Now the Japanese broadcaster is taking the franchise into cinemas. 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. Ahead 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. India’s anime market has grown fast, much of it on the back of younger, intensely engaged fandoms. The film itself reworks a story that first reached Japanese cinemas in 1983.
Just kidding,” says Nakajima Susumu, chief producer of the film at Shin-Ei Animation. The studio has remade several “Doraemon” stories, but Nakajima says this one stood out as an early feature-length entry that was also a big favorite with audiences. Nakajima says the team leaves the fun of the original, its narrative structure and the feeling audiences take home untouched.
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 “it might sound counterintuitive, but we also cherish the charm of hand-drawn animation – that sort of ‘fluctuation’ or analog warmth.” Undersea 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.
A “Doraemon” movie has to be bigger than a television episode without losing the characters audiences know. It’s their circumstances that change, which makes Nobita’s words easier to relate to and Gian’s actions more dependable. Because the production team isn’t very familiar with the nuances of the languages, it coordinates the localization through its international team.
At Fujiko Pro, the work begins with Fujimoto himself.
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