PART 10 of 52 ONESHOTS in 52 WEEKS
松本大洋の『ドラえもん』 “Doraemon” by MATSUMOTO Taiyo
Doraemon was a staple manga series throughout the 70s, 80s, and much of the 90s in Japan. Spanning over 1,000 chapters in length, the original manga—created by artist duo Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motoo Abiko—is about a schoolboy named Nobita and his companion Doraemon, a robotic, time-travelling cat from the future, who aids Nobita in his day-to-day life with a variety of futuristic gadgets. The manga went on to inspire a successful media franchise, which ranks as one of highest-grossing in the world, featuring alongside the likes of the X-Men and Sonic the Hedgehog franchises.
It was a source of inspiration to countless mangaka working today, who would have grown up reading Doraemon. The manga’s legacy is still seen in many contemporary works: Inio Asano parodied it with Isobeyan, a comic strip about a time-travelling, gadget-wielding mushroom, and Eiichiro Oda has revealed Doraemon as a source of inspiration for various Devil Fruit in One Piece.
There are also several Doraemon-inspired oneshots by other mangaka, reimaging the popular characters and narrative in different styles. Hino Hideshi crafted a darkly comedic horror version, but the one which stood out to me is by the award-winning Taiyo Matsumoto, author of series such as Tekkonkinkreet and Ping Pong. Published in Comic Cue magazine in 1995, the oneshot reimagines Doraemon in realistic-style, focusing on Nobita, the human companion of the titular cat, and the psychological effects of time-travel.
The original Doraemon was aimed largely at children; the characters are distinctive with accentuated features, and each plot would normally see Nobita, Doraemon and friends get up to all sorts of episodic hijinks, with sci-fi gadgets that go without any thorough explanation. In Matsumoto’s Doraemon, he recontextualises the manga through matured eyes, casting an inquisitive look at the unsaid aspects of his childhood favourite.
Today, children of the 90s might facetiously consider the larger ramifications of the world of Pokemon, whereby the notion of sending creatures to battle can quickly take on a more sinister front. It is in this way that Matsumoto’s Doraemon is fascinating, as he warps the cheerful childhood existence of Nobita into a thorny existential adulthood. In the oneshot, a young adult Nobita encounters childhood and elderly versions of himself, as he struggles to cope with the enormity of history and its damnation as witnessed through his time travelling escapades.
The oneshot spans just 21 pages, but in this time it presents a memorable snapshot of existential worry, framed through pre-existing characters whose repute adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the story, as opposed to if it were told with an original cast. Illustrated through Matsumoto’s distinct art style, with wobbly linework and liberal inking in favour of more typical shading, Doraemon, which was originally illustrated in quite a bold, structured and easy to read style, is thoroughly reimagined from the ground up. Half way through, Taiyo Matsumoto employs a brilliant use of montage across five pages, illustrating many small panels in sequence—strung together in all manner of shapes—which feature past and future periods in time, as Nobita succumbs to the weight of it all in-between.
It’s a stunning short work where not a single panel feels wasted. Although the story tells of existential gloom, the author ties it all together in a way that feels content and casually reaffirming. You’re likely to enjoy this more as an existing fan of either Doraemon or Taiyo Matsumoto, but the author has an extensive catalogue of other creative and abiding oneshots also worth looking into. These are collected in his anthology books Blue Spring and Brothers of Japan.
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Morning, Roo 