Explaining Doraemon’s perduring popularity: Structural analysis, specious technology and mother’s indulgent affection

Robert C. Marshall

Contemporary Japan, 2019, vol. 31, issue 1, 79-98

Abstract: Structural analysis of the Japanese anime Doraemon reveals the source of the unimaginable popularity of this children’s cartoon in the paradigmatic structure ‘Doraemon’s gadgets : Nobita’s problems :: Doraemon : Nobita.’ The paradigmatic structure’s minor contradiction shows us that neither Nobita’s childish childhood problems nor the hyper-technology of the future Doraemon pulls from its pouch, as funny as they can be made to seem, matter in this world; but the major contradiction, that the practices of affectionate indulgence of Japanese mothering both do and do not build children’s characters to succeed in the outside world, presents a relationship that Japanese children and their parents can never rehearse enough. In this long-running myth, the role of Mother is played by Doraemon.

Date: 2019
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DOI: 10.1080/18692729.2018.1522075

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