Doraemon: Nobita's Sky Utopia

Doraemon: Nobita's Sky Utopia (映画ドラえもん: のび太と空の) is a 2023 Japanese animated science fiction adventure film. It is the 42nd film of the Japanese animated series Doraemon created by Fujiko F. Fujio. Directed by Takumi Doyama with a screenplay by Ryota Furusawa, it was released on 3 March 2023.

Plot
Nobita, heard by Dekisugi summarizing Thomas More's Utopia describes a fantasy land where people live happily without pain or conflict after school asking Doraemon to help him find that ideal country but ignored because he was sorting out his gadgets to throw his Anywhere Door and other gadgets into a 4-Dimensional Recycling Throw Bag. He ran to the mountain behind the school and was startled when a blue bug landed on his nose, pushed it aside, and saw something in the sky in the shape of Utopia. Doraemon immediately searched the timeline for information about this phenomenon, thanks to the "Time Report". Then, the group of friends gathered on the mountain behind the school began to search for Utopia with the "Zeppelin Time Airship" from time to time. Nobita's band spent an entire day playing and searching for Utopia but to no avail. That night Nobita saw the so-called Utopia he had seen before. The group of friends let the airship approach, but the group was covered with dark clouds and was suddenly ambushed. The next morning, the Fellowship wakes up, Sonya, the perfect robot cat, apologizes to the group for the raid last night. He also tells the group that they are in Paradapia, an ideal country similar to Utopia, just as Nobita had requested. At Nobita's insistence, Sonya took his group of friends to the cathedral to ask them to let the three sages Sci, Poli, and Culti, the creators of Paradapia, stay in Paradapia, and he was accepted. Every day, while Nobita, Shizuka, Gian, and Suneo go to the academy to be more "perfect" like the residents there, Doraemon helps Sonya patrol all of Paradapia. Sonya reveals his past to Doraemon as a pet companion cat who was abused and neglected by his former owner before meeting the three sages. One night Nobita discovered that a few days ago a stranger had entered Paradapia. The stranger went to the cathedral to attack the three sages but was stopped in time thanks to a notification from Sonya, Doraemon, and Nobita. The stranger, who turned into a bug, followed Doraemon and Nobita and was then taken away by Hannah, a girl from the same academy class as Nobita. When the two learn that the stranger is Marimba, a 22nd-century female bounty hunter, she accuses them of ruining her plan. Marimba is a bounty hunter teamed up with the time police, who was hired to rescue Hannah and wanted to arrest Dr. Ray who actually created the so-called Paradapia. Thanks to Hannah's guidance, she managed to infiltrate Paradapia. Hannah reveals to Doraemon and Nobita the secret of the Paradapia resident certificate badge, which can change from crescent to sun according to each person's clarity, which is actually a tool for brainwashing the inhabitants there, then reveals her entire coat of arms in disguise to avoid the eyes of the three sages. And Nobita's brainwashing didn't work quickly because of his special constitution. At first, Nobita didn't want to believe Marimba, but then he found out that his friends had been gradually brainwashed. According to Marimba's plan, Doraemon and Nobita awaken Shizuka, Gian, and Suneo to follow them, but fail as they are brainwashed. The trio returns to the Zeppelin Time Airship and discovers that it has not been repaired as Sonya claimed. They continued to repair the aircraft while using the sound absorber to block out the noise, but the group was discovered when the aircraft was about to be repaired because Nobita dropped its sound pipe. However, the trio immediately opened the time portal to go into the future, but were followed by Sonya and his patrol team and brought back to Paradapia. At Paradapia's headquarters, Doraemon and Nobita learn of his intention to absorb energy from the universe at night and the energy from the resident badges to activate the machine that renders humanity as callous as the inhabitants, and Nobita is the key to the final experiment. The three sages used the moon's energy to maximize the badge, brainwashed Nobita, started the machine, and asked him to turn Doraemon into a bug. Nobita lost all reason but didn't do it, so the sages forced Sonya to take this action and throw Doraemon who has turned into the bug out of Paradapia by themselves. Seeing Doraemon turned into a bug, Nobita woke up. The sages asked Shizuka, Gian, and Suneo to stop Nobita, but after a period of persuasion, the three friends gradually regained their senses and intellect, causing their badges to be broken. Dr. Ray then revealed his true colors, it turns out that the sages are robots controlled by him. Sonya was influenced by Doraemon and Nobita and decided to help them. Dr. Ray revealed that when he was a child, he was always laughed at like Nobita, so he had decided to create Paradapia to control people's minds through brainwashing. He moves Paradapia by travel through time over the town where Nobita they lived, to be going to brainwash this entire town, finally failed under the obstruction of everyone, so he go out to destroy Paradapia causing it would to crash in this town and escape before Marimba can catch him. Nobita's group immediately evacuated all residents to Zeppelin Time Airship to leave Paradapia, and then the airship descended on the mountain behind the school due to a lack of energy. And Sonya tries to use the Shrink Light shrink Paradapia to minimize the damage when it explodes. After the residents are safely evacuated, the group immediately sees another Zeppelin Time Airship landing on the mountain. Nobita realized they were back at the right time which the day when they set out to search for Utopia and rushed to find Doraemon, who had turned into a blue bug, to bring him back to normal. Doraemon's group of friends supports Sonya to shrink Paradapia, but this isn't possible. Nobita suddenly remembered the 4-dimensional Garbage Bag that Doraemon used to remove some items that are no longer used, so the group decided to enlarge the garbage bag to accommodate Parapadia. Despite its successful deployment, an explosion caused by the garbage bag was still unavoidable. Sonya decided to drop all of Doraemon's Bamboo Pinwheels and then he single-handedly lifted the garbage bag containing Paradapia and exploded with it. Dr. Ray gets arrested by the time police after receiving a call from Marimba.

