Doraemon Movie 09: Nobita no Parallel Saiyuuki

My overall take: An entertaining premise that has its moments, but doesn't quite reach its full potential.

In this movie, Nobita and his friends re-enact the 16th Century Chinese novel Journey to the West. The idea of the Doraemon cast role-playing as Journey to the West protagonists and using Doraemon's gadgets to replicate the events of the story is fun, and once the main characters settle into their roles, this film is not a bad time. I'll even forgive the fact that the main thing Shizuka does is get kidnapped by monsters, given that she's playing the part of Tang Sanzang and that's essentially his shtick ... in Journey to the West.

What I do take issue with is how long it takes for the movie to get there. About half the film is spent on setup, with the subplot of Nobita trying to convince his friends that Sun Wukong was a real historical figure not being particularly interesting to me. The story also doesn't reflect very well on Doraemon's character, as this is one of the few times (maybe the only time?) in the movies where the villains become a threat as a direct result of his negligence. Finally, I might have just been seeing things (I am incredibly bad at assessing animation quality), but it seemed to me that the animation in this entry was not up to the usual standard. Overall, there were elements of this movie that I enjoyed, yet I came away from it with the feeling that it could have been more.