Anime / Doraemon: Nobita's Drifts in the Universe

When Star Wars isn't enough of a war...

The adventures of Doraemon and pals - Space Opera edition.

Doraemon: Nobita Drifts in the Universe is a 1999 anime film and the twentieth movie of the Doraemon Film Series, adapted from the installment of Doraemon's Long Tales of the same name.

Doraemon, Nobita and their friends, having an adventure in a 22nd Century Simulated Space Exploration kit, ends up losing the entire set with Suneo and Gian still in it. Tracking down the set with Doraemon's gadgets, they get picked up by an alien spaceship of the Space Knights Troupe, whose Captain, to the surprise of Nobita and gang, turns out to be a human boy named Lian, accompanied by his Robot Buddy Log, the fairy-like alien girl Freya, and the ship's muscular alien navigator, Goro-Goro.

After a series of adventures, resulting in Doraemon and gang saving Lian and his crew from a hostile planet of giant spiders, turning them from captives to friends of Lian and the Space Knights in the process, they eventually learn the truth that Lian and his crew are the inhabitants of the Milky Way Drifting Fleet, a Planet Spaceship housing millions and millions of human and alien life-forms, and they are actively looking for a new planet after their world's destruction 300 years ago. What's not helping is that Lian's father, Commander Liebert, had grown tired of drifting across the galaxy, with his advisor, Angolmois encouraging him on taking military actions which may involve full-scale invasions on other peaceful alien worlds.

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Doraemon: Nobita Drifts in the Universe contain examples of:

• Ace Pilot: Lian and the Young Space Knights, despite their age, are experts taking on enemy drones in battle. Thanks to Doraemon's Enlarging Light and Material Modifier, the main gang managed to convert the toy spaceships from the 22nd Century Spaceship Playset into real spaceships, complete with functioning turrets, which they can easily pilot to assist the Knights.
• Archnemesis Dad: Lian, a noble member of the Young Space Knights who opposed his father Commander Liebert's violent tendencies and willingness to use force, including launching invasions, on other planets. That is, until the truth that Angolmois is manipulating Commander Liebert and the military comes to light.
  Lian: Have you forgotten the teachings? We should never resort to invading another planet!
  Liebert: The teachings? What have they done for us for the past 300 years?
• The Atoner: Freya, after being revealed as The Mole feeding information to Angolmois and Commander Liebert getting the heroes captured, comes back in the last minute out of guilt, firing a laser blaster at robot security guards to back the heroes up.
• Attack Drone: The Independence Army's invasion fleet constructed by Commander Liebert and the military, which he intends to use in conquering entire planets are unmanned drones. Probably done on purpose so the manga / anime can justify the heroes (Nobita and his friends are 12, and the Space Knight Troup are roughly at the same age) blowing up hordes and hordes of enemies in large-scale space battles without any guilt.
  Gian: [ the drones come to a standstill with their control antenna sabotaged] Meh, and I was about to get my 100th kill.
• Bait-and-Switch: The final scene. Earlier on the planet of hostile tree-men, Doraemon and Nobita bumps into Nobita's homeroom teacher, Sensei, who congratulates Nobita for getting a perfect 100 in his exams, much to Nobita's surprise - because that was an illusion produced by the tree-men into making them see what they want to see. At the end of the adventure after saying goodbye to Lian and the Space Knights, Doraemon and Nobita are on their way home and bumps into Sensei, again - only this time Sensei is reprimanding Nobita on getting 0 in his exam, much to their relief.
  Nobita: Yes, 0 points! This is definitely earth! We're home!
  [cue a very confused Sensei wondering why the hell are they celebrating over a failed exam]
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The first meeting between the gang and Lian's crew was rather rocky, with the former thinking the latter abducted them while the latter think the former are intruders. Both groups become friends when the gang save Lian's crew from the giant alien spiders.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Angolmois, as mentioned by the writings of Nostradamus, here turns out to be a mind-controlling immortal alien creature who manipulates the space military in carrying out invasions of planets.
• Brick Joke: Earlier on when Nobita and gang starts becoming friends with Lian and the Space Knights, they then travel across the galaxy on Lian's ship while scouting for planets, passing by a black hole in the process which Lian tells them to keep a distance away. At the end after Doraemon freezes Angolmois' Blob Monster form with the Solidifying Light, the heroes then have Angolmois sealed in a garbage can and use Doraemon's Instant-Delivery Mail gadget to send Angolmois into the nearest black hole.
• Chekhov's Gun
  • The spiky, fruit-like object Nobita collects which saves the heroes more than once - such as glowing brightly while aboard Doraemon's ship warning them of their imminent explosion, and later waking Nobita when he's caught under the illusion on the hostile tree-men planet - turns out to be the God's Tree Fruit, an important alien artifact meant for protecting the Space Knights Troupe.
  • While on a hostile planet full of Giant Spiders, Doraemon and gang tried luring the spiders away from Lian's ship with the Hamelin Trumpet, which doesn't work because it's too small. Doraemon then increases its size with the Enlarging Light and have Gian blow into it, which does work. Towards the end, the Enlarging Light is used again when Nobita, Lian, and the rest of the heroes must increase the size of the Deflecting Cloth to stop the Milky Way Drifting Fleet from crashing into the Independence Army mothership.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Doraemon and friends are stranded in a distant galaxy, and when Doraemon tries using the Anywhere Door to teleport back, it doesn't work due to earth being too far away. Something similar happened in the earlier movie Doraemon: Nobita and the Galaxy Super-express.
  • The film's climax have Doraemon using his Modifying Light to turn the Simulated Space Exploration Kit's toy spaceships into durable, actually-functioning weapons so the gang can help battle hordes of enemy drones. In Doraemon: Nobita's Little Space War Doraemon uses the same gadget to modify Suneo's remote-controlled toys for another earlier, unrelated space battle.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Lian certainly thinks that way about his mother, who died when he was a baby and had since became estranged with his father, Commander Liebert. It helps that Commander Liebert is under the control of Angol Mois and manipulated into a warmongering dictator willing to launch an invasion on earth.
• Derelict Graveyard: Doraemon, Nobita, their new friends Lian and his team of space cadets gets stranded in a space graveyard, filled with floating wreckage of various alien ships. Stopping over to investigate, the later find out the reason behind the derelicts' existence when they're assaulted by an entire horde of power-consuming parasites that comes at them in entire swarms. A missile suddenly arrives and draws the parasites away - one which is revealed to be fired by the invasion fleet controlled by Angolmois and Commander Liebert.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: After escaping from the Space Knights' ship, the gang sing the Doraemon theme song and "Pocket no Naka Ni" (the ending theme to Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur).
• Fairy Companion: Freya, the fairy-like crew of Lian's Space Knights Troupe, who resembles a human... except she has fairy-like wings and can fit in a human palm.
• Fish People: Councilman Mazoura, the wise mayor of the Milky Way Drifting Fleet's colonies is a fish-human. Given the Space Opera setting he's probably a nod to Admiral Ackbar.
• Fighting from the Inside: Realizing his plans has been foiled, Angolmois, who is still mentally linked to Commander Liebert, orders him to fire upon Lian, his own son. Commander Liebert appears to still be under Angolmois' control, turning his pistol on Lian... before suddenly turning around and shooting Angolmois instead.
• Ghost Planet: The story opens with a Distant Prologue 300 years ago on Planet Laguna, a dead alien world drenched by acid raid, with a few crewmembers of the Milky Way Drifting Fleet on Hazmat Suits trying to salvage the resources on it's surface before finding nothing of value - save for a still-growing plant.
• Giant Spider: Doraemon and friends managed to escape from Lian's ship after it lands on an uninhabited alien world, only to discover the surface to be infested with giant spider-like monsters with stingers capable of firing poisonous webs. They managed to escape, but the spider-scorpions trapped Lian's ship, leading to Doraemon's decision to save them and turning Lian and the Space Knights into their allies in the process.
• Griefer: The movie starts with Gian and Suneo blasting Doraemon, Nobita, and Shizuka in a virtual-reality video game for no reason except the both found it fun.