A few days later, Marimba returned to find Doraemon's group, she announced that the time police had caught Ray and thanking them for letting Ray to be arrested for good before moving on for her another mission, and the residents of Paradapia were also resettled. Minutes later, Sonya's memory module fell from the sky in front of his group of friends. Doraemon goes to the 22nd century to have Sonya restored in a new body with the intact memory module, and returns with a newfound hope that the group will meet Sonya again someday.

Soundtrack
The theme song is "Paradise" by NiziU.

Development
Takumi Doyama, who worked on the storyboards and directing of the "Doraemon" TV anime, was appointed as the director. The script was written by Ryota Furusawa, who will be joining "Doraemon" for the first time. The character designer was Maiko Kobayashi, who participated in the original drawings of the TV anime and movie "Doraemon" and was the animated character designer and animation director of the "Boku wa Robot Goshi no Kimi ni Koi wo Suru" anime PV. Continuing from the previous work, "Movie Doraemon: Nobita's Little Space War 2021" (2022). Takayuki Hattori will also work on the soundtrack of this work. Illustrator Yo Shimizu was responsible for creating key visuals such as posters.

Furusawa had been offered a screenplay a few years prior to this work, but at that point Furusawa refused, and this was when he wanted to join the work and try something new. 9[ Executive producer Shin-Ei Douga's Susumu Nakajima first met Furusawa in early 2020.

Director Doyama has a connection with Yoshihiro Osugi, who was the chief director of the "Doraemon" series at the time and participated as a storyboard on "Hatsumaker de Great Invention". After that, working on the 2019 birthday special "Future Labyrinth Okashi Castle" triggered a film director's offer. Furusawa had already set up the initial plot when Doyama was made the offer, and the timing was said to be about to find the first draft.

Screenwriting
At first, Furusawa had stories about where the adventure was going to go, and the town where Nobita and his friends lived were also those who lived through the scenes of the adventure and made a story that was "only completed (discarded) in Nobita's neighborhood". Nakajima said, "It's like if you take a different path from every place they go, you'll find a ghost castle there and they'll do new things by changing your daily life a bit so you don't leave the city you live in. According to Furusawa, the staff asked him to go on an adventure somewhere and he decided to go with the "sky" used.

Promotion
On July 6, 2022, the announcement was made, followed by the release of the image, homepage, and a 30-second special video. The title and promotional video aired on Animation TV on July 9. On September 15, it was announced the movie's premiere date is on March 3, 2023, it was revealed alongside its designation as the opener for the "Ideal Cat Robot Competition." Ren Nagase's appearance as a guest voice actor was announced on TV Asahi's "Music Station" on November 4, along with the release of a second 30-second special video.

On December 4th, a new visual tagline was unveiled, coinciding with the announcement of Marina Inoue and Inori Minase joining as guest voice actors. Notably, this marks Inoue's return to the Doraemon movie franchise since her last appearance in "Doraemon: Nobita's Space Heroes" back in 2015. Additionally, it was revealed during NiziU's performance at Kyocera Dome Osaka on December 18th that they sing the theme song "Paradise" for the movie, accompanied by the release of a third 30-second special video and a 90-second trailer on the same day. This marks the first time a female artist has been selected for a Doraemon movie theme song since Miwa's "360°" in 2015. On January 6, 2023, it was announced that Ryota Yamazato and Miki Fujimoto will be guests voice actors. In celebration with Cat Day on with February 22, Ren Nagase and NiziU's commentary videos were posted on Twitter.

The movie premiered on March 3, and a memorial stage was held at TOHO Cinemas Roppongi Hills.

Release
The film was released in theaters on 3 March 2023 in Japan. Vietnamese film distributor Lotte Cinema released this film in Vietnam on 26 May 2023. It was released in China on 1 June 2023, and in Taiwan on 21 July 2023. The film was released by Odex in Malaysia and Singapore on 27 July 2023. Odex also release the film in Myanmar on 18 August 2023.

Box office
According to Box Office Mojo, the film collected $34,524,910 as of 19 June 2023.