50 Fun Facts About Doraemon

Which colour was the robot cat Doraemon when he left the factory, before he turned blue?

Yellow was Doraemon's factory coat: in the 1995 origin film a robot mouse gnaws off his ears, he drinks a sadness potion by mistake and cries for three days until the yellow comes away.

Doraemon flies into a rage whenever his missing ears get him mistaken for which animal?

A raccoon dog, or tanuki, is what strangers take the earless Doraemon for, and he explodes every time; the American dub changed the animal to a seal.

Where does Doraemon keep the future gadgets he pulls out each time Nobita lands in trouble?

A four-dimensional pocket on his belly holds every gadget, and a spare kept in his closet opens onto the same space, so Nobita can raid it whenever Doraemon is out.

Which Japanese sweet is Doraemon's favourite food?

Dorayaki is two small pancakes around red bean paste; the English digital manga at first renamed it 'fudgy pudgy pie', and the American TV dub went with 'yummy buns'.

Which pink Doraemon gadget lets you step straight to wherever the person turning its knob is thinking of?

The Anywhere Door opens onto any place its user pictures, and alongside the Take-copter and the Time Machine it is one of the gadgets that recur most often in the series.

The Take-copter, the tiny propeller hat Doraemon hands out so friends can fly, is named after which material?

Bamboo is 'take' in Japanese: the gadget copies the taketombo, a traditional bamboo propeller toy, here worn on the head to lift its wearer into the air.

Where in Nobita's bedroom is the entrance to the time machine he and Doraemon ride into the past?

His desk drawer hides the Time Machine, and it is how the whole story starts: one New Year's Day Doraemon climbs out of it with Sewashi to warn Nobita about his bleak future.

Which arm of Japan's government appointed Doraemon the nation's first 'anime ambassador' in 2008?

The Foreign Ministry made the appointment hoping the robot cat would help people abroad understand anime and deepen their interest in Japanese culture.

Sewashi, who sends Doraemon back to help Nobita, is short of spending money because his family inherited what?

Debts were all that remained of a company the grown-up Nobita founded and lost, and they were still unpaid generations later, which is why Sewashi sent his robot back to fix things.

What does Doraemon's sister Dorami wear on her head in place of ears?

A red bow sits where Dorami's ears would be, and it is no mere decoration: the series' guidebooks call it a ribbon-shaped sound collector, so the bow does her hearing.

In the series' own logic, what makes the robots Doraemon and Dorami brother and sister?

They shared one can of oil, and the can explains more than kinship: it had separated, so Doraemon got the thin top half and Dorami the rich dregs, which is why she is the better robot.

Doraemon is rated at 129.3 horsepower, so how much can his younger sister Dorami produce?

10,000 horsepower makes Dorami by far the stronger robot, yet a story about swapping her in for good ends with Nobita keeping her brother.

Pulling which part of Doraemon shuts the robot down?

His tail is Doraemon's main switch: a single pull shuts down every function, which leaves a robot built to mind children with an off button any child can reach.

Which city near Tokyo, home to the Fujiko F. Fujio Museum, made Doraemon an official resident in 2012?

Kawasaki granted Doraemon residency exactly one hundred years before his birth date, a year after the museum devoted to his creator opened in the city.

Which publisher launched Doraemon in six of its children's monthly magazines at once in December 1969?

Shogakukan ran the strip in six of its monthlies at once, from preschool titles up to a fourth-grade magazine, which is why Doraemon's first chapter exists in six different versions.

Which singer's 2018 tribute song, titled simply 'Doraemon', served as the anime's opening theme from 2019 to 2024?

Gen Hoshino wrote it as a tribute for the 2018 film Nobita's Treasure Island, and its interlude quotes the melody of 'Boku Doraemon', a theme from the 1979 anime.

Which Indian children's channel, launched in 2004, switched to all-animation following the success of Doraemon?

Hungama TV opened with live-action shows as well, but Doraemon's success after its 2005 Indian premiere pushed the channel, now owned by JioStar, to go fully animated.

Doraemon's manga found particular success in which country, with a record-breaking 40 million copies sold there by 2006?

Vietnam's first edition appeared in 1992, years before a licence was signed; the rights were only settled in 1996, and a Doraemon scholarship fund for poor pupils followed.

