An entity with real strength should not bully the weak.
”
— Shizuka Minamoto to Gian. From the Episode: Pain Rebound Mirror
Shizuka Minamoto (源 静香Minamoto Shizuka), also known by her nickname Sue in the American and UK versions, is the tritagonist of the Doraemon franchise, being the only main female character.
In the future after marrying Nobita, she is also known as Shizuka Nobi or Mrs. Nobi.
Appearance
Shizuka's appearance has changed little over the years of the Doraemon franchise, she is slim, has a light skin color, black eyes and her hair is usually dark in color and tied up in short pigtails. She usually wears a pink dress.
In the 1973 anime, Shizuka is short, has dark brown hair, and in the episodes she appeared in, wore a short, pink dress, white socks, and red buckle shoes.
Shizuka in the early episodes of the 1979 anime
Shizuka in the later episodes of the 1979 anime
During the first few seasons of the 1979 anime, Shizuka had more of a cartoonish-look to her, with oval-shaped eyes like in the later episodes of the anime, and has mild-colored skin. Shizuka's brown hair was carried over in the 1979 anime (though it became light brown, while in the 2005 anime, Shizuka has black hair like most of the other characters) and her appearance is mostly the same as before, except she is a little taller, as an adult she has her hair tied in a bun, and some of the episodes had her wearing different colored shoes. Also, in some episodes, wore outfits other than her pink dress (for example, a red dress, or a white shirt with a brown skirt and beige sweater, or a shirt and green overalls)
Shizuka in the 2005 anime, before the 2017 animation update
Shizuka after the 2017 animation update in the 2005 anime
In the 2005 anime, Shizuka's height was shortened and her hair was changed to black to match the artwork in the manga. In older 2005 edition, shizuka appears with pink shirt and a dark blue skirt, but in the 2017 edition/animation update mostly wore a pink shirt and a red skirt, White shirt and green skirt, and banana shirt with pink skirt. In some episodes, she would wear a dress. In recent movies, Shizuka has brown eyes. Overall, much of Shizuka's appearance has remained the same over the years, with some small and sometimes unnoticeable changes.
The CGI Shizuka has realistic black hair with the bangs on both sides and dark brown oval-shaped eyes. She wears a white overall dress with a dark pink top (and white panties) underneath and yellow buckle shoes. In the sequel, the colors of the overall dress and top are swapped.
Personality
Shizuka is a smart and kind neighbourhood girl. She is, unlike Nobita, a quick-witted and very studious child. Shizuka loves to bathe and does it several times a day. Unlike Nobita, Suneo, and Gian, she is not a fan of video games for the most part.
She cares for weaker people, abused animals and neglected dolls. She wishes to be a nurse or an air-hostess when she grows up. Both jobs reflect her kind nature. Shizuka loves her dolls a lot, to the extent that she loves them more than her own friends. She once freed a little bird from a bundle of strings it got caught in. She also cares deeply for the Grandfather Tree. When she was unable to save the Grandfather Tree, she was devastated but later felt relieved when she saw a little sprout from the Grandfather Tree stump. In one episode, Doraemon, Nobita, and Shizuka put her dolls in Nobita's race cars and started racing. Nobita's car crashed and the doll fell out, and she began to cry and get angry at him. But when she sees Nobita doing the right thing or a good thing for others, it would be enough to make her genuinely forgive Nobita.
She is known to love cartoons, especially the ones which save people (Magical Girl Shizu-chan).
She is also known for sometimes taking piano lessons, which she dislikes because she likes the violin better. Her true passions are sweet potatoes and, again, the violin, in which her playing is comparable to Gian's singing in terms of how bad they are at it. Like Gian, she is also tone deaf to this horrendous violin playing. Sometimes, Shizuka's practicing disturbs the neighbors, which is why her mother would get mad at her.
