Stand by Me Doraemon is a Doraemon movie released in 2014, the first CGI installment of the Doraemon Film Series. It summarizes what Doraemon's all about, and it serves as a good introduction to the series.
It combines some of the most famous chapters of the comic into a complete story.note Nobita "Noby" Nobi is a struggling fourth grader with a crummy life. Noby's great-great-grandson from the future, Sewashi "Soby" Nobi, builds the robot cat Doraemon. Doraemon goes back in time to steer Noby's life in the right direction with his wide variety of gadgets. Noby uses the gadgets for his own benefit and to get his Love Interest Shizuka "Sue" Minamoto interested in him. Eventually, Doraemon has to leave Noby and go back home.
This movie is one of the most successful Doraemon works. It grossed over $183 million worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing anime films, and it won multiple awards. Bang Zoom! Entertainment produced an American English dub of the movie, though the dub was initially only distributed in Asia (the film was finally released on Netflix in the US on December 24, 2021). In fact, the movie was so successful that it obtained its own sequel film in 2020. (Netflix released that film outside Japan and Southwest Asia also on December 24, 2021.)
This movie borrows most of its tropes from the manga chapters it adapts (see the note above), but it also adds in some tropes of its own.
Tropes unique to Stand by Me Doraemon:
- Adaptation Amalgamation: It combines the stories of the first six volume...and one story in the seventh volume.
- Adaptational Badass: The movie adapts a short from the manga where Nobita, after growing up via the Time Cloth, travels to the future to save Adult!Shizuka who's stranded in a blizzard. The original short has Future!Nobita spending the whole time sick in bed from a cold, with Present!Nobita accompanying Shizuka until a rescue team arrives. The movie however have Future!Nobita - after remembering the promise he made to himself as a kid - pulling a Big Damn Heroes arriving right on time on a futuristic snowcat to save Future!Shizuka and his younger self. Future!Shizuka unfortunately gets hit with the inversion, though, as in the original manga, she never suffered from chronic hypothermia to the point of unconsciousness.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Doraemon himself gets hit by this in order to develops his personality. In original story, he's more willing to be sent back to the past by Sewashi to help fixing Nobita's daily life and being supportive to him, only for Doraemon to become apathetic to Nobita due to his bratty and immature tendencies toward him as time goes on while his bond with him remain intact. Here, he's already resentful with the idea of being sent back to the past to help Nobita from the get-go due to said bratty and immature tendencies of his, let alone helping his life and only being supportive toward Nobita just because Sewashi forced programmed him and make Doraemon unable to return to his original timeline until he make Nobita fully happy. However, he's genuinely soften up on him as the time goes on.
- All-CGI Cartoon: This one and it's sequel are the only Doraemon feature films to use CGI animation.
- All for Nothing: In order to get better grade for his next test with his own ability, Nobita attempts to study without the help of Doraemon's gadgets after putting some consideration. Unfortunately, he studies math while the test in question supposed to be Kanji, which leaves Nobita with another zero grade anyway.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Spanish version includes a completely new theme song
by Fiver that's entirely in English. - Animated Outtakes: Some animated outtakes are used in the closing credits.
- Breather Episode: The rest of the Doraemon movies are usually darker or more adventurous than the show, but this movie is pretty much as calm and lighthearted as the normal show.
- Brutal Honesty: Doraemon tends to be quite...straightforward when assessing Nobita.Doraemon [when the younger Nobita wonders why Adult!Shizuka is quiet the night before her wedding]: Of course she's (Shizuka) upset. She's about to marry you.
- The Cameo: Sumire Hoshino from Perman appears on a poster in the film.
- Creative Closing Credits: The credits of the movie include some Animated Outtakes.
- Character Development: Doraemon. Starts off as a bit of a jerk when he meets Nobita, seeing him as a lost cause. However, the more time he spends with him and helping him, he softs up and becomes his best friend.
- Dub Name Change: All of the characters have their names changed to match Disney XD's English dub of the show. In the subtitled version played in airplanes, Sue has her named changed back into her Japanese name, Shizuka. On the Netflix subtitle track of both movies, all original Japanese names are used.
- Exact Words: Doraemon’s final gift to Nobita unintentionally has this due to how it works. When activated, it creates a single gadget to solve Nobita’s current problems at the point of activation, such being him asking for something to successfully get his revenge on April Fools Day, which produces a lying potion that will cause anything the drinker says to be a complete lie. While this works as intended, he accidentally allows Doraemon to come back to his time due to moping that he’s not coming back while still under the effects of the lying potion. It was never specified that the problem-solving gadget only focused on one problem…
- "Eureka!" Moment: While stranded with an unconscious Shizuka in a blizzard, Nobita feels that he's running out of time, but then remembers he's in the future, where his grown-up self exists. Nobita then gets the brilliant idea to promise himself that when the time comes, he will save himself at this very moment. It works - cue Future!Nobita coming to the rescue.
