Doraemon: Nobita and the Birth of Japan

Nobita and his friends decide to run away from home. The problem is that there is nowhere empty to go; every inch of ground belongs to someone. Doraemon finds the answer: Japan seventy thousand years ago. They move there by time machine and found their own country. But prehistoric Japan is not empty, and a power there has enslaved a tribe. Shinnosuke Yakuwa directs. This is a remake of the 1989 film of the same name. Doraemon features have been made annually for over forty years, and remaking the older ones is part of that tradition. The 1989 version was among the best loved in the series; this one expands the same story and gives the supporting characters more room. The template holds: an everyday childhood grievance, the wish to run away, opens into a large adventure and resolves into friendship and responsibility. The prehistoric material does something else as well. It opens a popular curiosity about Japan's founding narrative, the Jomon period and origins, to a young audience. Who it is for: families following the Doraemon series and anyone who likes classic Japanese children's animation. Who it is not for: for an adult who does not know the series the narrative is very simple, and if you know the 1989 version there is little new.