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My overall take: A nice tribute to the human affinity for music, despite some pacing issues.

In this movie, Nobita and his friends respond to a mysterious request seeking help from "talented musicians". I was very intrigued when I first heard about the premise, because music is a theme that the Doraemon films had not really explored before. Now that the movie has been released, I'm happy to report that I had a pretty good time with it. Beyond the handling of its main subject matter, I enjoyed that the foreshadowing here was surprisingly well thought out. There's so much setup in the beginning and middle ... of the story that pays off at the end. This includes the use of a gadget (the Future Diary) that would probably be considered "too overpowered" to be acknowledged in a typical Doraemon movie!

The film does have its flaws, of course, and the biggest in my opinion come down to the pacing. Several moments that are framed as emotional or dramatic are resolved or brushed aside too quickly, when they would've benefited from being given more time and gravitas. There's also some ending fatigue that kept me second-guessing, "Is this the climax? No, wait, is this the climax?"

However, the actual climax is quite nicely done and well worth experiencing in theaters for full effect. (It's a musical performance after all, as is pretty much a given in a movie about music.) As a tribute to the importance and appeal of music to humanity, I think the movie is very much a success.

As usual for a Doraemon movie, most of the character focus is on Nobita and his new movie-exclusive friends, but the rest of the main cast does have an active presence throughout. One thing I would've liked to see is more elaboration on why each character is deemed compatible with the instruments that they're assigned for their performances. Gian is said to be suited to playing the tuba due to his lung capacity, and the relevance of the recorder to Nobita's character arc is self-evident, but no such explanations are given for why Suneo gets the violin or why Shizuka is assigned to percussion.

Speaking of which, I thought there were some missed opportunities for Shizuka's involvement considering that she's the one main character who has an established affinity for playing musical instruments outside of school. Even so, the movie does at least acknowledge both her piano and violin playing (albeit the latter only during the end credits). It's also refreshing to see a Doraemon movie that doesn't contain a bath scene or any other similarly distasteful joke involving her.

My overall take: Could benefit from minor adjustments to the pacing and writing, but a solid, emotionally charged addition to the franchise.

In this movie, Nobita thinks life would be much better if he lived in a utopia, and asks Doraemon to help him find one. There are quite a few things I enjoyed about this film. The story is well crafted for most part, making effective use of foreshadowing. It's certainly one of the most emotionally driven Doraemon movies, with several heartfelt moments among the characters, especially between Nobita and Doraemon and between Doraemon and the "perfect" robot cat Sonya. Speaking of which, Doraemon being ... the main protagonist to forge a connection with one of the movie characters is a rare occurrence! Additionally, Sonya himself probably qualifies as one of the more memorable and developed movie-exclusive characters in the franchise.

If I were to criticize anything about this movie, one would be that it's very exposition heavy. I have to wonder whether some of the scenes dedicated to explaining background information and character backstories through dialogue could have been trimmed down just a bit, especially given that there were other elements of the story that could have used the extra runtime. For example, Shizuka, Gian, and Suneo don't get a whole lot of focus this time around.

I do appreciate though that the movie actually highlights one of Shizuka's flaws other than "she plays violin badly"—she can be stubborn, which is true... even if the way it is shown here makes her come across as studious more than anything. The scene where the protagonists come around to embracing their shortcomings is also a well done character moment.

That being said, there are ways in which the central theme of the story (essentially "it's okay not to be perfect") could have been handled with more nuance. After all, Gian and Suneo's misbehavior is regularly shown to cause real harm to others throughout the franchise. I know, there are limits to how deeply one can explore a moral conundrum in a children's film, but I don't believe this would have been too challenging to achieve. Perhaps more emphasis could have been placed on learning to control one's flaws and redirecting them into exacting positive change, contrasting with the villain's plan to forcibly erase all individuality. Glimmers of this are already present in the aforementioned scene, but I think it could have been made more explicit still, which isn't helped by the fact that the main villain only appears in person briefly and barely interacts with the heroes.

On the whole, however, these weaknesses didn't detract much from my viewing experience, and I'd consider this a worthwhile entry in the Doraemon film series.

My overall take: Was not a fan of the first Stand by Me Doraemon, but this one is an improvement.

