Why Indonesian Kids Looks like They’re Obsessed with Doraemon

I’m telling you why. Because we grew up with Doraemon.

During my childhood in the 90s, TV channels in Indonesia have this “marathon” of cartoon shows (mostly Japanese cartoon) on Sunday morning from around 6 to 11 AM almost in every channel. To be fair we don’t have that much of TV channels at that time. There were only like 5 or 6 channels if I’m not mistaken.

The highlight of these cartoons is of course, Doraemon, which is aired in RCTI at 8 AM. Even until now, it’s still aired at precisely the same time. I think it’s started since I was born (?) and never change until I’m already 25 years old now. How cool is that?

As a little kid, we can relate to Nobita who’s always asking Doraemon to give him the magic tools that come from the future so he can do the impossible things like flying, go anywhere we want in a blink of an eye, or tools that makes you smart without having to study. 

It makes innocent kids like us thinks, “Hey, I want my own Doraemon!”. 

Sadly we won’t have our own Doraemon until like, 200 years from now, probably. So we keep Doraemon in a special place in our heart.

Hence the obsession.

Last month the movie Doraemon Stand By Me is on theaters in Indonesia. I know that in Japan, Doraemon regularly have a movie that comes in theaters, but not in Indonesia. This is the first time that we can watch Doraemon in theaters, so everybody who grew up in the 90s is so excited. Plus, the plot of the movie is that Doraemon is going back to the future and leave Nobita behind. It feels like the end of Doraemon and it kills a little bit of our child soul deep down inside.

The tickets sold like crazy! Even I had to buy online about a week before the premiere day. And when me and my friends went to the theater to see the movie, MY DEAR LORD I’ve never seen such crowded theater in my life. After I done watching the movie at 9 PM, people were still in line to buy the tickets!

Funny thing is, when I talk about how excited people in Indonesia about this upcoming movie of Doraemon to my Japanese colleague, they don’t seem slightly interested at all. They’re like, “yeah lately I saw a lot of Doraemon commercials on TV in Japan but I’m not really sure why” or “you DO know that this is NOT the ending of Doraemon, right?”.

Now I see why we seem a little bit obsessed about Doraemon. Even my boyfriend calls me a “Doraemon Otaku” when we visited Fujiko F Fujio museum in Japan. If I’m being called obsessed over Doraemon, I’m taking all the 90s children in Indonesia down with me to the Doraemon Otaku land. LOL.