Doraemon: Nobita and the Robot Kingdom is the 23rd installment of the Doraemon Film Series, based on the Doraemon's Long Tales entry of the same name.
The story starts when Nobita is once again jealous of Suneo's new toy, this time a robotic dog. After a quite big fight with his mom and Doraemon, Nobita decides to use the spare pocket to buy some robots from the future.. with disastrous results. At the same time, the purchased robots clash with a young robot boy in the Time Tunnel and bring him along to the 21th century.
The boy, named Poko, rescued the gang from Suneo's malfunctioning robot before sustaining damage. Since the damage cannot be repaired by Doraemon's technology, the gang must travel to the Robot Planet to find someone who can repair him, while fighting against the tyrannical Queen Jeanne of the kingdom who seeks to remove all robots' emotions. But a bigger conspiracy is at hand on the Robot World...
This film contains examples of:
- Abuse of Return Policy: Doraemon and Nobita return all the robots the later ordered in order to not cause the city more trouble.
- Adaptational Badass:
- While Nobita is already a badass to a degree in the manga with his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Jeanne when he saves Poko, the film changes it to having him confront her with the speech and we actually get to see Jeanne's reaction to the words.
- Doraemon doesn't even need his "Cheetah Lotion" when saving Maria like his manga counterpart.
- Adaptation Distillation: Several scenes from the manga were cut or changed. Mainly Jeanne's Important Haircut, the nursing of Jeanne back to health, and the final attempt murder of Dester to Chapek.
- Adaptation Deviation: The anime film took some liberties with it's source material, but the changes made doesn't really impact the story's conclusion either ways. Notably, the robot antics with Suneo, Shizuka and Gian caught in-between (the robots are noticeably more hostile in the manga with the Moodmaker Orchestra chasing Shizuka, in the anime they simply follow her), Doraemon's attempts to repair Poko after the Robotic Reveal (manga have Doraemon using his X-Ray Glass, anime have Doraemon bringing Poko to his Secret Lab), Doraemon's battle with Kongfighter (manga and anime features different gadgets from Doraemon, both ending with Doraemon beating Kong), the gang's attempts to grab Poko in the coliseum (Infinity Lasso in the manga, Extending Hand in the anime), timing of Onabe's appearance in Dr. Chapek's house, Robby's interaction with the farmer's little daughter (anime left out a particularly cruel scene where the emotionless Robby pops the little girl's ball, upsetting her badly), location where Poko rescued an unconscious Jean, characters who found the hidden valley's entrance (Suneo in the manga, Kurinpa in the anime), and so on.
- Adaptation Dye-Job: Both Jeanne and her father have their hair colors changed from red and black to blond in the film.
- Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Downplayed with Doraemon's All Purpose Handler gadget; the manga have them using this gadget early on during the time warp chase, and later it was given to Professor Chapek who then arrives with the same gadget to reinforce the team. The manga sets it as a Chekhov's Gun, but the scenes featuring said gadget was cut in the anime, so Nobita randomly telling Doraemon "let's use the All Purpose Handler!" seems to appear completely out of nowhere.
- Androids Are People, Too: The center of the conflict; the local queen, heartbroken after her dad died in an accident to protect a robot, decides to remove every robot's emotion.
- Auto-Kitchen: Dr. Chapek's robot aide, Onabe, is a cooking robot, where she prepares a delicious salad for the gang by eating a pile of fresh vegetables and producing the food from a stomach oven. Absent in the anime however.
- Bad Date: Nobita causes one to Doraemon while searching in the spare pocket, as the two pockets are interconnected, interrupting Doraemon's date as he feels ticklish by Nobita's hands and falls from a roof unable to contain himself.
- Behemoth Battle: Dester's rampaging robot base against Nobita piloting an impromptu robot statue brought to life by the All Purpose Handler. Though for the latter it turns out to be a Negated Moment of Awesome when Nobita's attempts at piloting the statue makes it tap-dance, hits himself in the cranium, and spin pointlessly in circles - but he still accidentally saves the day by smashing into two of the base's supports, causing the base to fall over.
- Beware of Vicious Dog:
- Suneo's pet Robot Dog, Asobo, initially appears to be as docile as a real-life puppy. But then it gets jabbed by a random robot doctor (In the rump!), starts becoming weird (the anime had Asobo meowing) and goes ballistic.