After the duo credited with Doraemon broke up, its creator's former partner signed as Fujiko Fujio plus which letter?

A, for Abiko: Motoo Abiko signed as Fujiko Fujio A from 1988 until his death in 2022, while Doraemon's creator Hiroshi Fujimoto first put his F at the end too, then moved it to the middle a year later.

Which rule did Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motoo Abiko, the duo behind Doraemon, keep for their entire partnership?

Splitting all income equally held even for solo hits: Fujimoto drew Doraemon alone, yet its fees were shared down the middle until the two went their separate ways.

Which manga master handed Fujimoto and Abiko his old room at Tokyo's Tokiwa-sō apartments when he moved out?

Osamu Tezuka had already praised their Ben Hur drawings on a visit to his Takarazuka home, and the pair first called themselves 'Tezuka Fujio' in his honour.

Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motoo Abiko, the duo behind Doraemon, met as schoolboys in Takaoka, a city in which prefecture?

Toyama Prefecture is where the two met, when Abiko transferred into Fujimoto's class and a sketch in a notebook at break got them talking; by high school a newspaper was running their strip.

Doraemon's round shape came to his creator when he tripped over which toy of his daughter's?

A roly-poly doll, the kind that rights itself when knocked over, crossed in his mind with a cat, and by his own telling the two together became Doraemon.

What does the 'dora' in Doraemon's name come from?

A word for a stray cat, 'dora neko', gives the name its first half, so his favourite snack echoes the name rather than explaining it; '-emon' is an old-fashioned ending for men's names.

Which network aired the first, short-lived Doraemon anime in 1973?

Nippon TV ran 26 episodes from April to September 1973, then the small studio behind them folded, and only part of the run is known to survive, found years later in a film lab's archive.

Which network has carried Doraemon since April 1979 and relaunched it with an all-new voice cast in 2005?

TV Asahi now owns the studio that animates the show, and in 2014 it struck the deal that brought Doraemon to American television.

Which actress voiced Doraemon for 26 years from 1979 and later played Danganronpa's Monokuma?

Nobuyo Ōyama kept recording Doraemon through cancer treatment in 2001, retired from the role with the rest of the cast in March 2005, and titled her memoir I Was Doraemon.

Which actress has voiced Doraemon since April 2005, after her mentor Kazuya Tatekabe urged her to audition?

Wasabi Mizuta burst into tears when she won the part, then feared being fired amid the backlash over the cast change until the go-ahead for 2006's Nobita's Dinosaur told her she was staying.

Which studio has animated Doraemon for television since 1979 and made its more than forty feature films?

Shin-Ei Animation took its name in 1976 when founder Daikichirō Kusube cut ties with Tokyo Movie, and every Doraemon feature it has made is released through Toho.

In the first Doraemon feature film, 1980's Nobita's Dinosaur, which creature hatches from the fossil egg Nobita finds?

A Futabasaurus named Piisuke soon outgrows Nobita's room and has to be hidden in a lake, and the story was remade in 2006 as the first film of the rebooted series.

In 2013 the Doraemon films overtook which series as the most-watched film franchise in Japanese cinema history?

Godzilla lost the crown when Doraemon's films passed 100 million tickets with Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum, and Toho announced the upset itself: it releases both series.

Stand by Me Doraemon's 2015 release in which country made it the top non-Hollywood animated film there?

China had admitted no Japanese film for three years until Stand by Me Doraemon opened in May 2015 and took $86.9 million, more than in any other market outside Japan.

The 2018 Doraemon film Nobita's Treasure Island borrows its story from which author's novel?

Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 pirate story sets Nobita dreaming of an island of his own, and the film keeps a Captain Silver, though here the pirates are time travellers looting the sea floor.

Which '-ism' names the creed 'What's mine is mine, what's yours is also mine' of Doraemon's resident bully?

Gianism is how Japan labels the creed, and the rock band Nightmare borrowed the word for two album titles; the bully himself only ever 'borrows' other kids' toys.

Takeshi Gōda, the Doraemon bully, forces friends to attend which events, where his performances leave them nauseous?

