In the 22nd Century, the improverished descendants of Nobita Nobi pool their resources and send Doraemon, a cutrate, blue robot cat, back in time to turn him into a more successful person. Doraemon dazzles the schoolboy Nobita and his friends with his endless array of futuristic gadgets, including a portable dimension-door and head-mounted rotor-blades. However, Nobita's great-great-grandchildren are so poor that they have sent a malfunctioning mentor whose plans often go awry. Though Doraemon always saves the day, its normally his fault it needs saving.

Often credited Lennon-and-McCartney-style to the Fujiko-Fujio duo who created QTARO THE GHOST, Doraemon was actually solo project for Hiroshi "Fujiko" Fujimoto. An ongoing series fully expected to top 2,000 episodes by the end of 2004, the simple stories and almost timeless animation have kept the series a perennial favorite. Like LUPIN III, it is an original "retro anime" that never had to be revived and has reared several generations of Japanese children. The lineup never changes - Nobita and his cat, along with prissy love interest Shizuka, sneaky intellect Suneo, and hulking lummox Jaian play in their neighborhood (which, with its open spaces and woodlands, is perhaps the only part of the series to have dated), boast about their abilities, and call each other's bluff. With the threat of undesirable forfeits, such as stuffing an entire plateful of spaghetti up the loser's nose, Nobita turns to Doraemon for help, and the cat's techno assistance causes more trouble than it is worth.

Doraemon movies have become a regular feature of the Japanese spring break. In Nobita's Dinosaur (1980), a harmless prehistoric pet assumes gargantuan proportions and must be returned to its proper era before it eats Tokyo. When Doraemon returns it to the wrong group of dinosaurs, it has to be rescued, only to need rescuing again when it it kidnapped by a hunter from a 24th-century zoo (note how even this feature version easily break into three episodes-length chapters). This was followed in successive years by Nobitathe the Space Colonist, Nobita's Magic Tower, Nobita's Undersea Fortress, Nobita Goes to Hell, Nobita's Little Star Wars, and Nobita and the Iron Warrior, the latter released in the year of creator Fujimoto's death, 1986. After a one-yearhiatus, Doraemon was back again in 1988 with Nobita's Parallel JOURNEY TO THE WEST, then Nobita at the BIRTH OF JAPAN, Nobita's Animal Planet, Nobita's Animal ARABRIAN NIGHTS, Nobita in Snow Country, Nobita's Tin-Plate Labyrinth, and Nobita's Fantastic THREE MUSKETEERS. After this rash of pastiches, perhaps more conservative choices in the absence of Fujimoto, a slight change of emphasis came with the 1995 movie, 2112: The Birth Of Doraemon, which cleverly recapped the series's origins for another new generation before returning to form with Nobita's Galactic Express, Nobita's Clockwork City, Nobita's South Sea Adventure (which has the biggest box office to date and is the eighth-highest-grossing animated film in Japan), Nobita Gets Lost in Space, the Aztec-themed Nobita and the Legend of the Sun King, and, in the year 2001, Nobita's Winged Heroes.

The Robot cat has also appeared in literally dozens of TV specials over the last 20 years, many of which were combined with other special to create still more "movies," including It's New Year!, Its Summer!, Its Autum!, Its Winter!, Its Spring!, Summer Holiday, Doraemon Meets HATTORI THE NINJA, featherplane, What Am I for Momotaro?, Come Back Doraemon (which was ironically, repeated several times), Doraemon and Itchy and Stray, Doraemon's Time Capsule for 2001, and Treasure of Shinugami Mountain, Later outings also featured cameos from Doraemon's "little sister" from the future, Dorami-chan, who got several short films of her own, starting with Dorami-chan: Mini-Dora SOS (1981). The concept was employed many times by other creators, most notably is the saucy time travels of DNA2 and VISIONARY.