- Face on the Cover: One of the movie's posters is Doraemon with tears in his eyes.
- Fire-Forged Friend: At first, Doraemon wants nothing to do with Nobita and only helps him due to his programming forcing him to do so as the robot can't get back to his original timeline until he makes Nobita fully happy. However, he softens up on Nobita as time goes on as he discovers his kind nature along the way to the point that he is hesitant to leave him when the time has come.
- Foreign Language Theme: The Spanish version includes a theme song by Fiver that's entirely in English.
- Gratuitous English:
- The English title Stand by Me Doraemon is the title of the Japanese version. Some dubs keep this, while others avert it and translate the title.
- The Spanish version includes a theme song by Fiver that's entirely in English.
- Hard-Work Montage: Nobita studying vigorously for a math exam, opting not to rely on Doraemon's gadgets for once, with Doraemon as his tutor. But he forgot to check his schedule - his exam is on language, not maths. Mood Whiplash quickly follows.
- Hate Plague: A self-inflicted example, when Nobita drinks a potion from Doraemon that makes everybody hate him in order to distance himself away from Shizuka. Unfortunately, Nobita finished the whole bottle before Doraemon warned him of the side-effects.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: The lying potion produced by Doraemon’s final gift causes whatever the consumer says while under its effects to be a lie through astronomical levels, such as causing an instant rainstorm when Nobita deliberately praises the nice weather.
- Irony: After years of running late for school and other dates, Nobita in the future shows up for his own wedding a day early by accident after thinking that he was late.
- It Only Works Once: Doraemon's farewell gift to Nobita is a small pad shaped like him which provides one gadget to solve his current problem if activated. It only has one use, and it produces a lying serum to solve Nobita’s April Fools problem.
- Male Gaze: In the Goodbye, Shizuka segment, Nobita lifts Shizuka's skirt up to make her hate him. During this time, Shizuka, upon close examination, sways her hips over to the screen in surprise, giving a clear look at her butt in white underwear while her skirt is floating high above her waist. However, in Nobita's case, he does not look.
- Mundane Solution: While an aged-up Nobita tries to impress Future!Shizuka with his attempt at wilderness survival such as navigation and starting a campfire, Shizuka simply has mundane tech like a GPS and a lighter.
- My Future Self and Me: After traveling to the future, Nobita (artificially aged-up thanks to the Time Cloth) gets to have a few words with his grown-up self before returning to the past.
- Mythology Gag:
- After becoming part of Nobita's household, comes a Continuity Cavalcade montage of a dozen of Doraemon's gadgets being used, including the Memorization Bread, Dress Up Camera, Gulliver Tunnel, Compaction Cloud Gas...all of them are references towards Doraemon shorts from the manga and TV series.
- Nobita accidentally breaking a vase, with Suneo threatening to rat him out to Sensei before Doraemon restores the broken vase leaving Suneo dumbfounded, is based on another short from the first volume. The circumstances played out somewhat differently, though.
- Doubling as a Noodle Incident, Nobita lose a bet with Gian (it's never specified what the bet was about) and have to either get into a fight with Gian, or eat spaghetti with his nose.
- In the previous installments of "Goodbye, Shizuka", Nobita flips Shizuka's skirt and/or dress to make her hate him. This film retains that scene.
- Origins Episode: The movie serves as a reworked origin of how Doraemon and Nobita meet up for the first time, all the way to become friends today.
- Stable Time Loop: Future!Nobita saves his past self and Shizuka from dying in a blizzard due to Past!Nobita using her watch and GPS to remember the exact time and location they're at, which changes the memories of Future!Nobita prompting him to save his past self and Shizuka. It's also implied that this prevented the outcome that Shizuka died while lost hadn't Nobita looked into the future while worried.
- Wingding Eyes: Doraemon have this expression from time-to-time, notably in the instance when Sewashi turns on the lock on his nose to make him stay with Nobita the first time round. Cue Doraemon changing his eyes a dozen times in five seconds.
- Woken Up at an Ungodly Hour: A reboot of the series changes Doraemon and Nobita's first meeting slightly, in which Doraemon's first arrival in present-day Japan occurs in the dead of the night (rather than in the afternoon like the original), coming out of Nobita's desk while Nobita is asleep. Cue Nobita waking up, rubbing his eyes, and seeing a robot cat coming out his drawer.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Nobita and Doraemon are in the future the day before the wedding, they see Shizuka's father talking with her daughter saying that while Nobita might not be very skilled or a person with ambition, he is a good person because he cares about everyone and that's what makes him a good man.