As its title suggests, this is a sequel to Stand by Me Doraemon (2014). Following the events of that movie, Nobita and Doraemon travel to the future to witness Nobita's wedding, only to find that something has gone drastically wrong. There are a couple of reasons I found this movie to be more palatable than its prequel. For one, it no longer focuses on the "how Nobita and Shizuka got together" narrative, and as a result the unsavory aspects of how Shizuka is handled by the ... story are de-emphasized. Indeed, adult Nobita even raises a concern in this film that might well be on the minds of many Doraemon fans: the fact that Shizuka's decision to marry him can come across as having been made entirely out of pity. For another, whereas Stand by Me Doraemon tried to cram seven individual stories from the manga into a single movie, Stand by Me Doraemon 2 primarily adapts material from only two manga stories, with much more original content in between.

That's not to say that all of this original content is well executed. What is meant to be the emotional climax of the movie essentially involves Nobita's friends undoing a supposedly irreversible situation by emoting very hard. Additionally, for those who can't stand secondhand embarrassment, the sequence where young Nobita takes his adult self's place at the wedding (after aging himself up with the Time Cloth) might be hard to watch, though that at least is presumably the intended audience reaction.

Otherwise, however, I found overall story here fairly solid, with Nobita's grandmother getting to attend the wedding ceremony (something she's expressed interest in ever since the original manga, but never explicitly realized in the franchise until now) and adult Nobita's wedding speech at the end being particular highlights. I do have one final objection to make though: in his speech, Nobita credits his parents and grandmother for raising him, and yet does not acknowledge Doraemon even in passing. Come on now.

My overall take: Differentiates itself from similar stories in the franchise while taking inspiration from recent scientific advances.

In this movie, Nobita revives a fossilized double-yolked egg that hatches into two feathered dinosaurs. As a paleontologist, I appreciate that this movie clearly took notes on the latest paleontological science and incorporated it into its story. No, not everything in here is scientifically accurate, and there is definitely some embellishment for the sake of entertainment. However, it's evident that the filmmakers went the extra mile in their background research: for example, the dinosaurs that we think almost certainly had feathers are all shown with feathers, the end ... of the Cretaceous is said to be 66 million years ago and not the outdated 65 million years ago, and there's a scene showing the footprints of a pterosaur and they're obviously referenced from actual fossils of pterosaur tracks (that one really impressed me).

As for the story itself, I was originally apprehensive about how this film would be able to distinguish itself from Nobita's Dinosaur (1980). However, though the beginning plays out in a similar way (probably intentionally so), I felt that the second half of this movie carves out its own niche quite nicely. If anything, the climax here has more parallels with Nobita and the Knights on Dinosaurs (1987) in how it involves the end-Cretaceous mass extinction and reveals that there's no true villain in the story. In a way, I think Nobita's New Dinosaur combines the narrative strengths of those two previous Mesozoic-themed tales. Nobita raising two dinosaurs is a more engaging setup than Suneo running around under the impression that he's hallucinating in Nobita and the Knights on Dinosaurs, whereas the protagonists' actions turning out to have a major impact on the history of life on Earth gives the plot slightly more depth and complexity than the straightforward "boy and his pet" story of Nobita's Dinosaur.

If I have any (non-scientific) criticism for this movie, it may be the cameo from Piisuke, the plesiosaur from Nobita's Dinosaur. Although touching and well-intended, Piisuke's appearance raises some confusing questions about continuity. Some parts of this movie (such as Nobita's friends lacking faith in the possibility that he could find living dinosaurs) imply that it takes place in a separate continuity from Nobita's Dinosaur, but Piisuke showing up, complete with Nobita getting a flashback to their time together, seems to run counter to this premise. The fact that Nobita never fully realizes that Piisuke is there (as Piisuke rescues him while he is drowning and departs before he regains consciousness) might also be disappointing.

My overall take: Does quite well at recapturing the vibe of classic Doraemon films.

In this movie, Doraemon helps Nobita create an alternate reality where rabbits live on the moon. If one were to boil this movie down to its individual core elements, I think they'd find very little that hasn't been done in previous Doraemon films. (Okay, having one of the movie-only characters pose as a transfer student and actually interact with Nobita's classmates outside of the main cast is new.) However, that actually works to its benefit, in my opinion. After so many of the post-reboot Doraemon movies have felt experimental in one way ... or another (with varying degrees of success in my book), it was nice to see one that replicates the vibe of a classic Doraemon story without being a straight-up remake of an older film.

