Assuming you're worthless is the worst thing you can do.
” — Nobita Nobi, Doraemon (manga)
Nobita Nobi (野比 のび太Nobi Nobita), known simply as Noby (a possible diminutive of his Japanese name) in the American and UK versions, is the main protagonist of the Doraemon franchise. He was a failure of a person until Doraemon came from the 22nd century to aid him so he could have a better future in life.
Nobita is a boy of average height with fair skin. He usually wears a yellow shirt and navy blue shorts. He has straight black hair, black eyes and wears big round glasses. His appearance remains unchanged in every anime & manga adaption, except his height.
In the 1973 anime, Nobita had black hair, round glasses and a red shirt with navy blue shorts. He was also shorter than his other versions.
Nobita in the early episodes of the 1979 anime
Nobita in the later episodes of the 1979 anime
In the early episodes of the 1979 anime, Nobita wears a yellow shirt and navy blue shorts but still has black hair. He is also a little taller. In the later episodes he is a lot taller than his other versions, in fact, the tallest among all the versions. His black hair, glasses, and yellow shirt remained the same.
Nobita in the 2005 anime, before the 2017 animation update
Nobita after the 2017 animation update in the 2005 anime
Nobita is of medium height in the 2005 anime. He wears different clothing in many episodes. His signature clothing, however, is a red or yellow polo shirt and navy blue shorts. His glasses and black hair remain the same.
The CGI Nobita has realistic straight black hair with bangs and a yellow polo shirt with a white collar, blue navy shorts with blue jay shoes. His eyes are much bigger and now remain unchanged even without or with glasses than his other adaptions and his glasses have black frames.
Personality
Nobita is the hero at best and the villain at worst. At the beginning of the series, Nobita is a rather lazy person who has a cycle of constantly napping after school, keeping him up late when he wakes up late for school. This cycle of laziness occurs almost every day, keeping him up late at night and wake up late the next morning, hindering him academically. Nobita is very dependent on Doraemon and begs for multiple things, much to his disapproval. Many things that Nobita wishes for include; vengeance on his bullies, a better product than what Suneo brags about, and privileges.
While his laziness is an issue, he slacks around in school. He regularly arrives late, is tardy with homework, and gets 0% on both exams and tests. The Classroom Teacher usually punishes him for this with after-school detentions or making him stand by the classroom door for long periods of time. His refusal, procrastination and dislike of studying while at home puts him back from excelling even further. His mother is constantly disappointed and angry with his lackluster performance. He later tries to hide his poor scores, which has proven unsuccessful. He also doesn't like to study, which only further hinders his performance in school. Nobita is not very athletic either, much to Gian's frustration. He is terrible at baseball and many other sports, often letting down Gian's baseball team. He doesn't have very good endurance as he run, walk or swim for a short period of time then easily get tired and exhausted very quickly, much to his friends' frustration.
Despite Nobita's flawed personality, he is a good person that is a rather likable character with a couple of positive traits. He is good-hearted and generous to others as well. He is known to take pity on stray animals and is kind to most people who needs help.
Nobita's best trait is his great creativity. His thoughts from out of the box lead to new and bizarre ideas of ways to use Doraemon's high tech devices. An example of this is the new sport of free flying with the use of Doraemon's "power of wind" fans (fans that can create a gust of wind with just a gentle swish) and how he used the voice hardener, a device considered useless to Doraemon, for transportation. Another example of his creativity was when he was provided with an imagination pill to make him think that he was in a swimming pool while being taught how to swim. Unfortunately, he imagined a preschool pool at which he accidentally stepped on a child's foot. In one of his dreams, he, as a genius, successfully produced a rocket to Mars in his bedroom. Both events show Nobita's amazing talent at thinking outside the box. Nobita's creativity is proof enough of his high intelligence.
Despite not doing well academically, occasionally, Nobita is able to easily score a good mark or do well on a test. His imagination is the reason why he can write a great narrative, even with so many spelling and grammatical mistakes. Although not good at drawing, he still managed to write a 32 paged comic. While considered clumsy, he possesses unparalleled marksmanship. He is also good at weaving string figures (cat's cradle) and has risked his life to save towns and people in full-length movies.
Nobita and Doraemon can be called the closest friends of all time. They both have a strong bond and will never leave each other's side. As seen in many episodes, Nobita and Doraemon cannot live apart from each other and are always by each other's side, in times of danger, times of happiness, or times of sadness, despite Doraemon's constant annoyance of Nobita's lazy behavior and habit of pouncing on and/or wrapping his arms around him while whining and crying like a baby. Sometimes when villains pose as Doraemon, only Nobita could properly recognize him.
