Thinking you're no good and 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 in the American and UK versions, is the protagonist of the Doraemon series. Nobita 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 voiced by Yoshiko Ota in the 1973 series, Noriko Ohara from 1979-March 2005, and Megumi Ohara from April 2005 onwards.
Nobita's signature colour is yellow and he is usually represented by the colour.
Appearance
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.
Nobita in the 1973 anime
In the 1973 anime, Nobita has black hair, round glasses and a red shirt with navy blue shorts. He is 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 in Season 14 (2018)
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 shirt with a white collar and buttons. His eyes are much bigger 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.
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 in need of help, sometimes even Gian and Suneo Honekawa, who bully him often. 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, Unlike Dekisugi Hidetoshi, he lags behind in showing it.
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 has never missed his mark using a gun, showing that he is a very skilled marksman. 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.
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 trumped by Dekisugi Hidetoshi. 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 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 refuses to 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, by the end of the episode they usually makeup and become friends again.
In one episode, Shizuka and Nobita went shopping together and Nobita bought a gadget that could create a clone of any person but an aggressive one. He gave it to Shizuka, who created a clone of herself because Nobita was bad at shopping and was easily bored. Shizuka's clone was aggressive and kept pushing Nobita to search clothes for Shizuka, who had kept on bringing babyish clothes for her and when he found a good t-shirt he accidentally gave it to a girl with the same hairstyle as Shizuka but with different clothes. Shizuka's clone saw this and got angry at Nobita for not knowing Shizuka's clothes. Shizuka and her clone abandoned Nobita and continued shopping. Nobita was sitting on a bench in the mall and he saw Shizuka and her clone fighting. Shizuka's clone was grabbing Shizuka's arm and forcing her to buy an inappropriate t-shirt.
Nobita saw this and told Shizuka to make her clone disappear with the gadget he gave her to borrow for some time. Shizuka took out the gadget and her clone snatched it but it fell on the ground and Nobita retrieved it. When he looked at Shizuka he noticed that there were two of her. He got confused and started asking them questions about his test and the food that he likes a lot. Both Shizukas answered the questions correctly. He then asked if Shizuka liked him and both of them started blushing. One of them was blushing and stammering and said 'I-like' and the other said 'Oh God, Shizuka! Don't tell me that you like a dumb boy like him!' The other Shizuka was blushing and smiling. Nobita found out the clone and made her disappear. This is one of the many pieces of evidence that Shizuka really likes Nobita. In fact, Nobita and Shizuka are really good friends.
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
While typically a bully, their relationship is 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. Gian beats and/or insults Nobita often, he even said: "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, both Nobita's robot and Gian's robot would rather be friends than enemies. Gian is usually the first one to support Nobita's decisions in the movies. They are also shown to be very close to each other, 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
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. He is often seen with Gian, being forced to bully Nobita, though deep down he sometimes actually feels sorry for him. 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, and Nobita usually gets him back with a gadget. They are shown to be laughing and joking together in some scenes, and sometimes they gang up on Gian. Nobita and Suneo are good friends, but sometimes conflicts do arise between them.
— Nobita complaining about Shizuka going with Dekisugi
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. This jealousy eventually disappears when Nobita grows up and marries Shizuka (proven when Nobita agrees to look after Dekisugi's son, Hideo, when Dekisugi and his wife have to travel to Mars).
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 to be a scary, heartless, dismissive, unsympathetic demon 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.
When Nobita first met him, he challenged him. If Nobita won, he would join Dorarhino's football team to save Minidora from the Rat Robot Academy. Although that time, he won thanks to Doramed III using Kid's acrophobia to their advantage (the battle stage was extended from the skyscraper and the floor was glass), Nobita's gunmanship skill eventually start rivaling Kid's and they worked together to save Doraemon from Granton.
Thank you, Ichi! You always had it everywhere with you!
”
— said by Nobita when Ichi reveals that he still has the part of the Kendama., Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey
Nobita's first (and possibly the only) pet dog in the movie Doraemon: Nobita in the Wan-Nyan Spacetime Odyssey. Nobita first found the stray puppy when he was looking for Suneo's lost baseball bat that Ichi found. He almost drowned when getting the bat, but Nobita saved him. When Nobita and Doraemon built the animal kingdom in the past (using the time machine), he taught Ichi how to play Hammer and Ball, and promised Ichi to come back and play with him again the next day.
The ball string was broken accidentally and Ichi treated it as a memorial and kept waiting for Nobita. Nobita never came back because of the time machine accident. Ichi eventually grew up and became the "No (from Nobita's name)" country's first president. When Ichi became old, he built a time machine of his own. Due to the time hole problem, he ended up changing back into a child, losing his memory and landing 1,000 years after the time he came from. His memory eventually gets restored at the end of the movie.
Names in different languages
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Language
Name
Bengali
নবিতা নবি Nobita Nobi
Chinese
野比大雄 Yěbǐ Dàxióng
English
Nobita Nobi (nicknamed Noby)
Filipino
Nobita
Hindi
नोबिता नोबी nobita nobi
Japanese
野比 のび太 Nobi Nobita
Korean
노진구 No Jingu
Thai
โนบิ โนบิตะ Nobi Nobita
Vietnamese
Nôbita (before) Nobi Nobita (present)
Trivia
In the manga, when Nobita grows up, he has eye surgery. It doesn't happen in the 1979 anime, however, it does happen in the 2005 anime.
Nobita's eyes are never drawn consistently. Sometimes they look like the number three, sometimes they are black beaded, and sometimes, like in the case of the recent movies, they are normal eyes.
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.
His name comes from the word "Nobita (伸び太)" which means "to grow up and to be strong and clear".
Nobita's name is not actually changed in the English dub. The name "Noby" is only a nickname 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, 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.