I also thought this movie does a good job of introducing potentially convoluted plot points without feeling bogged down, especially the main gadget that allows the story to happen: the Fringe Theory Club Member Badge, which can create alternate realities that are only perceptible to people wearing it. The effects of this gadget could have easily been overly confusing, but the film manages to establish how it works quite effectively.

I suppose there are a few things I could quibble about: maybe it strains credibility that the villain's second-in-command would think that someone named Diabolo was working with good intentions all along, and maybe the final battle against the villain's minions gets a bit too slapsticky to take seriously. Otherwise though, I'd say this is pretty solidly one of my favorite non-remake movies to come out of the 2005 Doraemon anime reboot.

Not to mention, Shizuka gets a nice moment where she saves everyone else here. That was a semi-regular occurrence in the classic films, but it's been a while since the last time. The fact that older entries in the Doraemon film series have a better track record of portraying Shizuka is honestly kind of sad, so anytime in the new movies that she gets to do something important instead of standing in the background or playing the damsel in distress can only be taken as a good sign.

My overall take: Enjoyable overall, but I have many complaints about a major subplot...

In this movie, Nobita and his friends encounter pirates while searching for treasure out at sea (not to be confused with Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas from 1998, where they also did that). In general, I think this one is pretty good. Gian and Suneo get to do something cool. The Mini Doras have a lot of screentime, which is usually a plus. Quiz the robot parrot, who speaks in riddles, is a fun character.

However, I have one major issue with this movie: the fact that about half of it ... is taken up by an overdone "Shizuka gets kidnapped" subplot. Relative to the amount of time spent on it, this may be the most poorly executed arc of its kind in the Doraemon movies so far. First of all, the reason given for why Shizuka gets kidnapped is frankly very silly. It's because the pirates mistake her for their captain's daughter, Sarah, who supposedly looks a lot like Shizuka... except the two of them have completely different hair and eye colors. Both this and the fact that Shizuka doesn't seem to know any of her kidnappers should have tipped the pirates off to their mistake, but they never properly catch on. Furthermore, when we meet Sarah herself, there's absolutely no indication that she has a history of getting lost or running away, making it even more of a stretch for these pirates to immediately assume that she was the same person as this frightened, dark-haired girl that they encountered on a random ship. (One pirate does point out the hair color discrepancy, only to be hastily brushed aside.)

In addition, to facilitate this kidnapping, the filmmakers invoke Shizuka's disappearing weapon. Right before she is captured, the protagonists are engaged in heated combat against the pirates that have boarded their ship, during which everyone, including Shizuka, is clearly wielding a weapon. We even see Shizuka use hers (the Reversal Cape, to be specific). Yet in the scene where she gets kidnapped, she is suddenly left defenseless on the deck, with no explanation for what happened to her gadget.

Okay, let's pretend that the reasoning for and circumstances around the kidnapping do make sense. It could at least serve an important narrative purpose, right? Maybe it motivates the other main characters to go after the pirates, starting a new chapter in their adventure... Well, it does, but this turns out to be unnecessary. Shortly after Shizuka is kidnapped, the protagonists rescue a boy lost at sea, who turns out to be Sarah's brother, Flock. Having left the pirate crew himself, Flock also hopes to give his sister a chance to escape. That alone probably would have provided more than enough reason for the main characters to help track down the pirates, as it's unlikely (at least in the movies) that Nobita and his friends would turn down the chance to help another kid who is in need.

All right, but maybe Shizuka could make some valuable contributions by being among the pirates. Perhaps her bonding with Sarah becomes significant— Hmm, not really. Sarah is pretty much on the same page as her brother from the beginning. Well then, maybe Shizuka can use an outsider's perspective to help convince the main antagonist not to follow through with his plan— Uh, nope, that doesn't happen either. There's even a scene where she is the only one present in the same room as the main antagonist, but nothing of that sort plays out. The most plot-relevant thing Shizuka does in this movie (helping Nobita save Doraemon from being trapped inside an energy ball) occurs after she is already reunited with the others, so I am really struggling to see the point of the kidnapping subplot here.

