Doraemon Movie 31: Shin Nobita to Tetsujin Heidan - Habatake Tenshi-tachi

When people say it's the best Doraemon movie so far its not an understatement.
The vibe the asthetics everything is just so magnificent. It's Evangelion for grade schoolers.
The lore is so perfect it draws you in and with it's likable ensemble of characters there's nothing to complain.
The music is good and the when the insert song rolls, it's one of the most emotional moment. It's a remake of a classic 1986 movie but unlike most other cases the remake is actually quite better than the original.
If you are 16-17+ it's not this movie will force you to think too deeply or stuff ... but the nostalgia of childhood mixed with the plot is enough to make a man's heart cry.

As I didn't see any other reviews drawing the parallels, I'll try to point it out:

This is a well-written Doctor Who story in the disguise of a kid's anime.

Rights, I don't mean literally a Doctor Who story. There are significant differences. As Doraemon's target audience would be kids primarily, there is less made-up-but-fun pseudo-science. The plot is pushed by miraculous tools from the future whose mechanisms are not explained. And the treatment of time travel isn't the most satisfying: after changing a moment in the past, the effect is only a momentary miracle in the present where the alien robots disappear, leaving the states of ... affairs up to that point unchanged. A more satisfying one, for me, would be for the whole story to 'not have happened', and with the group looking nostalgically at an angel they couldn't have known flying past. But, those are but details.

The reason I compare this to Doctor Who stories is simply that they build a fantastic world in the same way and have the characters adventure in them in almost the same manner. Like a few good Doctor Who stories, the intro to the adventures are very casual, and the story just unfolds into something grand as it continues. Then, there are some nice thought experiments. In this case, robots worshiping a God and believing that the world is theirs to rule over, and some other robot politics. Granted, they are too quickly glossed over to be seen as the main theme, but still a nice thing to have. In fact, it's nice to have them just pointed out but not overtly emphasised, so that we get to think about them while not feeling as if being lectured on some cliched 'life lessons'. Finally, the story ends happily, quite an important factor for me for such adventure stories.

I'm not sure the above is enough to compel you to watch this kid's animated movie. Just some concluding remarks that I may or may not have justified: it's more engaging than the old Doctor Who, with cool animation and some great action; it's more wholesome than the new Doctor Who, with no (honestly quite unentertaining for me) cheeky romantic subplots and no condescending political-correctness lecturing.

Alright for kid’s movie. Average otherwise.

This is pretty much the standard new edition Doraemon movie, with plot more serious than a usual tv episodes, some attempt at tugging at heartstrings near the end, and higher production value. Beyond that, it’s the usual Doraemon stuff – that, as I should probably disclose, I’m not that much of a fan of.

The movie has some interesting concepts like the robot religion or robot supremacists that could be getting some more detailed exploration would this not have been a kids movie. Other than that, the movie is full of elements that have been done before (most notably the whole ... “enemy turned into a tsundere ally that puts themselves in danger for the good guys” schtick). But again, this is a kids movie, so for that standard it’s not bad, just don’t expect to find some hidden gem if you’re an adult watcher. It’s watchable even if you’re grown up, but that’s it, no masterpiece here.

On the unintended intriguing parts of the movie, it introduces yet another morally questionable gadget, this time the Talk Box. "No matter what you put in this box, it will instantly become friendly, and become able to chat with you by it's own free will" – I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like straight out brainwashing. So much that it potentially ruins all the development of said character, as you could pretty much assume Pippo got brainwashed at the start to become friendly and this change didn’t come from seeing humans in different light – it was as an effect of another machine modifying him. Shizuka almost accidentally committing a mass murder was also curious – thanks god that building was supposedly empty, amrite?

To give some positive notes, the final action scene is quite good, largely thanks to the soundtrack. That being said, it’s hard to take any stakes seriously in any setting that has established option of time travel. Heck, the time travel directly gets used in this movie.

Overall, if you’re a Doraemon fan or a kid, this might be one of your favourite Doraemon movies. Otherwise, watch this if you’re bored or something, but don’t set your expectations too high.