Anime / Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas

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The Pirate-themed adventure of Doraemon and friends.

Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas is a 1998 anime film, the 19th Doraemon (Film Series) movie based on the Doraemon's Long Tales installment of the same name. It's also the first Doraemon film released after the death of the franchise's creator, Fujio F. Fujiko.

While in the middle of a group research on marine life with his usual team of friends, Nobita begins daydreaming on becoming a pirate and going on a swashbuckling adventure. After watching a news broadcast on discovery of pirate treasure in the Atlantic, Nobita managed to convince Doraemon to bring him and his friends, Shizuka, Suneo and Gian, on an adventure in the high seas during the The Golden Age of Piracy. But after a run-in with some real pirates led by none other than Captain William Kidd himself (yes, that William Kidd) alongside Kidd's niece, the Pirate Girl Betty, Doraemon and friends are convinced to help Kidd and his crew locate Kidd's missing brother and nephew, abducted by sea monsters weeks earlier and their fates unknown.

And yes, there are Sea Monsters in this one.

Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure in the South Seas contain examples of:

• Adaptation Expansion: The story is an adaptation of a short from the manga itself, where news of hidden pirate treasure discovered in the Atlantic inspires Nobita to convince Doraemon to bring him on an epic journey while dragging Suneo and Gian along to portray pirates. In fact, the anime movie straight-up lifts Stock Footage from the manga episode in a handful of scenes!
• All Myths Are True: As revealed in the story, the myths involving the Behemoth, Kraken, Leviathan, Mokele-mbembe, and various sea monsters throughout history are genetically-modified monstrosities created by Dr. Clone's experiments, which Cash is funding in order to be sold to the black market.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore: The original Japanese poster, displayed above, has all the male main characters looking menacing and angry, while the female leads look shocked. In contrast, in the Spanish theatrical poster◊, everyone has a friendly, non-threatening smile, and Captain Kidd is nowhere to be seen.
• Behemoth Battle: One of Doraemon's gadgets used in this movie is the Hypnotizing Megaphone, which works even on non-living objects like rocks. When Cash starts unleashing his creations on the heroes, Shizuka used this gadget to turn a pile of rocks into a Rock Monster and fend off Cash's monstrosities.
• Big Bad: Mr. Cash, a billionaire from the future who profits through performing businesses with the black market by selling genetically-modified hybrid monsters, with his Evilutionary Biologist lackey Dr. Clone in charge of various experiments while having his minions enslaving the local pirate population as his slaves and labourers.
• Bizarre Taste in Music: In the finale, Gian picking up Doraemon's Automated Microphone Gadget makes him involuntarily belt out into a massive musical number, much to the horror of Shizuka and Suneo who's nearby. But the gang's new ally, Pirate Girl Betty, instead cheers for joy because she finds Gian's voice to be angelic, begging him to sing another song (which Suneo and Shizuka responds with a Big "NO!" - before everyone's forced to flee because the entire base is going to collapse). To wit, Gian in canon is a Dreadful Musician whose singing borders on being The Dreaded amongst his peers, and in the same scene Gian's song is enough to frighten away gigantic eldritch monsters about to attack the gang. Considering Betty is from four centuries ago her preference in music might be a little different from present-day standards.
• Brick Joke: Doraemon loses his pocket early in their journey and completely forgets about it. At the end of the manga, as Nobita is going through a book about pirate tools, they found out that the pocket is among them, being labelled as "trash bag".
• Chekhov's Gun: Earlier on, Doraemon - upon hearing the news about the discovery of actual pirate treasure - quickly takes out the Dream Checking Machine to pinch himself to see if he's imagining things. Towards the end of the story as Doraemon and Cash gets swallowed alive by Leviathan, the Dream Checking Machine is the unlikely gadget that saves both of them by pinching Leviathan's stomach from the inside, making the monster regurgiate both of them.
• Dirty Coward: Cash may be all high-and-mighty when bossing his underlings, indulging in Evil Gloating, ordering his slaves to be flogged and rubbing his power in front of his captives, but the moment Cash and Doraemon falls into the Leviathan’s stomach at the end, Cash loses it and begs for Doraemon to save him.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: The time distortion causes Doraemon's pocket to go haywire, first ejecting random tools before disappearing entirely. As a result, the gang have to make do with the leftover tools, since the pocket remains unavailable until the end of the story.
• Dreadful Musician: Once again, Gian's horrible singing is weaponise to knockout one of Cash's mutants.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Gonzalez managed to infiltrate Cash's hideout by dressing as one of his armed guards, with Pancho as his Trojan Prisoner. They managed to free Captain Kidd, Nobita, Doraemon, and all the imprisoned heroes in the process.
• The Dung Ages: Betty seems quite surprised with the idea of bathing when Shizuka asks for the bathroom, telling her that people usually clean themselves in the sea, and rarely at that. That said, she understands the concept quickly and creates a makeshift shower for her to use.
• Epic Ship-on-Ship Action: Right off the bat, Doraemon and friends end up being flung in the middle of a massive pirate battle between Captain William Kidd's forces and enemy pirates.
• Especially Zoidberg: This line from Cash when he decides to order the Leviathan to devour everyone:
  "Devour them all! Especially that stupid blue raccoon!"
• Evilutionary Biologist: Dr. Clone, who serves the Big Bad Mr. Cash, is a genetics researcher from the future specializing in combining various DNA of sea creatures and fusing them into monstrosities to be sold off in the black market. His inventions ends up fueling the beliefs of sea monsters including the Leviathan, Behemoth, and Krakken.