To end on a positive note, I do like this movie's ending song. It has an unusual style for a Doraemon song, but it's got character, and I don't hate that it's become the current opening theme for the regular Doraemon anime series.

My overall take: A visual treat that has its merits, but makes a few puzzling decisions in the use of its setting and story.

In this movie, Nobita and Doraemon build an amusement park on an iceberg for their friends, but then discover a mysterious artifact from Antarctica. I have mixed feelings about this one. I found several story elements here to be odd: for example, Dorami makes a voiced cameo telling Doraemon that she's been fortune-telling and her readings indicate that he should stay away from ice, a prediction that Doraemon dismisses. Although intended as foreshadowing, I thought that this interaction was strange, because Dorami ... doesn't usually come across as the superstitious type. Even as a means of foreshadowing, the scene seemed unnecessary, because after all, the title of the movie already indicates that the protagonists will be visiting Antarctica, so ice being involved is a given.

Then there's the imposter situation that occurs partway through the adventure, in which a shapeshifting robot pretends to be Doraemon while leading the other main characters into an obvious death trap. Why there is a shapeshifting robot guarding the particular abandoned tower they're exploring is never explained, so the whole thing felt as though it were inserted just for the sake of creating a mid-story conflict. The imposter conundrum isn't resolved in a particularly clever or heartfelt way either; instead, Nobita "just knows" which one is the real Doraemon without much supporting evidence. I get that it is supposed to show the close bond between Nobita and Doraemon, but I would have preferred if this had been represented in a more subtle way—perhaps Nobita could have picked up on some telltale body language from the real Doraemon, for example. At the very least, the main characters could have tried quizzing the imposter on some harder questions than just Gian and Suneo's names.

On the bright side, some of the visuals in this film are really pretty. In addition, though most of the protagonists don't receive much characterization here, I thought that this was actually quite a good movie for Doraemon himself. Not only does he come up with a clever solution to help the others save himself when they get separated from each other in time (probably the best-executed subplot in this film), but he also plays a key role during the final battle. Furthermore, his gigantic, flying, ice-drilling vehicle might be one of the most impressive gadgets he's ever pulled straight from his pocket.

I also appreciated that there are a fair few references to Earth science in this film: Snowball Earth, the Cambrian explosion, and the history of Antarctic glaciation are all mentioned. (Just don't write down the part about aliens being the cause of Snowball Earth if you're taking an Earth science exam...) Something I'm surprised that this movie does not explicitly address, however, is anthropogenic climate change. Considering that the film begins with reports of record high temperatures in Tokyo, I was fully expecting that climate change would play some role in the plot, especially given that environmentalism is a recurring theme in Doraemon.

In fact, I even have to wonder whether this movie might give some young or impressionable viewers the wrong idea about ongoing climate change. The main threat in the story poses the risk of freezing the entire world, with similar entities having already frozen other planets, so when the protagonists' movie-exclusive allies are shown to have successfully melted the ice on their own home planet in the end, this is portrayed as a positive outcome (and in the context of the narrative, it certainly is one)... yet would this imply that the melting of polar ice in the real world is a good thing? Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it seems to me that a plot emphasizing the importance of ice caps to maintaining current Earth systems would have been a more appropriate use of the setting and premise of this movie.

My overall take: Entertaining premise held back by a mediocre story and characterization.

In this movie, Nobita and his friends film a superhero movie, but are then mistaken for actual superheroes. Right off the bat, the premise of this film is an appealing one. Considering that this group of kids and their robot caretaker have saved the world multiple times over, they're practically an honorary superhero team already. Give them actual superpowers, and you have a recipe for a fun movie.

In practice, well... the best thing I can say about this film is that it's a pretty good ensemble showcase for the protagonists. Every member of ... the main cast contributes substantially during the action scenes here (except for Nobita until near the end, but being something of a failure is one of his core character traits). Having the main characters sing the show's theme song is also very cute.

However, the overall story comes across as rather haphazard. Like several other Doraemon films that I don't rate highly, parts of this movie's plot rely on incredibly convenient coincidences. For example, Nobita happens to stumble into the heart of the villains' lair (losing the superhero suit that grants him his powers along the way), where he passes out. When he wakes up, he happens to overhear a minion explaining the villains' plan to a clueless colleague nearby. (Nobita sure was lucky that they didn't choose to pass by when he was still unconscious!) Meanwhile, his super suit happens to get picked up by Doraemon and Shizuka, who were investigating a completely different location at the time.

