Doraemon (ドラえもん) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Fujiko Fujio. The series has also been adapted into a successful anime series and media franchise. The story revolves around a robot cat named Doraemon of 22nd century owned by Sewashi Nobi, who has a lot of gadgets used in the future and travels back in time to help Sewashi's grandfather named Nobita Nobi to shape his future and help him when in trouble.
Manga[]
The original Doraemon manga series was created by Hiroshi Fujimoto under the pen name of Fujiko F. Fujio, and began publication from December 1969 to 1996, being publicized into many of Shogakukan's children's magazines. This was the public introduction of Doraemon along with many of the franchises' other main characters. The comic would go on to become successful enough to start a full franchise after an extremely successful anime series began to broadcast, which then led to the character of Doraemon himself to come to be considered as a cultural icon of Japan. As of 2024, the tankobon copies of the manga have gone on to sell more than 300 million copies, making it one of the best selling manga of all time.
1973 anime[]
The 1973 Doraemon anime series was a brief but successful attempt at adapting the original manga series into anime. It was initially aired on the Nippon TV network starting in April 1973, and lasted 6 months and ended with an episode named “Goodbye, Doraemon”. After it ended, Doraemon remained exclusively as a manga until 1979 when Shin El Animation and TV Asahi produced and aired a more successfully second anime adaptation, which finished its run in March 2005. After the 1979 anime finished its run, a new version of the anime aired shortly after, which is still running to this day.
1979 anime[]
Doraemon was a 1979 anime created by Fujiko F. Fujio. The series was produced by Shin-Ei Animation, and was more successful than its 1973 predecessor. It ran on TV Asahi from April 2, 1979 to March 25, 2005 for a total of 1,787 episodes and 30 specials. This anime adaption has now been dubbed in several languages, which aired in several countries.
For the first 2 years of the series' run, the episodes (of approximately 6 minutes long) aired every Monday through Saturday from 6:50 to 7:00 PM. Starting October 2, 1981 the series switched to a weekly half-hour format, where it remained until the end of its run. Because of the switch to the half-hour format, the episode length increased to 10 minutes, or sometimes 23 minutes. When the episodes were not 23 minutes, the network paired 2 shorter episodes (a new episode and a rerun) to fill up the half-hour time-slot.
2005 anime[]
The 2005 Doraemon anime was first aired on April 15th, 2005 (nearly 1 month after the 1979 anime ended) on the Japanese television channel, TV Asahi. Produced by by Shin-Ei Animation, it is the successor to the 1979 Doraemon anime. This is also the current anime version of Doraemon, running successfully in many countries.