• Glass Smack and Slide: When Nobita and Doraemon, struggling with Cash in the control room, falls out to the cockpit of the tranquilizer-equipped warship, Nobita gets comically splatting in front of the ship’s cockpit, much to the surprise of those inside the ship – Suneo, Gian, Shizuka and Ruffin.
• Heroic Dolphin: Jack's pet dolphin, Ruffin, who helps carrying it's master (and later Nobita) around, right up to having a Big Damn Heroes moment in the ending after Cash's defeat, when Ruffin personally leads a flock of dolphins into saving all the heroes from Cash's Collapsing Lair. It turns out Ruffin is actually a secret agent from the 22nd Century, dispatched by the Future Time Patrol in order to investigate Mr. Cash's activities.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Suneo's skills in piloting his RC planes turned out useful when the gang finds their way into the cockpits of Cash's warship base control panel. And somehow it works.
• Inevitable Waterfall: Nobita and Jack, riding on Ruffin, inevitably falls down one of these while cruising along a river.
• Kraken and Leviathan: Fittingly enough, the Leviathan is the most powerful creation and the ultimate trump card of Mr. Cash, which he sics on the heroes in a last-ditch attempt to kill everybody.
• Language Barrier: Nobita cannot converse with Jack in the first half of the story, since he does not have the Translator Jelly. That said, the two still manage to become friends using impromptu sign language alone.
• Laxative Prank: An unintended one. When fighting one of the mutants, Suneo feeds it with what he thought is Momotaro's Dumpling, which tames any wild animals. However, he only realizes that it is a different brand of dumpling called Buttock Dumpling, which serves as a laxative. This causes the mutant to leave to do its business.
• Man-Eating Plant: Nobita and Jack gets attacked by a giant plant which swallows Jack in one gulp, until Nobita managed to leap atop the plant's head and repeatedly smash it with a rock forcing the plant to spit out Jack. Cue Nobita relieved at Jack being alright... until Jack points out the Cranial Eruptions on his head unintentionally caused by Nobita.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: Most of Dr. Clone's creations are hybrids made by fusing living, captured animals, and modified to become savage beasts, including a giant tiger with an elephant's head, giant frog-fish fusions, flying spider-bugs, and the like. He's in fact planning to forcefully fuse Ruffin together with a Giant Crab if not for Nobita and Jack's intervention.
• My Greatest Failure: Gian takes it the hardest over Nobita's presumed death as he was the one who let go of Nobita's hand when they ship capsized...
• My Greatest Second Chance: ...which is why when he grabs hold of Betty's hand when they are in a river, he swears he will never let go this time.
• No Historical Figures Were Harmed: The Pirate Captain benefactor of Doraemon and friends turns out to be none other than Captain William Kidd himself.
• Not Completely Useless: The Dream Checking Machine (a mechanical arm on wheels) is mostly portrayed as a useless gadget used for gags and laughs, and have not been featured in any previous adventures (save for Doraemon: The Record of Nobita : Spaceblazer as a cheap joke when Nobita questions if he's dreaming - cue Doraemon using said gadget to pinch Nobita's cheeks in a comical way). But in this one, this gadget gets prematurely activated into pinching Leviathan's insides, making Leviathan cough out Doraemon and Cash saving them both from being digested alive.
• Ocean of Adventure: The entire story is an epic pirate adventure on the Southern Seas, filled with hostile pirates and giant sea monsters.
• Pirate Booty: The adventure is kicked off when Nobita hears a news report regarding the discovery of a pirate ship containing booty worth 10 million yen, which he ends up dragging his friends Gian, Suneo and Shizuka into. And then they discover a far bigger conspiracy.
• Pirate Girl: Betty, the niece of Captain Kidd who is seeking her missing brother Jack and her father. Gian had a minor crush on her after saving her from a random pirate, a gesture that she does return near the end of the story.
• Remembered Too Late: Played for Laughs when the team are crossing a bridge suspended above a deep chasm. Doraemon, remembering the bridge as part of the "Indira Johnson" simulated adventure set, tries recalling what's going to happen next.
  Doraemon: Ah, now I remember. If I'm not mistaken, this bridge's going to collapse.
  [cue the bridge breaking apart - while everyone is standing on it]
  Literally Everyone Else: Why didn't you tell us earlier?
• Sea Monster: Most of the abominations created by Dr. Clone, funded by Cash to be sold to the black market. With the Leviathan as the largest and most powerful of them all.
• Shout-Out: After being denied an adventure (initially), Nobita then asks for Doraemon to use one of his virtual reality gadgets to make an adventure of his own. Doraemon complies by taking out the "Indira Johnson Home Adventure Playset". Also, the route through the Booby Trap-laden cave leading to Cash's underground hideout is another nod to the Indy films.
• Smart Cetaceans: Ruffin the dolphin is a secret agent from the Time Police and can speak fluently by telepathy.
• Talking Animal: Downplayed, but Ruffin the Dolphin can talk using the telepathic headband on it's head, and can understand humans perfectly well.
• Talk to the Fist: When Gonzales, disguised as one of Cash's masked guards and pulling a Trojan Prisoner ploy with Captain Kidd as his captive fails to convince a pair of real guards to let him pass, Kidd instead raise a fist and swiftly punched the two guards into submission.
  "Okay, down to business."
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The end credits show what happened to the characters after the film, including the main characters going home, Doraemon replacing his pocket, and the pirates continuing their adventures.
• Working on the Chain Gang: The fate that befell William Kidd's brother / Betty and Jacks' father, as well as dozens upon dozens of kidnapped and enslaved pirates, to excavate tunnels and caverns for expanding Cash's underground lair.