Wolf), Cantonese (voiced by Lam Pou-chuen until his death on 2015), and Italy (Pietro Ubaldi).
  • Nobita is also voiced by a woman in most languages, with few exceptions such as Johnny Yong Bosch (U.S.), an unknown voice actor (MTV Europe dub), trans man Luy Campos (the second Brazilian Portuguese dub) and Davide Garbolino (Italy).
  • Suneo has been voiced by a woman in some languages, such as Arabic, Cantonese, Italian (in the 1979 series, 2005 series, and all the redubs), Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, Galician, European Spanish (in an old dub of the 1979 series), Latin American Spanish (in the dub for Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur), British English (on an extremely rare dub by MTV Europe in the 90's), Standard Chinese and Thai.
    • In the Arabic and Indian English dubs of the 2005 anime, Gian was voiced by a woman.
• Direct to Video:
  • Early English with Doraemon is an educational direct-to-video series with English lessons and songs.
  • There's also several direct-to-video Edutainment Doraemon specials, from one teaching hiragana to a video preparing children for preschool.
• Dueling Dubs:
  • In English-speaking countries:
    • The American English dub and the British English dub were made around the same time for the 2005 anime, though the American English dub was more successful.
    • Disney Channel India began airing an Indian English dub of the 2005 anime for a short-while in 2019 and aired in 2023 on their HD feed.
  • Except the Cantonese dub, China and Taiwan have different Chinese dubs, but China have a few more dubs than Taiwan, while Taiwan covered most of the 1979 anime series and even the 2005 anime series.
  • The 1979 anime have two Korean dubs; one is MBC2 dub which aired in 2001-2002, only covered the early 1979 anime episodes which aired on Japan in 1979 to early 1980s (like in mainland China, as said above) and an well-known dub was also aired in Champ TV a few years later, in 2006, does covers most of the 1979 anime series.
  • When Luk Internacional first started licensing the 1979 series in Spain, it commissioned its dub to a Barcelona-based dubbing studio, airing on several regional channels as well as Canal Panda and Televisión Española's La 2. However, after acquiring the Spanish licensing rights to Crayon Shin-chan, a new dub made for Cartoon Network was commissioned to a Basque Country-based dubbing studio, as it was considered cheaper than dubbing in Barcelona, that slowly replaced the previous one. However, Boing still occasionally airs earlier Doraemon movies that feature the earlier dub.
  • In Portugal, the 1979 series had three dubs so far, all done in the 2000s. The first dub was commissioned by public broadcaster RTP and produced by Porto/Vila Nova de Gaia-based Somnorte. The later two dubs were both produced in Lisbon, with the first (produced by Cantinho da Música) being exclusive to DVD (although according to Gian's voice actor Quimbé, the dub was also originally intended for the series itself). Funnily enough, that dub kept Doraemon (Paula Seabra) and Nobita's (Alexandra Gabriel) voice actresses from the Somnorte dub while the others were voiced by Lisbon-based voice actors (Sandra de Castro and then Bárbara Lourenço as both Shizuka and Dorami, Quimbé as Gian, Bruno Ferreira as both Suneo and Nobisuke and Mila Belo as Tamako, who also sung the theme song). The third and current dub, also extending to the 2005 series, was produced by Santa Claus and kept Bárbara Lourenço as both Shizuka and Dorami and Quimbé as Gian, but recasted all the others (namely Raquel Ferreira as Doraemon, Helena Mota as Nobita, Sérgio Calvinho and then Michel Simeão as Suneo, Nobisuke and the Sensei and Micaela Ferreira as both Tamako and Dekisugi).
  • A weird variation: when the 2005 anime series was localized into English, that version was broadcast on Disney Channel Japan primarily as a way to help Japanese viewers to learn English and familiarize them with American culture and its differences from Japanese culture. This version also had an alternate Japanese-language track with the regular seiyuu re-recording their respective roles.
