The cover of the first story, Noby's Dinosaur.
The original Doraemon is a short episodic comedy series about the average daily life of Nobita, Doraemon, Shizuka, and the bullies, Gian and Suneo. It's not very intense and the stakes are usually pretty low.
Doraemon's Long Tales on the other hand? They always go on epic adventures that are completely different from the usual Slice of Life stories of the original Manga. The adventures can range from Time Travel adventures, to epic Fantasy quests with knights and dragons, to Space Operas, and to Mecha battles. The main characters are inevitably portrayed as the brave action heroes.
24 special volumes were published semi-annually, and the first 17 were translated into English. The volumes were adapted into movies that were released in Japan. See the film series page for specific volumes and their film adaptations.
The 24 Original volumes (tropes for the manga, anime, and remake if any):
- Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur (original and the remake)
- Doraemon: The Records of Nobita, Spaceblazer (original and the remake, Doraemon: The New Record of Nobita, Spaceblazer)
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Haunts of Evil (original and the remake, Doraemon: New Nobita's Great Demon—Peko and the Exploration Party of Five)
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil
- Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure into the Underworld (original and the remake, Doraemon: Nobita's New Great Adventure into the Underworld ~The 7 Magic Users~)
- Doraemon: Nobita's Little Space War (original and the remake)
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops (original and the remake, Doraemon: Nobita and the New Steel Troops ~Winged Angels~)
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Knights on Dinosaurs
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Birth of Japan (original and the remake)
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Animal Planet
- Doraemon: Nobita's Dorabian Nights
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Kingdom of Clouds
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Tin Labyrinth
- Doraemon: Nobita's Three Visionary Swordsmen
- Doraemon Nobitas Diary Of The Creation Of The World
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Galaxy Super-express
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Spiral City
- Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas
- Doraemon: Nobita's Drifts in the Universe
- Doraemon: Nobita's the Legend of the Sun King
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Winged Braves
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Robot Kingdom
- Doraemon: Nobita and the Windmasters
- Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey
Doraemon's Long Tales provides examples of:
- Adam and Eve Plot: The robot army from Noby vs. the Mecha Army are descended from two robots named Amu and Emu (in Japanese). Obviously, they don't have the same problem of incest as humans do.
- Adaptation Expansion: Some of the adventure stories are the expansion of singular chapters that exist in the manga. Furthermore, some of the characters that appear in these chapters may have a more expanded role compared to their short screen-time before. One notable example is Kibo, who is a small humanoid tree in the manga and eventually plays another role in the Doraemon: Nobita and the Kingdom of Clouds.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While the kids might act rude in the main series, they're often heroic and co-operative here.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: In Noby vs. the Mecha Army, the robots are intended to create a utopia, instead of creating an unequal society and eventually invading planets. As it turns out, the two robots from which the robots are descended have competition instinct programmed in them, causing them to sacrifice others for their own good. Though, it takes generations of robots for the trope to take full effect, which is a much longer time compared to most other examples.
- Bittersweet Ending: Most volumes end with Doraemon and the kids bidding goodbye to the new friends they met, but they're coming home alive, happy and content, learning from their new experiences.
- Darker and Edgier: Downplayed. Most volumes tend to be this compared to the original manga and television series, with there being life or even world-threatening stakes. But they're also Lighter and Softer too, with the kids usually depicted as True Companions and there being little to no bullying, apart from the beginning.
- The End of the World as We Know It: Related to the Darker and Edgier example above, some of the villains will not cower for a second to inflict total destruction on Earth. In fact, some of Doraemon and his friends' adventures involve them trying to prevent said apocalyptic events from happening.
- The Film of the Book: The Long Tales stories have been adapted to the movies.
- Happy Ending: Doraemon's Long Tales usually ends well for all of the characters, as opposed to the normal Doraemon, where at least one character will end up worse than the others.
- He Is All Grown Up: Kibo grows from a young and small humanoid tree in his own chapter in the original manga into a fatherly diplomat from the Green Planet who tries to defend humanity from the sky civilization's destruction plan to honor his friendship with Nobita and his friends in Doraemon: Nobita and the Kingdom of Clouds.
- Lighter and Softer: Almost all of the stories, no matter how dark they are, portray the kids as True Companions with little to none of the Jerkass or bullying attitude exhibited in the regular show or manga. And Doraemon's Long Tales at best has a Happy Ending and at worst has a bittersweet goodbye with the new friends they met, but Doraemon and the kids return content and happy, being able to learn from their new experiences instead of the Downer Endings (which are often Played for Laughs) of the regular episodes.
- Meaningful Name: In the Japanese version of Noby vs. the Mecha Army, Amu and Emu are the two robots who the entire army descends from, much like Adam and Eve.
- Took a Level in Badass: Doraemon's Long Tales portrays the main five characters as brave action heroes who go through epic sci-fi or Fantasy quests.
- True Companions: In the original Doraemon, the kids don't always get along. Here, the kids are usually depicted as friends who co-operate in their epic adventures.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: If not being outright villains, some of the people that Doraemon and his friends encounter are more than willing to do some heinous things to get their wishes done, despite having somewhat good intentions. For instance, in Doraemon: Nobita and the Kingdom of Clouds, the sky civilization dwellers are willing to flood the entire Earth surface civilization just to save the natural Earth flora and fauna from destruction... all because of some illegal animal poachers they've arrested in an African wilderness.
- Worf Had the Flu: Doraemon would lose his fourth-dimensional pocket in order for the story to not be solved in one panel. Other volumes even take it up to another level by either having him not be aware of the situation or even be taken out by the villains specifically because of how powerful he is.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The villains in the stories are villains in every sense.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: This is what kick-starts Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur. Suneo gets Nobita, Shizuka, and Gian over to his house to peruse his dinosaur fossil collection, and after Gian and Shizuka have their turns, Suneo takes the collection away before Nobita gets ahold of the box, causing a thoroughly disgruntled Nobita to vow to find something better; an actual dinosaur.
