Doraemon -1979- -

Doraemon doesn’t answer right away. He looks at the boy—the boy who is lazy, clumsy, weak-willed, and heartbreakingly kind. The boy who will grow up to marry Shizuka, but only if he learns to stand up first. The boy who is his great-great-grand-uncle’s only hope.

Nobita sniffles. “I don’t deserve your gadgets, Doraemon.” Doraemon -1979-

The title card fades in, hand-drawn, imperfect: Doraemon doesn’t answer right away

“I was saving this for the typhoon next week,” he says, clipping it onto Nobita’s head. “But you look like you need to feel the wind first.” The boy who is his great-great-grand-uncle’s only hope

Instead of the truth, Doraemon pulls out a Doriyaki from his pocket. He takes a bite. Crumbs float in the zero-gravity of the evening.

“You left the latch unlocked again,” says Doraemon, his voice warm, a little nasally, like a concerned uncle. He climbs out, adjusts his red collar with its golden bell, and pats his yokochō (four-dimensional pocket). “Crying won’t fix the test. But maybe this will.”

Below it, in parentheses, as if whispered: (1979)