His concerts showcase a singing voice so dire that even his lyrics written on a board once made listeners sick, though one film turns the voice into a weapon.

Which fox-faced rich kid in Doraemon flaunts every new toy at Nobita yet frets about how short he is?

Suneo Honekawa became 'Sneech' in the American dub, a name picked to suggest 'sneer', and in the films he is the first to beg to go home when an adventure turns dangerous.

Shizuka in Doraemon endures piano lessons for her mother but truly loves which instrument, played appallingly?

Violin is Shizuka's true love, though nobody enjoys hearing it, and her other passion is one she hides to protect her image: roasted sweet potatoes.

Which habit of Shizuka's, repeated several times a day, does Nobita keep interrupting by misusing Doraemon's gadgets?

Taking a bath several times a day is Shizuka's routine, and Nobita blundering in is a running gag broadcasters have grown wary of: cut from dubs abroad, veiled with added light in Japanese TV airings.

Hidetoshi Dekisugi, the straight-A classmate Nobita envies in Doraemon, grows up to work on a base where?

On Mars: in a glimpse of the future he and his wife are away at the Mars base, so their son Hideyo stays with Nobita's family, proof that the old rivals ended up friends.

Besides napping, the hapless Nobita in Doraemon consistently excels at which skill?

Marksmanship comes naturally to Nobita, who masters the Air Cannon and aces light-gun games; his other gift is cat's cradle, which he likes because it costs nothing and never tires him out.

Which US channel aired the 2005 Doraemon anime from 2014 under the title 'Doraemon: Gadget Cat from the Future'?

Disney XD ran 52 Americanised episodes from July 2014, with yen swapped for dollars and chopsticks for forks, and in 2016 the dub went home to Japan with a Japanese audio track added.

Which French actor played Doraemon in Toyota's live-action 'ReBorn' commercials from 2011?

Jean Reno, star of Léon, played the robot cat in ads that revisited the gang as 30-year-olds, twenty years on, and he was back for a seventh spot in 2012.

In 2013 Doraemon was named an ambassador for Tokyo's bid to host which event?

The 2020 Summer Olympics bid won, and Doraemon returned at the 2016 Rio closing ceremony, where Shinzo Abe popped out of a Mario warp pipe in the handover show.

A 2016 resolution in which country's Punjab Assembly sought a ban on the Hindi-dubbed Doraemon?

Pakistan's motion, moved by a member of Imran Khan's Tehreek-i-Insaf, objected to the Hindi dub carried by cable channels and asked the regulator to curb round-the-clock cartoon channels too.

Doraemon's Translator Tool, which lets anyone converse in any language, takes what unlikely form?

A cuboid jelly it is: the Japanese name, Honyaku Konnyaku, makes it a slab of konjac, the jelly-like yam cake, and the American dub renamed it the Translation Gummy.

A professor who read every Doraemon manga story in 2004 counted roughly how many different gadgets?

2,000, near enough: education professor Yasuyuki Yokoyama logged 1,963, well above the 1,293 that Fujiko F. Fujio once tossed out on a children's TV show, borrowing the digits of Doraemon's 129.3 cm height.

Which singer first recorded 'Doraemon no Uta', the 1979 anime's theme later passed to four other performers?

Kumiko Ōsugi sang it from 1979 until 1992, though the gadget names called out between her lines, the Take-copter first, come from Doraemon's own voice actress.

Nobita ends up marrying Shizuka, but in the bleak future Doraemon was sent to change, who was his bride?

The bully's little sister, Jaiko, was Nobita's wife in the future Sewashi came from, and an early chapter is even titled 'Beloved Wife Jaiko!?'; undoing that match is what Doraemon's mission is for.

In 2008 Japanese diplomats and a local anime club screened Nobita's Dinosaur 2006 for free in which US city?

Washington, D.C. was the venue: the Japanese embassy's culture centre and the DC Anime Club showed the film years before any Doraemon anime reached American television.

Which director of Stand by Me Doraemon went on to win an Oscar for the visual effects of a 2023 kaiju film?

Takashi Yamazaki co-directed both Stand by Me films with Ryūichi Yagi, and on his 2023 kaiju epic he supervised the effects himself: a crew of 35 artists delivered all 610 shots.