Shizuka is Nobita's childhood friend whom he's had a crush on for a very long time. He often uses Doraemon's gadgets to impress or help Shizuka but is unintentionally trumped by Hidetoshi Dekisugi. Despite this, Nobita will eventually marry Shizuka and have a child named Nobisuke. Shizuka starts off as a friend to him, but eventually develops a secret crush on him (in Doraemon: Nobita's Three Visionary Swordsmen, Shizuka dreamed that she was Princess Shizuka, married Nobita, whom she dreamed he was Silver Knight Nobitania). Sometimes Nobita is seen walking through the Anywhere Door (Doko Demo Doa in Japanese) and witnessing Shizuka taking a bath purposely or accidentally. Whenever Nobita doesn’t stop looking at Shizuka while bathing and continues blabbing or something else, she literally smacks him, splashes him with water, and/or throws a lot of things at him until he leaves. Whenever Nobita says something rude either purposely or accidentally, Shizuka would take offense to the point of snubbing and leaving him for his bluntness and rudeness, which leaves Nobita feeling stupid and guilty for driving her away. While they quarrel very rarely, they usually reconcile anyway.
In the episode The Two Shizuka-chan, Shizuka and Nobita went shopping together and Nobita bought a gadget that could create an aggressive, energetic clone of anyone. Near the end of the episode, when he looked at two Shizukas, he couldn't distinguish them from each other and started asking them miscellaneous questions about himself. Both Shizukas answered the questions correctly, so he instead asked if Shizuka liked him and both of them started blushing. Though the real Shizuka stayed silent, whereas the clone is disgusted and yelled at him, allowing Nobita to identify the original and destroy the clone. This is one of the many pieces of evidence that Shizuka really likes Nobita.
Nobita, I actually really want to be friends but I wouldn't admit it...
” — Gian's true feelings about as seen in one 1979 anime episode
Gian and Nobita
While Gian is typically a bully that torments him, their relationship is somewhat good as sometimes they gang up on Suneo, and (though slightly forceful) Nobita tries to help Gian if possible. He often gets beaten by Gian, who could even claim "If I don't bully Nobita a day, I can't eat and sleep any more." Gian has many reasons or none for constantly wanting to beat up Nobita, such as whenever Nobita teases him, being blunt, and ruining his day either purposely or accidentally. Basically, Gian thinks he is trying to teach Nobita a lesson in being more respectful to him or simply he takes so much joy in making Nobita even more miserable than before. Gian can be extremely dependent on Nobita and always asks or tells him to do whatever he wants and gives him the most impossible tasks. Nobita claims that he hates Gian so much that he wanted him to get him out of his life forever. But during the Truthful Robot episode, their counterparts do not wish to be hostile. They are also shown to be very close to each other during plots with more threatening antagonists. In the movie Nobita's South Sea Adventure, when Nobita falls into the sea Gian holds his hand and tells him not to let go .Also in some other episodes he helps Nobita, as in one episode, Nobita gets sick, and Gian helps him off the ground.
Here, you can read my comic! I'll get some snacks for you!
” — Suneo to Nobita after Nobita rescued him from being beat up by Gian
Suneo and Nobita
Nobita's arch-rival and friend. He is a fox-faced rich kid who loves to flaunt his material wealth with everyone, which makes Nobita very jealous, contributing to many plots where Nobita seeks retribution, often with or without the support of Doraemon. He is often seen with Gian, being forced to bully Nobita, though deep down he sometimes actually feels sorry for him as he also finds Gian somewhat disagreeable. He has a habit of inviting Gian and Shizuka to something or someplace but always leaves Nobita out with a bad reason. While Gian is a bully to Nobita, Suneo is more of an irritant to Nobita due to his arrogant attitude. Suneo sometimes blames Nobita for every bad deed Gian comes to know about, like drawing Gian on the school board. They are shown to be laughing and joking together in some scenes and may gang up on Gian if he begins harassing both. Nobita and Suneo are good friends, but sometimes conflicts do arise between them.
” — Nobita questioning why Dekisugi likes doing Home Ec, Winning Shizuka-chan Back Part 2
Nobita's one-sided proclaimed eternal rival. He is jealous that Shizuka is friendly to him and that he tends to do better than him at almost everything. They are different in many ways. Nobita can be friends with Dekisugi if he doesn't go out with Shizuka. The jealousy eventually disappears when Nobita grows up and marries Shizuka (proven when Nobita agrees to look after Dekisugi's son, Hideyo, when Dekisugi and his wife have to travel to Mars).