Shizuka has a split personality, which is mostly shown in the 1973 anime and very early episodes of the 1979 anime. There are scenes that show her sleeping and eating at the same time, stealing her mother's lipstick for her to play with, swallowing an expensive opal (Fairly explaining, going by the 2005 anime, it's safe to assume she was too distracted by the TV to notice that her mother had left it in her peanut bowl. Her swallowing it in the first place in the 1979 anime is never explained.), and slipping over a banana peel. Also, in the episode Magical Girl Shizu-chan, she stayed outside so late at night that her mother locked her out. However, in the later episodes of the 1979 anime, she is portrayed as more "girly" and ladylike. In the 2005 anime, she is still "girly-ish" and sweet and kind, but not to the extent of the 1979 anime. In the English dub, her personality has been almost completely rewritten as a more tomboyish and athletic girl (albeit retaining her kind and sweet nature). This is a result of a screen test where American kids did not quite understand her original personality and her love of bathing has also been removed.
Doraemon is very fond of Shizuka and enjoys her company. Shizuka often invites Doraemon and Nobita to taste the cakes and baked cookies she makes. Sometimes she asks Doraemon to borrow his gadgets, which he happily agrees to do so because she is very responsible with them and never uses them for her own gain.
Shizuka loves Nobita far more than her other friends and genuinely cares for him. However, she gets angry when Nobita behaves rudely, misuses Doraemon's gadgets for bad purposes, ignores her violin practice, or sees her bathing—whether intentionally or unintentionally. In several episodes, she punishes Nobita for his outrageous behavior and scolds him sharply. Nevertheless, she forgives him once he shows remorse. As seen in many episodes, Shizuka truly loves and worries about Nobita, helping him in various ways when he is bullied by Gian and Suneo, falls and gets hurt, or faces other difficulties. Sometimes, when Nobita comes to her house, Shizuka always invites him to play together or do something fun with Doraemon. She also helps him study and invites him to taste the cakes she makes. Although Nobita is not very talented and often makes mistakes, Shizuka admires and likes his kind heart, sometimes even giving him a kiss on the cheek or a hug. Many Doraemon episodes frequently show that Shizuka has feelings for Nobita. Eventually, she will marry Nobita in the future and have a son named Nobisuke. At times, she also shows signs of having a crush on him.
Shizuka and Gian are friends, but Shizuka gets worried when Gian forcefully invites her to his music concerts or taste his horrible dish along with her other friends. In Doraemon: Nobita's Legend of the Sun King, she misunderstood and thought Nobita had beaten up Gian, and she was very concerned for him and angry at Nobita. Bully or not, this showed that Shizuka still cares about him.
Suneo and Shizuka are good friends. He invites Shizuka, Nobita, Gian, and sometimes Doraemon to his house and tries to ask them to come with him at trip (in which Nobita rarely gets a chance to come with them). Shizuka also apparently admires Suneo's drawing talent, as shown in some episodes. Although sometimes Shizuka can get annoyed with Suneo's selfishness and arrogance towards others, especially Nobita. When Suneo purposely excluded Nobita to one of his luxurious trips just to destroy Nobita's good mood, Shizuka threatened to reject his invitation if Nobita cannot come. Shizuka also appears a lot of Suneo's dreams, where he rescues her from danger or having a romantic date as tall and more attractive characters. In one episode, while Nobita imitates her voice saying, "Cookies are ready," resulting Suneo knowing that he has called Nobita.
Dekisugi is a very good friend of Shizuka. He is also well known for helping Shizuka with her studies. When Shizuka had trouble with her homework, she sometimes studied together with Dekisugi. Shizuka also often invited both Dekisugi and Nobita to her house to let them taste the desserts she made herself. Although Shizuka sometimes goes to the library with Dekisugi, unlike with other characters, she never calls him by his first name in a friendly way.
In Stand by Me Doraemon, an adult Dekisugi mentioned that he once confessed his feelings to Shizuka, but she rejected him, saying that he was “too perfect” (unlike Nobita) and would be able to live well without her. However, it is likely that Shizuka said this just to comfort Dekisugi,
since she actually had feelings for Nobita and chose him as her life partner.
Shizuka and Dekisugi are close only as friends, and although Dekisugi does not appear very often,
he sometimes plays a role in strengthening the relationship between Nobita and Shizuka.
However, since Nobita often feels inferior to Dekisugi, he sometimes becomes jealous when he sees the two spending time together.
