News

2020 Doraemon Anime Film's Video Previews Mr. Children's Theme Songs

The official website for the 2020 Doraemon film Eiga Doraemon: Nobita no Shin Kyōryū (Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's New Dinosaur) began streaming a promotional video on Thursday. The video previews Mr. Children's theme songs "Birthday" and "Kimi to Kasaneta Monologue."

The upcoming film will be the franchise's first to feature two theme songs, and it will also be the first work that Mr. Children has written two songs for.

Takuya Kimura is playing the character Gil, a suspicious man who looks like a monkey. He observes Nobita's actions, and holds the secret of the mysterious island. This will be Kimura's third voice-acting role in an anime film ever after 2004's Howl's Moving Castle and 2010's Redline, and his first such role in a decade.

Actress and comedian Naomi Watanabe is joining the guest cast of the film as the character Natalie, a suspicious woman who tracks Nobita's journey and communicates with Gil.

The film will open on March 6.

The film's story begins with Nobita meeting two twin dinosaurs named Kyu and myu. Despite the film's similarity in title to Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Dinosaur, the first film in the franchise, the story is completely different. The new film is the franchise's 40th, and it marks the 50th anniversary of the original manga.

Kazuaki Imai, an episode director on the Doraemon television anime, and the director of 2018's Doraemon the Movie: Nobita's Treasure Island film, is directing the 40th film. Genki Kawamura is also returning from the 2018 film to pen the new film's script.

The film has a manga adaptation in Coro Coro Comics that launched in September. Shintarō Mugiwara, the "final apprentice" of Fujiko F. Fujio, is drawing the manga.

A separate manga adaptation by high school student Ran Tokiwa launched in Shogakukan's Ciao magazine on November 30. Genki Kawamura is scripting the manga, and Shintarō Mugiwara is collaborating on the manga.

The film is also inspiring a Nintendo Switch game that will debut in Japan on March 5, a day before the film's opening. FuRyu is developing the action-adventure game.

Sources: Eiga Doraemon: Nobita no Shin Kyōryū website, Anime! Anime! (MoA)