Then there's the fact that during the final battle, several main characters gain power-ups with little explanation, in some cases barely struggling to defeat enemies that had previously bested them easily. The most we get is an offhand line from Doraemon saying that the protagonists still hadn't used the "full power" of their super suits by that point. You're telling me that none of them, not even impulsive, belligerent Gian, had tried using their suits at full power, despite encountering potentially life-threatening situations? I find that difficult to believe.

In addition, the movie has trouble providing closure to major plot elements. Most notably, what became of the villains in the end is never addressed. They are defeated in battle, yes, but then what? Did they get imprisoned somewhere, or are they free to sneak off and continue their nefarious deeds elsewhere? Another example of a forgotten story thread concerns the argument that Doraemon and Gian have in the beginning over who should play the heroes' leader in their movie. Suneo convinces Gian to stand down by telling him that they can simply request the burger-shaped robot directing their film to edit Gian in as the leader during post-production. One might expect this little scheme to come up again later, if only as an ending gag, but nope. In fact, the entire filmmaking subplot is essentially forgotten about once the actual superhero antics begin.

Speaking of the Burger Director robot, he forms a bond with Shizuka reminiscent of her relationship with the Underwater Buggy in Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil (1983). (In some ways an appropriate parallel, given that the Burger Director represents another instance where one of Doraemon's gadgets is a full-fledged movie character.) However, whereas the Underwater Buggy warmed up to Shizuka specifically because she was nice to him, the Burger Director does so because... he favors girls, apparently. Okay then. This development certainly doesn't result in any payoff comparable to the ending of the Underwater Buggy's arc.

Another odd bit of characterization is that Shizuka acts offended when the others praise her super-suit-augmented strength. Other entries in the franchise have shown that Shizuka strives to maintain a "refined" image of herself, but if there's anything that image consistently doesn't include, it's coming across as weak and delicate. This is the same girl who thought that beating up a gorilla with Super Gloves (in Nobita and the Haunts of Evil, 1982 and its 2014 remake) was thrilling, after all.

My overall take: As a big fan of Doraemon, not a fan of this movie. It doubles down on some of the less tasteful elements of the source material and does not stand out much from previous anime adaptations of the same stories.

This movie is a retelling of some of the most iconic stories from the Doraemon manga, woven into a continuous narrative and represented using 3D computer-generated imagery. It is a special Doraemon movie that not only has a distinct art style and story structure from typical films in the franchise, but was released independently of the annual Doraemon movie lineup (coming out during ... the same year as New Nobita's Great Demon). This approach evidently paid off, because Stand by Me Doraemon is the highest-grossing Doraemon film to date, earning over $183 million at the box office. It and its eventual sequel are also the most internationally accessible Doraemon works-as of the time of writing, they are the only Doraemon movies available on American and British Netflix, and are among the few to have received official English dubbing and subtitles.

All of that probably sets some lofty expectations. From what I've seen, plenty of viewers loved this movie. As for me though... to be honest, as someone who was already familiar with the stories adapted into this movie thanks to either the manga or classic anime, my initial impression of Stand by Me Doraemon was that it seemed like a straightforward compilation of stories I knew, except with slightly creepier character designs. Don't get me wrong; the character models here are far from the worst examples I've seen of 2D characters being converted into 3D, but I still found them a bit uncanny. Doraemon's gadgets, on the other hand, look very good in this film.

Upon further reflection, however, I think there's more that bothers me about this movie than just the art style. Those who know Doraemon lore well are likely aware that one of the most dramatic changes to Nobita's life as a result of Doraemon's arrival is that Nobita ends up marrying his childhood crush Shizuka in the future. There are sound criticisms that could be leveled at how that storyline was written in the manga, but Stand by Me Doraemon performs worse here than the source material in at least one major way: it treats Shizuka as essentially nothing more than a prize for Nobita to win. In this movie, Doraemon makes it his explicit goal to ensure that Nobita and Shizuka get together, with little regard for how Shizuka feels about the whole thing. Meanwhile in the manga, even though Doraemon's presence results in Nobita and Shizuka marrying, and the marriage is by all appearances meant to be a happy one, Doraemon never claims that this is the specific outcome he is striving for. In fact, in the manga story "The Night Before Nobita's Wedding", when Nobita gets agitated about the possibility that his future might change yet again and he won't get to marry Shizuka, Doraemon's response amounts to "that is not my responsibility".

