Doraemon's alleged endings.

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Other

Saw Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur movie poster in The Cathy, I was overjoyed by this remnant that reminded me of my times. Doraemon had surely been an iconic figure of the eighties and introduced me to a world of possibilities, wishes, sci-fic and what may seemed to lit my flight of fantasies.

Seeing that I was thrilled by a cartoon, Hao and I talked about Doraemon. He told me that he was informed of the three alleged endings probably created by fans.

I went on the web and seek the speculations.

There are three current and often quoted urban legends that started spreading in late 1980s of an ending to the Doraemon series.

The first and the more optimistic ending was made public by Nobuo Sato several years ago. Doraemon's battery power ran out, and Nobita was given a choice between replacing the battery inside a frozen Doraemon, which would cause it to reset and lose all memory, or await a competent robotics technician who would be able to resurrect the cat-robot one day. Nobita swore that very day to work hard in school, graduate with honours, and become that robotics technician. He successfully resurrected Doraemon in the future as a robotics professor, became successful as an AI developer, and thus lived happily ever after, thus relieving his progeny of the financial burdens that caused Doraemon to be sent to his space-time in the first place. A dōjin manga for this ending exists.

The second, more pessimistic ending suggests that Nobita Nobi is suffering from autism and that all the characters (including Doraemon) are simply his delusion. The idea that Nobita was a sick and dying little boy who imagined the entire series on his sickbed to help him ease his pain and depression no doubt angered quite a lot of fans. Many Japanese fans staged a protest outside the headquarters of the publisher of the series after learning about this suggestion. The publisher had to issue a public statement that this is not true. (This ending actually correlates to the ending for the series St. Elsewhere, which ended in 1988.)

The third ending suggests that Nobita fell and hit his head on a rock. He fell into a deep coma, and eventually into a semi-vegetative state. To raise money for an operation to save Nobita, Doraemon sold all the tools and devices in his four-dimensional pocket. However, the operation failed. Doraemon sold all his tools except for one used as a last resort - Dokodemo door 如意门. He used it to enable Nobita to go wherever he wanted, whichever time era he wished to go. In the end, the very place Nobita wanted to go was heaven.

The third ending, when I heard it from Hao, I was utterly depressed. How can the purest story for children ends so painfully? Children shouldn't have to die in stories. Not especially when it had so entwined with my boyhood.

Since Fujiko F. died in 1996 before any decisions were reached, any "endings" of Doraemon are fan fiction. However, it is apparent from many episodes and movies where Nobita travels to the future that in the end he does marry Shizuka, leads a happy life and separates with Doraemon, although Nobita and his friends fondly remember him.

Screw that dude who made cup noddle, I will hail only to 藤子 F. 不二雄.