Sunday, February 26, 2017

Doraemon: Nobita and The Birth of Japan - The 36th Doraemon Movie

My wife and I had known that there would be another Doraemon movie playing in theater since a couple of weeks ago. However, when the movie finally premiered on Friday, we were quite disappointed as it did not play in any of our favorite cinemas (the movie only played in 1 cinema chain in Indonesia so the theater options were limited). So we ended up watching another movie LION on Friday which happened to premier on the same day. But yesterday, we double checked the theaters playing the movie and to our surprise, there were additional cinemas then and we immediately plan to see it in the evening after my wife's food tasting event. Well let us get on to the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Nobita (voiced by Megumi Ohara) was being scolded by his mother (Kotono Mitsuishi) for getting bad grade at school. He was feeling so upset that he decided to leave home and be independent. Naturally he would request Doraemon (Wasabi Mizuta) to provide him with some help using any of Doraemon's equipment from the future to ease his plan of moving out. Nobita's good friends Shizuka (Yumi Kakazu), Suneo (Tomokazu Seki) and Giant (Subaru Kimura) all teased him as he would usually not complete what he started. But later on, due to various reasons, the 3 of them and even Doraemon also wanted to join Nobita and leave home.
However, there was no place in Japan that they could stay since every location was already owned by everyone. Somehow they came up with an idea to go to a time when there was no people in Japan yet. So Doraemon used his time machine to go to 70,000 years ago. During their trip using the machine, they found there was some turbulence in the time but did not know what the impact yet.

When they reached that time, each of them were tasked by Doraemon to do something to ease their lives such as for development, farming etc. Since Nobita was very unreliable, Doraemon tasked him to do what he thought was the easiest task, which was to take care of pets. He was given 3 eggs that he should groom to become any animals. But instead of creating a normal pet, he created a Pegasus, a Dragon and a Griffin which were very attached to Nobita.

After trying to live for 1 day and night, the children felt homesick and went back to their time with the promise of not letting their parents know about their secret and they would always come back to that time. However, they soon realize that during the turbulence they experienced earlier, they brought back something from the past which should not be in the 21st century.

So could Doraemon, Nobita and the rest correct the situation that would change the history of Japan? Find them all in this funny animated adventure movie, with all the ingredients of the classic Doraemon movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Well, as a usual, whenever you watch a Doraemon movie, there would be lots and lots of funny moments involving Nobita's clumsiness or Doraemon's very very creative way of solving problems using the equipments from his magic pocket. As a Doraemon fan, you would certainly be satisfied with the limitless amount of the items from that famous magic pocket. My most favorite funny scene would be the time when Doraemon, Nobita and the rest were using an equipment that would help them speed up in the snowy area. Another part that really amused me was when Doraemon given a funny name by Giant. 

This movie also provide a bit of history knowledge about the origin of Japanese people and there was even a bit of moral messages in this movie. There was also a very emotional moment towards the end of the movie involving Nobita (where it would also gave my wife an emotional feeling too). 

While watching this Doraemon movie, one thing that really bothered me was the fact that the voices of all the children seemed to be always very loud. It felt that they were always screaming. I do not know whether they were supposed to be like that, but it made me feel a bit tired listening to them. Luckily Doraemon's voice was very cute and adorable and was able to make up for it. Oh, another thing that bothered me was the subtitles. There were many inconsistencies between the English and Indonesian. After a while, I realized that the Indonesian subtitle seemed to be the more reliable ones. So if you are watching in Indonesian theater, then better read the Indonesian subtitles.

Anyway, you have to remember that Doraemon movie/anime is supposed to be for children (or adults who grew up with Doraemon in their lives, like my wife and I). So there would not be any logic whatsoever and the movie is purely for entertainment of children. I think the movie would be suitable for all ages, though maybe for children, they would not be able to understand the complete story, but they should be entertained with the cuteness of Doraemon or the silly but very kind-hearted Nobita's actions.

If you are a Doraemon fan, this would be to your liking. But if you prefer to see a more adult anime or serious animated movie, than it would be best for you to see a Disney or Pixar movies instead. The choice is yours.

Happy watching!

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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