Furthermore, I can't help but feel that most of the stories adapted in Stand by Me Doraemon had already been done justice in previous anime renditions. I found the 1998 adaptation of "Goodbye, Doraemon" and 1999 adaptation of "The Night Before Nobita's Wedding" to be more enjoyable than this film, for instance. In "The Night Before Nobita's Wedding" (1999), it's believable when Shizuka's father appraises Nobita as a kind and compassionate person, because the episode takes the time to show Nobita doing nice things for others throughout. In Stand by Me Doraemon, the same statement is a more difficult pill to swallow.

This highlights another limitation of Stand by Me Doraemon. Although Nobita can often be unlikable in the regular series, at least the sheer volume and diversity of stories provide him with opportunities to display other facets of his character, giving his friendships with Doraemon and Shizuka slightly more depth and credibility. Stand by Me Doraemon is tasked with introducing the premise of the entire franchise and constructing a complete arc out of a set of pre-selected, largely standalone stories in the time frame allotted to a standard animated film, leaving little room for asides or tangents that could potentially flesh out the characters beyond their most basic core traits.

At the end of the day, Stand by Me Doraemon is such an atypical Doraemon entry that I cannot truly recommend it as an introduction to the franchise. Simultaneously, its value to hardcore Doraemon fans also seems questionable (though I suspect that many of those same fans would disagree with me there!) given that the stories it's based on have been adapted multiple times over, often in more satisfying ways. I can guess at a large part of why the movie has been so successful, however: the retelling of classic stories using "modernized" graphics probably appeals especially to those who are nostalgic for Doraemon but haven't revisited the franchise in a long time, a demographic that most likely represents the majority of the audience in regions where the franchise is popular.

My overall take: Decent use of a unique setting and genre for a Doraemon film, but had even greater potential still.

In this movie, Doraemon's bell gets stolen, and he really wants it back. Nobita and his friends track it to a 22nd Century gadget museum, where they have to find the bell and figure out who took it. Whereas most Doraemon movies use Doraemon's gadgets as a means to transport the main characters to classic science fiction or fantasy settings, a museum that displays these gadgets is a location that can essentially only exist in the Doraemon universe. Combined with the fact that the Doraemon ... films have not yet done a proper detective story up to this point, and the premise of this movie looks very attractive indeed.

For all that, however, I came away from this film somewhat underwhelmed. Maybe it's the fact that, despite an ideal setup for showcasing previously introduced gadgets in fresh and creative ways, much of the main plot ultimately hinges on new gadgets and additions to the lore. Make no mistake though, this movie does not skimp on giving cameos to established gadgets. Probably the best use of the museum locale is the scene where the protagonists and law enforcement are confronted by the gadget thief in one of the exhibits. The "duel by proxy" between the thief and the inspector investigating the case, in which they simply show off the gadgets they have on hand to counter each other's strategies without actually using them, is pretty amusing, but makes sense in a setting where gadgets are widely available.

The mystery story itself is decent for a children's movie, though I found the handling of the aftermath to be unsatisfying. To make a long story short, it is eventually revealed that Doraemon's bell and several other items were stolen on behalf of a disgraced scientist, who hid microchips in those objects to preserve his life's work on developing a sustainable metal for use in manufacturing gadgets. By the time the movie ends, the scientist simply goes back into hiding, with no apparent opportunity to redeem himself in the eyes of the relevant authorities nor any clear headway made in addressing the metal sustainability problem.

I also felt lukewarm about the revelation that Doraemon exhibits more cat-like behavior without his bell, which came across as more of an easy excuse to make visual gags than a natural extension of the lore. I did appreciate that everyone in the main cast contributes at one point or another, even though the story focuses most heavily on Nobita and Doraemon. Additionally, this movie features one of the few times (if not the only time) that the Restoration Light is used in a Doraemon film, which is a gadget I've often thought should be acknowledged in the movies more often considering how frequently Doraemon's gadgets break!