• Hidden Villain: Commander Liebert appears to be the ruthless leader of the space military who's intending to launch full-scale invasions on peaceful planets in order to find a new home, until it's revealed that he - and the entire space military - is under Angolmois' control.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: During the Milky Way Drifting Fleet's emergency evacuation when the control panel's damaged at the end and it's about to crash into the neighboring mothership, in one of the crowd scenes a one-eyed seal alien humanoid can be spotted. That alien actually showed up earlier in one of the manga's shorts as an alien Nobita accidentally summoned with Doraemon's UFO-Calling gadget (and pissed off in the same volume, resulting in Nobita giving his marbles collection to the alien to prevent an Alien Invasion).
• Keystone Army: The Independence Army's drone fleet is controlled by a single antenna. Lian and his Space Knights, alongside Nobita and Doraemon, decides to go for the structure while Shizuka, Gian and Suneo buys them some time, and after destroying it with the Material Changer the drones immediately stops moving and comes to a standstill.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: After drifting in space and landing on an earth-like planet, Doraemon and friends are surprised to discover they've landed back on earth itself. Except they didn't - that planet is an illusion world inhabited by hostile tree-men, whose spores can fool any unfortunate life forms into seeing what they want to see before they're captured and digested alive by the tree-men monsters. Thankfully, the God's Tree Fruit which is still in Nobita's pockets suddenly pokes him in the butt, making him wake up and realize he's seeing an illusion. Cue Nobita waking Doraemon from the illusion with a thump on the head, and Doraemon quickly using an Alarm Gadget to alert Suneo, Gian and Shizuka - moments before they're devoured by tree-men aliens.
• Robot Buddy: Log, the robot sidekick of Lian which he considers a friend. After getting over their initial scuffle Log seems to get along really well with Doraemon, since they're both robot buddies to their respective human charges.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": From everyone upon finding out Freya is The Mole.
  WHAT???
• Mecha-Mooks: The security guards in Commander Liebert's hangar are robots. Probably because a shootout needs to happen there so that Freya can kill a few opponents to redeem herself, while avoiding moral issues.
• Mind Control: Angolmois' special ability, which he uses to control Commander Liebert and his entire crew. The good Commander finally snaps out when Angolmois orders him to shoot his own son.
• The Mole: Freya turns out to be working for Commander Liebert and Angolmois, from sabotaging the fuel system of Lian's ship to giving the wrong co-ordinates resulting in Doraemon and friends ending in the hostile illusion planet, as well as tricking the ship to enter the Derelict Graveyard. Turns out she's doing it all for Lian, believing its for the good of the Milky Way Drifting Fleet after they've been drifting aimlessly in space for three centuries. She does get a Redemption Promotion much later.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: As Angolmois, whose initial body had sustained heavy damage from being shot by Commander Liebert, tries to activate the mothership's control panel forcing it to crash, Lian then fires a single shot through Angolmois' body... penetrating and hitting the main control panel as well, causing the mothership to began dropping. Lian lampshades this with a My God, What Have I Done? reaction until Nobita gives Lian a slap waking him to regain himself.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Angolmois' sole reason of existence is to initiate invasions and wipe out entire planets, and is content with letting the Milky Way Drifting Fleet - a Planet Spaceship carrying millions and millions of different alien races from across the galaxy - being destroyed to spite the heroes.
• Percussive Maintenance: When the hatch of Lian's ship gets jammed just as Nobita and friends are trapped on the surface of the illusory planet, about to be devoured by tree-aliens, Lian resorts to repeatedly stomping on the door to make it open. It thankfully works right in the nick of time.
• Planet Spaceship: The Milky Way Drifting Fleet turns out to be a massive starship, the size of a small planet, housing hundreds of different alien races, humans from different planets (Lian being one of them), robots and the like. It has entire towns and facilities in it's interiors where various alien races can live together like an intergalactic melting pot.
• Reformation Acknowledgement: Freya betrays the rest of the heroes, selling out Doraemon, Nobita, Lian and the rest of the Space Knights to Angolmois and the Independence Army due to believing she's helping the Milky Way Drifting Fleet find a new home, only to have a Heel Realization after Angolmois have everyone imprisoned, returning to help everyone escape. Her subsequent Redemption Promotion have Lian telling everyone else, "I want you all to meet our latest friend", that friend being none other than Freya.
• Space Battle: Every single large-scale action scene is an epic space battle, from Lian and the Space Knights (backed up by Doraemon and gang who had their own modified ships) battling Commander Liebert's drone army, to their race against time to save the Milky Way Drifting Fleet when it's about to collide with the mothership and prevent destruction of all life on board. The movie starts with a smaller scale space battle as well, with Gian and Suneo blasting Doraemon, Nobita, and Shizuka in the virtual reality videogame.
• Space Cadet: Lian and his team, as well as the entirety of the Space Knights Troupe. They serve as the backbone of defense for the Milky Way Drifting Fleet in dire times.
• This Was His True Form: Angolmois, after getting shot and finished off by Lian, is revealed to be a robot underneath his cloak. Except this robot is also a decoy - his true form is an immortal Blob Monster who later assimilates a pile of random junk, taking on a new robotic-humanoid form with a TV as his head.
• Torso with a View: Lian managed to finish off Angolmois' first form by shooting him through the midsection. Unfortunately his shot also hits a control panel, causing the mothership to lose control...
• The Unintelligible: Goro-Goro, The Big Guy on Lian's Space Knight team. Lian, Log and Freya seems to understand him, though.
• Unwitting Pawn: Commander Liebert and basically the rest of the space military are merely pawns under Angolmois' control, being manipulated into constructing a drone fleet for conquering entire planets much to Angolmois' amusement.
• Warhawk: Commander Liebert appears to be one, given he approved the development of the invasion drone fleet and is prepared to launch invasions on other planets, including Earth, and is willing to blow up the Milky Way Drifting Fleet's mothership in an act of spite. It turns out Liebert was actually being controlled by his advisor, Angolmois, who is pulling the strings behind their military activities.
• When Trees Attack: One of the hostile planets Nobita and gang landed on, mistaking it for earth, is populated by sentient, living tree-men whose spores can trick unfortunate living beings into seeing things - and while they're left unaware, indulging in illusions, they'll be devoured alive by those tree-men. This fate nearly befell Nobita and gang if not for the God's Tree Fruit poking Nobita in the rump and waking him.

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