{"id":866749,"date":"2026-10-01T06:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/866749\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T06:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:12:08","slug":"doraemon-the-movie-team-on-nobitas-undersea-adventure-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/866749\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Doraemon the Movie’ Team on Nobita’s Undersea Adventure in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cDoraemon<\/a>\u201d has been on Indian television for 21 years, long enough, by TV Asahi<\/a>\u2018s reckoning, for the franchise to start passing from one generation of viewers to the next. Now the Japanese broadcaster is taking the franchise into cinemas.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDoraemon the Movie: New Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil\u201d opens across India on Oct. 2 in the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu languages, with Japan\u2019s TV Asahi and India\u2019s PVR Inox<\/a> Pictures leading the theatrical release. Licensing and brand consultancy Black White Orange (BWO) is handling fan engagement, consumer experiences and promotional activations, and Happening 365 Synergies is advising on strategy and the market.<\/p>\n

\n\tAhead of the release, Variety spoke with three of the companies that look after the franchise: TV Asahi; Shin-Ei Animation, which produced the film; and Fujiko Pro, the office that represents creator Fujiko F. Fujio, the pen name of Fujimoto Hiroshi.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe success in India for TV Asahi is longevity,\u201d says Sumida Maiko, head of animation and sales in TV Asahi\u2019s international business department. \u201cWe have had \u2018Doraemon\u2019 for 21 years now but we are looking at 50 and 100 years\u2026 To achieve that, we are planning to expand the \u2018Doraemon\u2019 brand in a 360 degree approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSumida says TV Asahi had been biding its time until Indian audiences were ready to embrace animated features on the big screen, and that the undersea adventure is \u201ca very powerful title that would match with the Indian fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe language strategy comes straight from television, where \u201cDoraemon\u201d has long reached what Sumida calls \u201cour little \u2018Doraemon\u2019 fans\u201d in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu. \u201cWe wanted to keep it that way for the theater release,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tIndia\u2019s anime market has grown fast, much of it on the back of younger, intensely engaged fandoms. \u201cDoraemon\u201d draws from a wider pool of children, parents and adults who grew up with the show, and Sumida says the current anime surge will not alter TV Asahi\u2019s approach to the franchise. \u201c\u2018Doraemon\u2019 was born as a manga comic dedicated to the children and we are proud to have the animation to be accepted as a kids and family content,\u201d she says. \u201cIt will be passed on from kids who watch \u2018Doraemon\u2019 to those who grew up watching \u2018Doraemon\u2019 and then back to the kids of those who watched \u2018Doraemon.\u2019 It transcends the generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Japan, a new \u201cDoraemon\u201d film opens almost every year. \u201cThere will always be a possibility for doing something like that here in India in the coming years,\u201d Sumida says, adding that India ranks among TV Asahi\u2019s most important markets and that the company wants to expand into, and explore, new businesses there.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film itself reworks a story that first reached Japanese cinemas in 1983.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI wanted to do it because the original is exactly the same age as I am. Just kidding,\u201d says Nakajima Susumu, chief producer of the film at Shin-Ei Animation.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe studio has remade several \u201cDoraemon\u201d stories, but Nakajima says this one stood out as an early feature-length entry that was also a big favorite with audiences. \u201cThis applies to all our remakes, but I am firmly convinced that Fujimoto-sensei\u2019s works remain entertaining no matter how many years have passed,\u201d he says. \u201cThis work was also serialized as a manga and produced over 40 years ago, but I believe that when children today watch it, they will feel the same sensations and enjoyment that children back then experienced.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome things are off-limits. Nakajima says the team leaves the fun of the original, its narrative structure and the feeling audiences take home untouched. \u201cSince the original is a manga, we translate the \u2018post-reading feeling\u2019 into a \u2018post-viewing feeling\u2019 for the movie, and we place great importance on whether that feeling remains unchanged and whether we are successfully expressing the fun inherent in the original work,\u201d he says. \u201cJust because it\u2019s a remake, we don\u2019t intentionally think, \u2018Let\u2019s change things from the original.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe visuals are a different matter. Audiences have grown far more discerning, Nakajima says, with a vast number of works now out in the world, and the range of what animators can express has widened considerably in 40 years. The production leans on CG and compositing, yet Nakajima says that \u201cit might sound counterintuitive, but we also cherish the charm of hand-drawn animation \u2013 that sort of \u2018fluctuation\u2019 or analog warmth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUndersea settings are no longer the novelty they may have been in 1983. What sets this story apart, Nakajima says, is that Nobita, a human, ends up beneath the waves because he was bathed in the glow of the Adaptation Ray. \u201cTherefore, we aimed to create visuals that consciously differentiate our work, particularly in how the underwater world looks and the colors used from the moment he is bathed in the ray and thereafter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tScale brings its own problem. A \u201cDoraemon\u201d movie has to be bigger than a television episode without losing the characters audiences know.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2018Doraemon-ness\u2019 is very important, isn\u2019t it?\u201d Nakajima says. \u201cEven if it\u2019s a movie, having Nobita and the gang act like their usual selves, and depicting them that way, is exactly what leads to that sense of intimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe five core characters behave as they always do, he says. It\u2019s their circumstances that change, which makes Nobita\u2019s words easier to relate to and Gian\u2019s actions more dependable.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe spectacle and adventure parts are something we struggle with every time, wondering, \u2018Where should we go next\u2026?\u2019 With the Time Machine, the Anywhere Door, and other secret gadgets, any dream can come true, so we craft the story while carefully considering the overall balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the Indian versions, Shin-Ei checks whether the names of gadgets and other proper nouns suit the local context. Because the production team isn\u2019t very familiar with the nuances of the languages, it coordinates the localization through its international team.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt Fujiko Pro, the work begins with Fujimoto himself. \u201cEven if times change, the essence of children remains unchanged,\u201d says Yoshida Kenji, a corporate officer at the office. Adults, Yoshida says, drift away from a child\u2019s heart as their perspective rises, and end up depicting their idea of what a child should be. \u201cThat is why Fujimoto-sensei confronted the child\u2019s heart within himself and brought that child into his works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThat conviction shapes how Fujiko Pro handles the property. Yoshida says the office does not intend to \u201cevolve\u201d Fujimoto\u2019s work. \u201cThat is because we believe the world he created has universal value \u2013 one that is loved across eras and borders,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tIf he had to name what must be protected, Yoshida says, the first thing is that \u201cDoraemon\u201d was created for children. \u201cSo, whatever we do, we want to keep the goal of \u2018for children\u2019 in mind without fail. At the same time, we produce it while keeping in mind the \u2018child\u2019s heart\u2019 that exists within adults as well. In that sense, we consider it a work that is loved by all generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tChildren today are growing up around AI, robots and devices that once belonged to science fiction, and Yoshida concedes that reality has, in some ways, caught up with Doraemon\u2019s gadgets.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cHowever, I don\u2019t believe Fujiko F. Fujio-sensei was trying to predict the future when he drew those ideas,\u201d he says. \u201cI think he was simply expressing his own childlike curiosity and wishes through the secret gadgets, and as a result, some of those gadgets happen to have become reality today. That is why I believe that no matter how much times change, the world of \u201cDoraemon\u201d will continue forward just as it always has.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cDoraemon\u201d has been on Indian television for 21 years, long enough, by TV Asahi\u2018s reckoning, for the franchise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866750,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[365563,88,206,74782,365564],"class_list":["post-866749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-doraemon","tag-entertainment","tag-movies","tag-pvr-inox","tag-tv-asahi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866749\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}