  • Written example: In Indonesia, compilation re-releases of the Elex Media published mangas almost always has different writing due to different translation team. Early on, the translation was generally poor, crude, or slang-ridden and there was a massive Cultural Translation editing. However, later reprints as well as compilations are translated differently as well as lacking Cultural Translation, instead relying on footnotes.
• Fandom Life Cycle:
  • In Japan, the series is stage 5, being enduringly popular ever since it debuted and receiving new episodes to this day.
  • Its fandom is at stage 3 in the English-speaking world; it's not as popular as certain other anime, but maintains a steady following that prevents the series from being totally obscure even in those countries.
• The Foreign Subtitle: The Disney XD dub is called Doraemon: Gadget Cat from the Future.
  • The Spanish and Portuguese versions call it Doraemon: El gato cósmico in Spanish (Both in Latin America and Spain), Doraemon: O Gato Cósmico in Portugal, and Doraemon: O Super Gato and Doraemon: O Gato do Futuro in Brazil.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Although many episodes and specials of the 1979 and 2005 anime, along with every film to date, are available on various home media releases in Japan, there are still plenty of episodes and specials that have yet to recieve a home media release there.
  • The anime episodes barely have any home media releases outside of Japan, which is very odd considering the series' popularity in Europe and Asia. Some of the films have been released on DVD in a few countries, but that is it.
    • The main problem with the Asian releases is that more than often it's just imported copies of the Hong Kong Cantonese dub of the show. For example, in Malaysia and Indonesia, strangely enough, despite the show having top-notch Malay and Indonesian dubbing, It's easier to find the Cantonese VideoCDs than it is to find home video releases of the local dubs. Although bootlegged TV recordings with the channel logo stamped over exists and can be found at questionable outlets (ie night markets or that dimly lit corner in run-down shopping malls), if you want it legit, your only option is the Cantonese VCDs.
  • Averted in Brazil, Hong Kong, and India. In Brazil, the Portuguese dub of the 2005 anime was formerly streamed on Netflix, but is currently streaming on Wow! Play. In Hong Kong, plenty of episodes of the Cantonese dub of the 1979 anime were released on VCD. In India, four seasons of the Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu dubs are currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video, and those dubs are also available on the Indian version of Disney+.
  • In the 1980's, Cinar and Turner Broadcasting System produced an English dub of the anime titled The Adventures of Albert and Sidney in Montreal with the intent of airing it on Superstation WTBS. Although those plans didn't work out, it apparently only aired in Barbados of all places.
  • If you live in Malaysia (or Brunei) and you want to purchase Doraemon manga there? Too bad. It is now out of print and couldn't be purchased as of now as its Malaysian publisher Tora Aman were now defunct since 2017. Now only Malaysian and Singaporean fans were able to purchase is the Gempak Starz's release of the seventeen Doraemon compilation manga volumes, since that company now own the license to the manga series. (See the Channel Hop trope above here).
  • There is currently no legal way to watch the American English dub except for the episode "Big G: Master Chef". There appears to be no plans for a DVD release in America, nor is the show on any digital service.
  • Unless if you order a DVD from Japan, there's no legal way to watch any of the Japanese version of Doraemon in the U.S., per TV Asahi's directive that the Japanese version not be commercially released in America. The Japanese version was airing on the NHK TV Japan channel before Viz licensed the show, and TV Japan was forced to cancel it, although the channel has aired other shows licensed in the U.S., such as Case Closed and One Piece, in Japanese.
• Late Export for You: America didn't get a major release of the Doraemon comic until 2013, and they got the show the year after. By that point, the franchise had been around in most Asian and Western countries for at least a decade, if not more.
• Long-Runners:
  • The manga ran for 45 volumes from December 1969 until 1996, while the anime has run for more than 2100 episodes from 1979 until the present day (plus an unpopular and now-lost series in 1973).
  • On March 25, 2005, the 1979 series ended after 1,787 episodes. Not even a month later, on April 15, a new updated Doraemon anime, with an entirely new voice cast (the 1979 series voice actors were now senior citizens), began broadcasting and has been kept airing ever since.
