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A blue cat with a magical pocket that holds unexpected gadgets… Yes, I am talking about the animated robotic cat – Doraemon. Who knows that behind that silly smile of his, he has a tragic story that turned him blue and scared of mice?
In an episode of Doraemon by Fujiko F. Fujio, it tells the story of how it all begins. Everything began in 2112, when the manufacturer lost a screw while building a yellow cat-looking robot, Doraemon. Losing that screw made Doraemon silly, not physically or mentally talented and had an unusually big appetite. He was then placed in an auction, where all Doraemon and his friends needed to perform their special talents and be auctioned off.
Being clumsy and silly, Doraemon was the only robot being left unwanted, until the baby Sewashi Nobi accidentally pressed the “purchase” button, and bought Doraemon as his nursery cat.
This is how Doraemon supposed to look
The mouse bit his ears
One day when Sewashi was working on a Doraemon figure, he found Doaremon’s ears were hard to portray. Therefore, he used the arts and craft mouse, which was a gadget from the 22nd century, to fix the figure’s ears. The mouse mistaken the order as to resize the actual Doraemon’s ears instead of the figure’s ear, so the mouse bit Doraemon’s ears and damaged them. Since then, Doraemon has become musophobic, fear of mice and rat.
Doraemon was brought to a hospital for emergency repair. Unfortunately, the doctor there could not fix his ears and stressed that those ears did not have actual functions but just decorations.
When Doraemon looked into the mirror and found out that he lost his ears, he fell into sadness. It got worse when his peers and his crush laughed at his new appearance hysterically.
Blue from the tears
Doraemon accidentally drank the tragic elixir, another 22nd century gadget from his magical pocket, and made himself feel even more miserable. He cried by himself for three days and three nights that the original yellow paint started to wear off.
Three days later, the paint completely wore off and what was left was a blue colored body that was tainted by his tears. Despite his difference in outlook, Sewashi and Doraemon’s peers still accepted him for who he is. Then Doraemon continued to serve Sewashi as a nursery cat until Sewashi was all grown up and need not to have a robotic cat to take care of him anymore.
The yellow paint washed off now his body is tainted with blue color by his tears.
Nobita Nobi
After Sewashi was all grown-up, Doraemon was sent to Nobita Nobi, a young boy who scores low grades and has series of unfortunate events happened to him. Nobita was the reason for his descendants to have a miserable life. Therefore, Sewashi hoped that by sending Doraemon to assist him, he could improve their lives. The main story then begins. Nobita was constantly bullied by two of his close friends, Takeshi Goda, nicknamed Gian, and Suneo Honekawa. Nobita was also going after Shizuka Minamoto but constantly failing because of his incompetent. The story revolves around these characters when they were grade 5 and have never grown any older since the story started.
Doraemon’s outlook completely transformed
Inspiration
According to the episode this article refers to, the story began in 1969 when the author and illustrator of this animate got stuck and could not think of a new interesting idea. He was at home by his desk, wishing that he could time travel to the future and see what kind of comic did he draw. He wished that someone or something from the future could come to the present and save him. This idea came more clear to him in his dream, then he started this series.
Doraemon has many gadgets in his white magical pocket, such as a Bamboo-Copter, a small piece of headgear that can allow you to fly; Anywhere door, a pink door that can teleport you wherever you want; Time-kerchief, a handkerchief that can evolve a newer version or downgrade to an older one; and most importantly, the time machine which can bring you to the future or back in history.
According to an online Doraemon encyclopedia, Doraemon has over 4,500 different kind of gadgets. Out of all of them which one is the one you want the most? For me, I want copying toast the most, so that I could remember all my course materials without having a hard time.
The author is struggling for his new comic idea.