- The dogs of Dester's droids will viciously bite any resisting robot that attempts to flee and resist the emotion removal law.
- Big Bad: Jeanne Until Dester betrays her and takes the position for himself
- Conspicuously Light Patch: Several examples in the anime's climax, notably when Dester animates his fortress and when Nobita uses the Anything Controller to animate one of the colosseum's giant robot statues.
- The Corrupter: Dester takes advantage of a grieving Jeanne by influencing her to blame robotkind for the death of his father and justify that as the main reason to enforce the robot removal law.
- Chain of People: Doraemon and friends, including their allies from the Rainbow Valley and the reformed Jeanne, forms a human chain to bypass Dester's guards while forcing their way to the fortress. Which the robots are unable to do anything of it because of the Three Laws-Compliant rule.
- Continuity Cavalcade: Early in the film, Nobita's attempts at buying a futuristic robot pet without Doraemon's permission accidentally teleports dozens and dozens of robots into his room, many of them from prior manga shorts or other Fujiko Fujio works. Including the Moodmaker Orchestra, Gonsuke from 21 Emon, the Knock-Down Hitman, Art Critic Robot, Tax Bird, Matador Robots (last seen in Doraemon: Nobita and the Birth of Japan) and a robotic clone of Little Ghost Q-Taro (who even wished Doraemon "Good day" in the anime film!).
- Death by Adaptation:
- The movie recreates the chase between Doraemon and gang against one of Jeanne's robot patrols in the time-warp. In the manga Doraemon managed to take out the patrol using the Flattening Iron (leading to the robot getting Squashed Flat non-lethally). The anime on the other hand have both the gang and their pursuer arriving in the Robot Planet, where the robot ends up crashing into a wall and exploding.
- Also, Dester sacrifices one of his mooks when trying to kill Jeanne; in the manga he merely causes Jeanne's robotic steed to malfunction and send her falling off a cliff.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Jeanne, when she barely survives Dester's assassination attempt and saved by the gang. And then Dester pulls a Dragon Ascendant and takes over the kingdom.
- Electric Torture: This is one of the procedures that the robot kingdom utilizes to weaken the robots before removing their emotions, as Doraemon experiences.
- Emotion Suppression: Jeanne and Dester force every robot in the kingdom to suffer this treatment, capturing the robots against their will and sending them to a factory where their emotions are removed before returning them to their houses to serve their masters as mere tools for mankind.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Despite hating all robots due to the loss of her dad, Jeanne doesn't have the heart to remove Maria's emotions due to still having fond memories of her as a substitute mother, only imprisoning her.
- Evil Twin: Dester is actually Chapek's twin brother who has turned evil.
- Gladiator Games: The robot arena serves as one for robots. The victors in the arena are able to keep their emotions, while the losers are sent to the factory to be deprived of them.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: Jeanne is the main antagonist for the first half of the story.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In the anime, at least. Doraemon's attempts at using the Timed Stupidity Bomb and Tickling Bugs on Kongfighter backfires on himself unlike the manga, but he still managed to beat Kongfighter in the end.
- Honor Before Reason: Kongfighter, who demands to be killed rather than be defeated.
- It Has Been an Honor: Towards the end of the film, when Maria and Doraemon are trapped in an out-of-control rocket about to crash, they both delivers their last wishes respectively towards Poko and Nobita, telling them to take care, it's been a pleasure being their respective caretakers, they'll have to stand on their own feet, etc. — subverted when Poko managed to find a way and teleport them both to safety.
- I Shall Taunt You: One of the funnier moments in the anime adaptation have Doraemon, under the effects of the Stupidity Bomb, taunting Kongfighter by clapping his own butt at the robot gorilla. Kongfighter is not amused.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Doraemon towards the end, when he runs unarmed into Dester's Collapsing Lair to rescue Maria. And took out Dester without using any gadgets or weapons!
- The Man in Front of the Man: Dester, appearing to be Jeanne's second-in-command, turns out to be the main villain manipulating Jeanne's actions and forcing her down a path towards evil.
- Missing Mom: Jeanne's mom is mentioned to have passed away while she was still young.