• Marathon Running: Disney Channel India is known for their Doraemon marathons which take up a lot of the channel's schedule.
• The Merch: So much merchandise has been released over the decades that some people try to collect it all.
• Missing Episode:
  • The full 1973 series is considered missing. Apparently it was conveniently "destroyed in a fire" shortly after it was canceled, and the specific language used indicates that the destruction was deliberate. However, it was eventually revealed later on that the film reels were actually sold off by the production company to cover debt. Some episodes survive in certain people's hands but otherwise the show just plain doesn't exist.
  • The American version of Volume 121 was supposed to be released on July 9, 2015, but it was skipped with no explanation and the next volumes were released instead. Volume 121 finally got released around August 20, 2017.
• No Dub for You:
  • The 2006 movie was released in America, but only with subtitles.
  • Stand by Me Doraemon 2, which was scheduled to be released in the Philippines on February 24, 2021, didn't receive a Filipino dub unlike its predecessor (likely due to the fact that the Filipino dub of the 2005 anime ended in 2020 and complications with the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic), and instead uses the original Japanese version with English subtitles, later averted when Netflix released a dedicated Filipino dub of the film. The previous film, Doraemon: Nobita's New Dinosaur also suffered the same fate in Indonesia, Singapore and also the Philippines too.
  • The 42nd film, Doraemon: Nobita's Little Star Wars 2021, was only released in Malaysia, Mauritius, Philippines, Singapore and South Africa in the original Japanese version with English subtitles. It was also subtitled in Arabic, Azerbaijani and Greek for the Arabic, Azerbaijani, and Cyprus releases of the film (in addition to English subtitles).
• No Export for You:
  • Despite being known as a classic and popular children franchise that has Outlived Its Creator, Doraemon had a rough trip over the last 30+ years in the U.S. In 1985, Ted Turner's Superstation WTBS bought the series' rights and even planned to air the first 50 episodes, with Cinar producing the dub in Montreal. But due to unknown circumstances, it never aired, and the rights were eventually dropped (possibly relating to the the dub of Ultraseven Turner's syndication arm, Turner Program Services, commissioned that year and, due to being judged poor quality, didn't air until 1994, when TNT dug it up). It wasn't until 2014, when TV Asahi (The channel that airs the series in Japan) announced an agreement with Disney to bring the 2005 anime series to Disney XD in July 2014, with a dub produced by Bang Zoom! Entertainment. Albeit localized to several degrees (such as the changes of some of the names of the main characters^note Nobita being nicknamed as "Noby", Shizuka's name changed to "Sue", Gian nicknamed as "Big G", and Suneo changed to "Sneech", and some visual editing- see Dub-Induced Plotline Change on the main page), all changes are approved by Fujiko-Pro in Japan.
  • Averted for Indonesians. In a rare moment of history where Indonesians get the better deal compared to most others, all 45 volumes of the manga, all the movie manga, plus "The Doraemons" spin-off are published in Indonesian by Elex Media Komputindo. Meanwhile, Indonesian TV network RCTI has the right to air all the series' episodes dubbed, and during holidays they also re-run the movies. The dubbing is also Superlative Dubbing, most of the time.
  • Also averted in Malaysia, as well, like its neighborhooding country Indonesia. Due to its popularity, the dub that the anime receives is far superior to the dubs of other cartoons. The only other shows to receive a dub of this quality are Sailor Moon (and even then they gave up on the later series of the franchise) and the Ultra Series. It also managed to stay on to become a long runner on channels that regularly screw anime and cartoons over.
  • Even also averted in Vietnam, due to the manga being among of the first non-Eastern Bloc works to be imported in the winter of 1992 after the liberalization of the communist government, all the manga volumes were translated in Vietnam, and the anime were also receives is fair superior to the dubs of other cartoons too, and still aired in HTV3 for many years since 2010.
