Doraemon (manga)

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Doraemon, the original manga series, was created by Fujiko F. Fujio (the pen name for Hiroshi Fujimoto) and began publication from December 1969 to 1996, being publicated into many of Shogakukan's childrens magazines. This was how Doraemon along with the franchises' other main characters got introduced to the public, later becoming successful enough to start a franchise after a highly successful anime series began to broadcast (a more unsuccessful anime series was shown 6 years before) which then led to the Doraemon character itself to be considered as a cultural icon of Japan.

[edit] Manga Release History

In December 1969, the Doraemon manga was launched simultaneously in six unique children's magazines in Japan. Each of the magazines were titled by the year of children's studies, including Yoiko (good children), Yōchien (nursery school), and Shogaku Ichinensei (first grade of primary school) to Shogaku Yonnensei (fourth grade of primary school). By 1973, the series started to appear in a couplpe more magazines, Shogaku Gonensei (fifth grade of primary school) and Shogaku Rokunensei (sixth grade of primary school). The stories featured in each of these magazines were different, which means that the author created more than six stories each month for each magazine. In 1977, CoroCoro Comic was launched as a magazine for the Doraemon manga. Original manga based on the Doraemon movies were also released in CoroCoro Comic. The stories which are preserved under the Tentōmushi brand are the stories found in these magazines.

Since Doraemon was introduced in 1969, the stories have been selectively collected into 45 books that were published from 1974 to 1996, which had a circulation of over 80 million in 1992. In addition, Doraemon has appeared in a variety of manga series by Shōgakukan. In 2005, Shōgakukan published a series of five more manga volumes under the title Doraemon+ (Doraemon Plus), which contained stories that were not found in the forty-five Tentōmushi volumes that ceased publication in 1996, when Hiroshi Fujimoto died at the age of 63.

[edit] Core Plot

Doraemon, a blue robotic cat from the 22nd century, gets sent back in time by the clumsy and very unlucky forth-grader Nobita Nobi's great-great-grandson Sewashi to help improve Nobita's circumstances so that his descendants, including Sewashi, may enjoy a better future. In the original timeline, Nobita's failures in school and subsequently, his career, have left his family line with endless financial problems.

The stories in the manga are formulaic, usually focused on the everyday struggles of Nobita himself, the protagonist of the story. In a typical chapter, Nobita comes home upset about a problem he faces in school or in the local neighborhood. After Nobita's pleading or goading to Doraemon, he then produces a futuristic gadget to help Nobita fix his problem, enact revenge, or flaunt to his friends.

Nobita usually goes too far, despite Doraemon's best intentions, and gets into deeper trouble than before. Sometimes, Nobita's friends (usually Suneo or Gian) even steal the gadgets and end up misusing them. However, by the end of the story, there is usually retribution to the characters who end up misusing the gadgets and a moral, sometimes cautionary lesson is taught.

[edit] Genre/Audiences

As with the 1979 anime episodes, the majority of Doraemon stories are comedies with moral lessons regarding honesty, perseverance and courage to name a few. The manga series is also aimed towards children generally, hence why the manga has been published simultaneously onto many children's magazines.

[edit] Series Finale Rumours

Since the late 1980's, there have been three often-quoted urban legends on how the Doraemon series was going to end.

[edit] The Optimistic Ending

The first and the more optimistic ending was made public by Nobuo Sato several years ago. Doraemon's battery power would run out and Nobita was given a choice between replacing the battery inside Doraemon, which would cause it to reset and lose all memory of Nobita and their adventures or await a competent robotics technician who would be able to resurrect the cat-robot one day. Nobita swore that very day to work hard in school, graduate with honours and to become that robotics technician. He then later successfully resurrected Doraemon in the future as a robotics professor, became successful as an AI developer and then lived happily ever after, thus relieving his progeny of the financial burdens that caused Doraemon to be sent to his space-time in the first place. A dōjin (unofficial) manga for this ending does exist.

[edit] The Pessimistic Ending

The second, more pessimistic ending suggests that Nobita Nobi was suffering from a mental disability and that all the characters (including Doraemon) are simply his delusion. In real life, Nobita would be a sick and dying little boy who imagined the entire series on his sickbed to help him ease his pain and depression. The idea of this story ending the series outraged a big majority of devoted fans. It caused so much outrage and controversy that many Japanese fans even staged a protest outside the headquarters of Shōgakukan (the publisher) of the series after learning about this suggestion. The publisher then had to issue a public statement that the idea of this ending wrapping up the series was false.

In fact, it has been proved that this ending actually correlates to the ending for the American medical drama series "St. Elsewhere", which ended in 1988.

[edit] The Third Ending

The third ending idea suggests that Nobita fell and hit his head on a rock. He fell into a deep coma, and eventually into a semi-vegetative state. To raise money for an operation to save Nobita, Doraemon sold every single one of the tools and devices in his four-dimensional pocket. However, whilst enough money was raised for it to happen, the operation failed. Doraemon at that point still had one gadget that he didn't sell and decided to use it as a last resort. He used it to enable Nobita to go wherever he wanted, whichever time era he wished to go and in the end, the very place Nobita wanted to go was heaven.

The majority of these ending suggestions were fictional, except the third ending. The third ending was actually meant to be the official ending to the series due to the 1973 anime's low TV ratings and the Fujiko Fujio duo was busy with other works. But the duo changed their minds as they were still firmly thinking about Doraemon and from then they restarted from next month's issue.

When the Fujiko Fujio duo broke up in 1987, the very idea of an official ending to the series was never discussed. Since Fujiko F. died in 1996 before any decisions were reached, any "endings" of Doraemon are fan fiction. However, it is apparent from many anime episodes and movies where Nobita travels to the future that in the end he does marry Shizuka, leads a happy life and separates with Doraemon, although Nobita and his friends fondly remember him.

[edit] Awards

• Shogakukan Manga Award for Children's Manga, 1982

• The first Osamu Tezuka Culture Award in 1997

[edit] Volumes

Tentōmushi have published 45 volumes of Doraemon from 1974 to 1996.

In 2005, Shōgakukan then published 5 more volumes under the title "Doraemon+ (Doraemon Plus)", which had stories that Tentomushi didn't publish in any one out of the 45 volumes they published.

[edit] Bilingual Releases

Doraemon has even been published in three bilingual volumes. The first version is bilingual in English and Japanese called "Doraemon: Gadget Cat from the Future" (Shogakukan English comics; 2002-onwards), the second version is bilingual in English and Yue Chinese (published by HKComics) and the third version is bilingual in English and Vietnamese (from Kim Dong Publisher). The latter two are called "Doraemon: Study English" in the English language.

[edit] Spin-offs

• The Doraemons, a spin-off about Doraemon and his friends from Robot School
• Dorabase, a spin-off about robot cats, identical to the ones in both Doraemon and The Doraemons, who play on a baseball team