10 Facts About Stand By Me 2, the New Doraemon Movie That’ll Make Everyone Cry

It doesn’t matter how old you are. At some point in your life, you’ve probably seen Doraemon around.

The series has stood the test of time and is now 50 years old as of this writing.

And as you may already know, the latest movie, Stand By Me Doraemon 2, is currently airing in local theatres.

Here are a few things related to the show you may find interesting!

Based Mostly On One Short Film and Is A Sequel

As the name implies, the movie is a sequel to the 2014 movie, Stand By Me Doraemon.

However, a large portion of the story is also largely based on a short film: Doraemon: A Grandmother’s Recollections, released in 2000.

Grandmother’s Recollections was also based on the 70th chapter in the original manga.

To sum it up, Nobita goes to visit his grandmother in the past, who died when he was very young.

As they talk, she mentions she wants to see his future bride.

You should know who the future bride is.

The Movie’s Story

In the manga, the talk with his grandma prompts Nobita to go and see his childhood friend, Shizuka and asks if they can be married immediately.

The chapter ends immediately afterwards.

Stand By Me 2 takes it further as they travel into the future to see his future self and Shizuka getting married.

However, future Nobita gets panicky and runs from the wedding, unable to take the pressure.

He also feels unworthy of marrying Shizuka.

This leads all his friends to go and find him, delving into the main plot of the show. Once again, it’s up to Nobita and Doraemon to attempt to fix the past, present and the future.

Time to watch the rest of the show to see how it unfolds.

Two Directors

The movie is headed by two directors: Takashi Yamazaki and Ryuichi Yagi.

Both also previously directed the first Stand By Me movie.

Yamazaki has several big directing credentials under his belt. Some of them include the two Parasyte movies and Space Battleship Yamato.

He even won Best Director and Best Screenplay prizes at the Japanese Academy Awards in 2006 for his film the previous year Always: Sunset on Third Street.

Yagi is no slouch himself, being one of the key members Shirogumi Inc, one of the studios that helped develop the movie.

3D Film

Doraemon has had a long history of films.

Counting only the feature-length films and this latest entry, there have been over 40 Doraemon films since 1980.

However, while the majority are in 2D animation, only the two Stand By Me films are presented in a 3D art style.

All-Star Voice Cast

Many of the voice cast return from the prequel. We’ll just list down a few, especially since there are so many great talents in the show.

You may recognise them from various other media as well.

• Wasabi Mizuta as Doraemon.
• Megumi Ohara as Nobi Nobita.
• Yumi Kakazu as Shizuka Minamoto.
• Tomokazu Seki as Suneo Honekawa.
• Subaru Kimura as Takeshi “Gian” Goda.

For the few listed here at least, what’s fun to note is that they’ve been voicing their same characters for over a decade now.

A Beautiful Theme Song

The theme song, titled Rainbow, is composed by Masaki Suda.

Some of you may know him from his notable role as Kamen Rider Double or Shinpachi from the live Gintama movies.

He has also composed several songs, such as Long Hope Philia for the My Hero Academia series.

Rainbow is written in a way that almost feels like it was meant for Shizuka and Nobita, talking about the joys of being with each other.

The author definitely felt a bit teary-eyed listening to this. 

Had A Ride At Universal Studios Japan

Sometimes, you’ve got to get the hype up even outside the theatres.

In order to promote the show, Universal Studios Japan even had a Doraemon-themed ride from 4 Aug 2020 till 6 Jan 2021.

It was a VR-type ride that even had a story which would tie into the movie.

There was even limited-edition food, drink and merchandise which were available for purchase.

The Movie Was Delayed

2020 was rough due to COVID-19 and this was no different for the movie industry as well.

The film was originally meant to be released on 7 Aug 2020 but got delayed due to the pandemic.

This also makes it the second Doraemon film to be delayed, the other being Doraemon: Nobita’s Little Star Wars 2021.

It was eventually released in Japan on 20 Nov 2020 and did extremely well.

Which you’re about to find out how well in just a moment.

Only Second to Kimetsu No Yaiba Movie On Launch In Japan

To say that Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is popular is criminally underrating it.

And its film, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train, shattered numbers in Japan.

On its opening three-day weekend, the show opened with ticket sales amounting to roughly S$58,305,000 in Japan. It even remained the number one in the country’s box office for several weeks.

And Stand By Me Doraemon 2 managed to almost keep up with it.

In its opening week, the film ranked second, beating out everything except Mugen Train.

While it was no Demon Slayer, it still earned a sizeable amount that opening week with rough equivalent S$4,893,390 in Japan.

Gucci Collaboration

Just so that you can watch Doraemon and cry in theatres with style.

On 12 Jan, Gucci announced a collaboration with the Doraemon franchise in time for the Chinese New Year.

Just keep in mind that, it is Gucci, which means quite a few of these won’t be that cheap.

We don’t have a futuristic cat to pull these out of a magical gadget pocket, sadly.

Stand By Me Doraemon 2 is currently showing in Singapore theatres, only at Golden Village cinemas.

Who’s ready for a feels trip?

Featured Image: doraemon-3d.com