  • Mildly averted in Latin America, since 306 episodes of the 1979 anime series and the first movie were dubbed in Mexican Spanish, and were aired in different channels across the LatAm region for years. However, it was later announced in 2014 that the 2005 anime was going to be dubbed, too^note based on the Japanese version, instead of the North American one, as it was originally proposed, and the first 26 episodes were available on Netflix's LatAm service.
  • No less than 63 Doraemon video games have been released for nearly every video game system in Japan. Despite the series' huge popularity in Europe and Asia, a great majority of them never left Japan. However, the Nintendo 3DS game, Dorakazu: Nobita's Great Number Adventure, did get released in Taiwan along with South Korea in 2013. Additionally, a South Korean cartridge◊ of the Sega Genesis game, Doraemon: The Dream Thief and the 7 Gozans, is known to somehow exist, and the Turbo Grafx-16 game, Cratermaze, is actually a Dolled-Up Installment of Doraemon: The Great Maze Tactic. Doraemon: Story of Seasons thus becoming the first Doraemon video game to have an English translation and officially released globally.
  • Despite the popularity of the show throughout Asia, some of the pinball games have only been released in Japan.
  • Played straight in Germany and Austria for many years since the debut of the franchise until when the Story of Seasons game came out there in 2019, and German dub of Stand by Me Doraemon series was released in Netflix two years later.
  • CTV originally planned to air the anime series in Taiwan in 1990, but the plan was scrapped due to the island country's decades-long ban on most Japanese cultural products (similar to South Korea's) which lasted until The '90s.
  • The only Doraemon-related media known to be officially released in Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Mauritius and South Africa was the 42nd film, Doraemon: Nobita's Little Star Wars 2021.
• The Other Darrin: With the exception that the 1973 anime was cancelled at the time, and the 1979 anime had to use a new cast (some of who worked in the previous series, as well), it's too justified when the 2005 reboot series started, mostly because the well-known voice cast (who were already in their late-60s in 2004/05) needed to retire after 26 years of working in the franchise.
  • Nobuyo Oyama (Doraemon) was succeeded by Wasabi Mizuta.
  • Noriko Ohara (Nobita) was succeeded by Megumi Oohara.
  • Michiko Nomura (Shizuka) was succeeded by Yumi Kakazu.
  • Kaneta Kimotsuki (Suneo) was suceeded by Tomokazu Seki.
  • Kazuya Tatekabe (Gian) was succeeded by Subaru Kimura.
• Outlived Its Creator: "Fujiko Fujio" is a penname that was shared by two artists (Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motoo Abiko), who eventually split in 1987 ^note (to complicate things further, by the time, they also split their creative properties: Fujimoto kept Doraemon, for example, while Abiko kept Ninja Hattori-kun). Fujimoto, better known as Fujiko F. Fujio, died in 1996; as result, his apprentices have continued writing the story and its spin-offs in his stead.^note They've since formed a production company, Fujiko-Pro, to handle the writing and production of the manga, anime and films. Abiko himself would pass away in 2022.
• Promoted Fanboy: Surprisingly enough, Kaiji Tang, Gian/Big G's English VA grew up watching the show!
• Recursive Import: The American English dub had its episodes dubbed back into Japanese and aired on the Japanese feed of Disney Channel, with the Japanese voice actors for the original version of the show reprising their roles.
• Red Stapler: Would you believe that it's because of Doraemon, dorayaki became extremely popular in Asia and resulted in the confectionery being sold in most Japanese food shops and bakeries in the region?
• Release Date Change: Two known examples.
  • As noted above, in Korea, the 39th film, Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicle of the Moon Exploration, was postponed from August of 2019 to October of the same year, and it was withheld indefinitely.
  • The 40th film, Doraemon: Nobita's New Dinosaur, was postponed from its original March 6th, 2020 release date in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and was moved to August 7th of the same year, which as a result, caused the Stand by Me Doraemon 2 CG film which was originally scheduled at that date to be delayed to November 20.