Despite the jealousy, Nobita is eager to help Dekisugi. In It's Solved! The Dekisugi Case, Nobita managed to catch the culpit who harrased Dekisugi overnight through the telephone calls in which Dekisugi thanked Nobita for helping him.
Nobita's mother. She often scolds him for bad results on tests and not doing housework. Still, she sometimes conferences with him about his bad results on tests and not doing housework. For obvious reasons, Nobita views his mother who is brute, mean, heartless, dismissive, and unsympathetic who wants to make Nobita suffer to the point of apologizing to her for no reason, but she really wants what is best for him. He even believes that she is more terrifying than anything else, including monsters.
Nobita's father. He usually goes to work and sometimes sees him when he is at home. He is caring and less strict than Nobita's mother. He's shown to have a more calming nature. Even though there are moments where he has been angry at Nobita, he feels guilty about it later. He is in the same league as Nobita when he faces Tamako, sometimes even forced to play the "bad cop" by his wife. Nevertheless he is shown always compassionate to his family. His name is in hiragana, while Nobita's son, also Nobisuke, is named in katakana.
Nobisuke is Nobita and Shizuka's first and the only known child. Unlike Shizuka, Nobita doesn't seem to be troubled by Nobisuke's behavior and they are often on good terms. His name is in katakana, while Nobita's father, also Nobisuke, is named in hiragana.
” — Sewashi to Nobita, All the Way From the Country of the Future
Sewashi hugging Nobita
Nobita's great-great grandson who put Doraemon on the 22nd Century to take care of Nobita's better future life. Sewashi is naturally close to his ancestor, as they often encounter each other at similar ages.
Names in different languages
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Language
Name
Arabic
?
عامر (before) نوبي (present) Amer (before) Noby (present)
Bengali
নবিতা নবি Nobita Nobi
Chinese Chinese
野比大雄 Yěbǐ Dàxióng
English EnglishEnglish
Nobita Nobi (nicknamed Noby)
Filipino Filipino
Nobita
Hebrew
?
נובו Novo
Hindi
नोबिता नोबी nobita nobi
Japanese Japanese
野比 のび太 Nobi Nobita
Italian Italian
Nobita Nobi
Korean Korean
노진구 No Jingu
Spanish Spanish
Nobita Nobi
Tamil Tamil
நோபீட்டா
Thai Thai
โนบิ โนบิตะ Nobi Nobita
Urdu
?
{{{Urdu}}}
Vietnamese Viatnamese
Nôbita (before) Nobi Nobita (present)
Etymology
Nobita's surname Nobi means "field, wilderness" (野) (no) and "ratio, proportion" (比) (hi/bi).
Trivia
In the manga, when Nobita grows up, he has eye surgery. It doesn't happen in the 1979 anime.
Nobita's eyes are never drawn consistently without glasses. Sometimes they look like sleepy eyes, sometimes they are black dots like Gian, and sometimes, like in the case of the recent movies, they are normal eyes same to Shizuka.
When he is related to birds, Nobita is always related to the sparrow, representing normality and weakness.
When it comes to animals, Nobita usually is a turtle, representing weakness and his slow moving.
Nobita carries a Take-copter in his pocket all the time so that whenever he needs to fly he can use it, but it's never referenced consistently.
His name comes from the word "Nobita (伸びた)" which means "to grow up and to be strong and clear". His name is considered to be combined with his father "Nobisuke" and his mother "Tamako".
Nobita's name is not actually changed in the English dub. The name "Noby" is only a nickname (and diminutive) and his name is still actually Nobita. This is stated in the official Doraemon USA website. The only characters who actually had their names changed were Suneo and Shizuka (to "Sneech" and "Sue", respectively), as "Big G" is also a nickname.
In the first few stories of the manga, Nobita is implied to be nine years old. This is proved when, in the story Memories of Grandma, Nobita and Doraemon go back to the time when Nobita was three years old. Nobita mentions that they have gone six years in the past, implying that he is currently nine.
Nobita's world record of falling asleep is 0.93 seconds.
Nobita's glowing eyes
So far, he is the only main character to have flashy, glowing white eyes. This is frequently shown in the 2005 anime. This most likely due to him wearing glasses unlike other main characters and same applied to Tamako.
Nobita is sometimes addressed by his surname with Japanese suffixes by many people.
Nobita is the only one to feature the most past and future versions of himself out of all the main characters.
Chinese
English 
English
Filipino
Japanese
Italian
Korean
Spanish
Tamil
Thai
Viatnamese
