Your Faithful Robot Cat..'s Journal (original) (raw)

Among the things I found on YouTube before Otakon was the trailer for Doraemon: Nobita and the Robot Army (1986). I was misdirected by the blurb, "Preview of Century King's latest movie release. Release schedule: May 2006", into thinking the film was licensed for English release, but turns out the CK fansub group used the original trailer to promote their fansub of the movie.

Amazingly, it's available as a torrent and a direct download.

I've seen it 4 times now, and also shown it to the 2nd to 5th graders the day my mother was out for jury duty. But even though the film's for grade schoolers, I encountered problems because of one nude shot that I totally forgot about.

It was interesting *and* frustrating, watching the reactions of the kids. They went from squicked to offended to coming up w/ justifications so they could continue viewing it guilt-free. The scene was an injured female android, Lilulu, getting a change of medical bandages by Shizuka, a human female child. These were bright kids who spent most of the time cynically commenting on the actions of the protagonists, and yet, they couldn't stomach that one scene.

I got them to be quiet when I mentioned that they're missing out on *important* dialogue, since this was an English subbed file. And I wasn't bluffing either. Right after, the background music changed and Lilulu's narration on *robot theology* began...

( Lilulu and Shizuka's dialogueCollapse )

Vocal, knee-jerk declarations were that Shizuka was *stupid* and that Lilulu should *die*, even though the emotional setup of the scene was done to generate a sympathetic response to *both* characters. These were some pretty smart and ruthless grade schoolers. (A following scene had Nobita threatening Lilulu w/ a laser pistol, and the kids were going "Shoot her, stupid!", but Nobita fails his own bluff.)

Later on, Lilulu redeems herself in a speech to the Robot General at the demolished Diet Building, which is my favorite scene. And it's even cooler *because* it's the *Diet* Building! [establishing shot, overhead shot, interior shot] Something I didn't realize before as a kid, and not Japanese either. Funnily enough, I learned to recognize the Diet Building from watching Yami no Matsuei. ^^;

( Lilulu's dialogue w/ the Robot GeneralCollapse )

And I'm guessing that I'm the only one who finds Doraemon committing what was essentially a *lobotomy*, on an unwilling robot, to be as *disturbing* as the scene was amusing? The kids kept laughing there, cause the thing *complained* so much...

I wonder what made the fansubbers go for a 20 year-old Doraemon film? I love how apocalyptic this film is, and the plot device that was used to get around it. (Most of the film takes place in a mirror world, *eerily* devoid of human and animal life.) How it felt like the *tone* shifted on me and the characters in it. And how, until they tossed in the deus ex machina, it was obvious (to the audience *and* the characters themselves) that there was *no* way that a robotic cat and 4 kids were going to save the world.