• Role Reprise: In the Filipino dub, Jefferson Utanes, the voice of Doraemon in the 1979 series, reprises his role in the 2005 series as well as in the two Stand by Me Doraemon films. The rest of the cast dubbing the 1979 series got hit with The Other Darrin.
• Science Marches On: Doraemon: Nobita's New Dinosaurs portrays Spinosaurus with shorter legs and a kink in its sail to correspond with the more complete Spinosaurus skeleton discovered in 2014, which would have made it the most accurate the dinosaur has ever appeared in animation and films. But alas, this depiction also became outdated, with the 2020 discovery that Spinosaurus had a paddle-shaped tail.
• Screwed by the Network: The Disney XD dub received little promotion; when the second season began airing in summer 2015, it was at the 1:00 P.M. slot. After the summer, however, new episodes continued to premiere in the same timeslot. This caused the dub to be put on indefinite hiatus.
  • It was worse on what used to be Disney XD's Canadian version (now known as WildBrainTV). The show only aired at 12PM on random days in the summer of 2015, and only ten episodes were aired. DHX Media purchased the network at the same time they began to air the show, which could justify its poor treatment.
  • It’s clear that Astro Ceria does not think as highly of Doraemon as they did when they first started simulcasting the show over a decade ago. To wit, the show is now only aired on weekends. It used to have a slot every day. Although that is much better than the show’s fate on NTV7 (completely screwed due to channel revamp) or Disney XD (channel completely screwed over the entire South-East Asian region by ceasing broadcast in the region). It could also be justified in that the show’s new timetable in Japan itself is only one new episode a week.
  • As noted above, Gempak Starz managed to salvage the rights for Doraemon when the previous rights-holder, Tora Aman, went bankrupt. However they sat on the license after just publishing the seventeen compilation volumes. The acquision of the license appears to be part of a package deal with Shogakukan, but it is clear that they weren't keen on getting Doraemon as part of the deal.
• Sending Stuff to Save the Show: The US dub has been on hiatus ever since its second season ended. Fans have sent in tons of letters and messages asking for a third season. The fate of the US dub is still undetermined.
• Short-Runner:
  • The 1973 series only ran for a few months.
  • The Doraemons only ran for a year and it only had 5 short films.
• Stunt Casting:
  • Many well recognized Japanese voice actors and celebrities are promoted in the credits of the movies (and sometimes, even TV specials) with the rest of the normal anime cast. For example, Nana Mizuki as Koron in the 2012 movie, "Doraemon: Nobita and the Island of Miracle ~Animal Adventure~", sharing credits with Kōichi Yamadera as Sharman, child actor and tarento Fuku Suzuki as Fouque, and actor Shun Oguri as Shun Amaguri.
  • Lucas Gabreel, better known from High School Musical, provides his singing voice for a good singing Big G in the English dub of the anime.
• Tyop on the Cover: The Hindi episode "Everyone Are Jealous of Nobita!" has an error. It should be "Everyone Is Jealous of Nobita!"
• Unfinished Dub:
  • Some episodes have never been distributed in Latin America or Spain.
  • The English dubs only dub a relatively-small portion of the entire franchise.
  • The English comic skips a few chapters, most notably the ones with the character Gachako.
• Voiced Differently in the Dub:
  • Nobita gets a deeper voice in the American English and British English dubs, sounding less like a child and more like a teen.
  • The Latin Spanish dub and the Disney Channel India English dub have Gian sound higher-pitched, unfitting for a bully.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The American fans wouldn't be surprised that Ted Turner used to have the rights to the anime in 1985 under the name The Adventures of Albert and Sidney, which was slated to air on SuperStation WTBS (now TBS) with 50 episodes. However, they couldn't get a TV deal for it and let the license expire. This could've been Doraemon's first appearance in the US, and almost 30 years earlier too.
  • In the early 2000's there was actually an English pilot made by Phuzz Entertainment (now known as Unbound Creative Inc.) for the 1979 series, which was never picked up. While not as long ago as the previous example, Doraemon could have been released practically a decade earlier in America.