- Moving Buildings: Dester's castle turns out to be a mobile base on gigantic, spider-like legs. Which Dester controls to trample over everyone in the climax.
- Mythology Gag:
- The story begins with Nobita being jealous of Suneo's new robot toy, similar to Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops.
- Doraemon getting manhandled by robotic hands and ticklish over it while being "inspected", much like in Doraemon: Nobita and the Knights on Dinosaurs when he first enters Enriru. The anime version also have Doraemon getting electrocuted when he protests, like in Doraemon: Nobita and the Tin Labyrinth.
- Parental Substitute: Maria was entrusted to look after Jeanne after she initially lost her mom at a very young age, raising her like her own daughter after the death of the previous queen.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Nobita and Shizuka both deliver one to Jeanne at different times.Nobita: You're really cruel! Removing the robots' emotion is nonsense! They're friends, not tools to be used!Shizuka: Don't you know that Poko truly cares about you?! I can't believe that someone like you is a queen!
- Robotic Reveal: When Poko meets the gang earlier on after the robot fiasco, everyone thought he's an ordinary kid caught in the chaos. But then Poko's ear falls off and they saw his internal circuits.
- Robot Dog: Early in the film, Nobita becomes jealous of Suneo's new toy, a robotic canine called Asobo, and Nobita's attempts at buying a robot pet for himself unintentionally drags Poko into Tokyo and kickstarts the adventure. Jeanne's forces also have a number of robotic canines, which Poko is afraid of due to being mauled by them earlier.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Offended by Nobita's request of getting him a pet robot, Doraemon immediately refuses to help Nobita and goes on a date with Mii-chan.
- Self-Duplication: In the anime, Doraemon uses his Copy Machine Camera to create duplicates of himselves all over the arena to distract Kongfighter. It works for a short while, but then Kongfighter decide to extend his Epic Flail and cover the entire arena in a single swing.
- Sneeze of Doom: In the anime, Doraemon and gang crashing their Time Machine into the Robot Planet have them balancing precariously on a ledge. And then Nobita suddenly lets out an unexpected sneeze, causing them to fall.
- The So-Called Coward: The climax have Nobita being mistaken for a coward who fled from the scene with Shizuka's spare Takecopter, seemingly abandoning everyone within vincinity of Dester's rampaging robot. But it turns out Nobita is using the All Purpose Handler to hijack one of the city's robot statues and command it to save everyone.
- Small, Secluded World: The Rainbow Valley, cut off from Dester's grip, a world populated by humans and robots where they are free to co-exist in harmony.
- Spanner in the Works: Dester would have gotten away with his plan if not for Nobita deciding one day to order many robots, resulting in Poko arriving in their era by being dragged down by the order, discovering Poko's true origins upon finding him damaged and decided to return him to his home to cure him, eventually ending Dester's reign of doom.
- Start of Darkness: Jeanne became cold-hearted after witnessing her father's death due to that he saved a worker robot from an accident. Dester's manipulation, causes her to believe that robots with emotion shouldn't exist.
- The Starscream: Dester has been plotting to usurp Jeanne's throne by trying to kill her off in the middle of the movie.
- Sword Beam:
- The guard droids are equipped with spears that can shoot powerful electric beams to subdue rebel robots, with one of these hitting Doraemon's back while rescuing Poko.
- Dester's sword can shoot electricity as he does when Doraemon talks back to him at the emotion removal factory.
- Tin Tyrant: Dester, who is inside a larger robot armor all the time before it's destroyed. Averted in the animated adaptation, where is just an armor shaped on his size.
- Tracking Device: After the gang retrieved Doraemon and escapes the robot arena, a subsequent shot reveals Jeanne's robots attached a tracking bug on Doraemon's helmet, which allows their robots to track down the gang. Said bug falls off on it's own halfway through and leads their chase to a dead end.
- Uncatty Resemblance: Suneo's robot pet Asobo is designed to literally have his owner's face.
- Wrecked Weapon: Doraemon's first attempt at fighting Kongfighter with a hilariously dinky-looking shortsword... against Kongfighter's mighty, vehicle-sized ax. Which ends with Kongfighter slowly ripping off chunks and chunks of Doraemon's weapon, leading to one massive Oh, Crap! from the robot cat.——