Shizuka has an normal relationship with her mother, except when she knows she's screwed up. She cares about her mother very much. For example, in "Even Though It's Inside the Stomach Acid," Shizuka is sad she swallowed her mother's rare opal as it was a very cherished item to her.
Shizuka likes her father more than her mother. He always helps Shizuka. He says that she has taken the best decision when Shizuka accepted Nobita's proposal in the short film Nobita's the Night Before a Wedding.
The name Shizuka means "quiet" (静) (shizu) and "fragrance, fragrant" (香) (ka).
Shizuka (しずか, シズカ) is a Japanese word meaning "quiet" or "calm" (静か). It is also a Japanese given name. Though the name is unisex, it is mostly used by females.
Shizuka's surname Minamoto means "source, origin" (源).
Minamoto is also one of the three most prominent clans in Japanese history. It is listed in the Shinsen Shojiroku.
Trivia
Shizuka as a Swan
Whenever she is described or dresses up as a bird, she is always a swan, which represents her beauty.
In the original manga, Shizuka had black hair, but in the 1973 and 1979 anime (except for pilot episode), her hair was brown. Her hair was changed back to black in the 2005 anime.
In the earliest manga chapters, Shizuka can actually play violin just fine and as good as her mother. It was only in the later manga chapters that it was retconned to her being bad at it.
According to a side material, her parents named her "Shizuka" because they want her to grow up and be a proper lady.
In the American English manga, Shizuka's name isn't changed, but in the English anime dub, her name is changed to Sue. This is a shortening of the name Susan.
In the earlier Malay adaptation for the manga and anime, Shizuka's name is misspelled and mispronounced as "Sizuka".
In the 1973 anime and early episodes of the 1979 anime, Shizuka addresses Nobita as "Nobita-kun" instead of "Nobita-san".
In The Two Shizuka-chan, there were two Shizuka, to find the real Shizuka, Nobita then asked both of them several questions. And both Shizukas were able to answer correctly until the last question where Nobita asked did Shizuka likes him, then the real Shizuka just kept quiet and blushed, but the fake Shizuka mocked and insulted Nobita. From there, Nobita found the real Shizuka. So from this it can be concluded that Shizuka actually likes Nobita and have crush on him.
In the future, after becoming Nobita's wife, Shizuka often calls Nobita as 'Anata' which is an affectionate term used by wives to their husbands in Japanese.
Where the American kids watched the original Japanese dub of Doraemon, Shizuka's personality wasn't too good for American kids to understand, so they had to alter her personality slightly, making her personality slightly more tomboyish and took out her love for bathing, but still being a kind-natured girl.
In the Thai, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and Spanish dubs, Shizuka refers to Gian by his nickname like the rest of her friends even with Doraemon, Nobita, and Suneo.
Her name in Bengali should be spelled শিযুকা মিনামোটো (Shizuka Minamoto). Except for some episodes, her name is spelled correctly in most of the Bengali dubbed episodes.
In the manga, Shizuka hardly makes any angry facial expression at all for unknown reasons. This makes it difficult for readers to tell if she was actually enraged unless there were fumes coming out of her head.
Shizuka appeared to have drama-queen personality in the 1979 anime for she cried much more often whenever she got trouble, the 2005 anime shows her as a more resilient girl who doesn't easily got carried away by emotion.
In further 2005 remake updated animation, Shizuka shows more tsundere personality than prior (except for bath scene). Those examples are:
During episode “The Wishing Star”, when Suneo mistakenly gave Shizuka a costume of crow, along with shell and grape (She actually wanted a glass slipper for the ball that means “Budoukai no Garasu no Kutsu” (武道会のガラスの靴) in Japanese, but the star mistakenly heard it as “Grape” (Budou／ぶどう), “Shell” (Kai／貝), and “Crow” (Karasu/カラス) which misled it), Shizuka beat and scratched Suneo violently, thinking he was insulting her.
Also during episode “The Warm Snowball Fight”, when Suneo and Giant accidentally threw a snowball into Shizuka's face, she got mad and threw a large one toward those two violently.
Also as in the episode “Flying Sky Carpet”, Shizuka's voice actress sang “Yume Wo Kanaete” (although with unoptimal singing and translation), which marks her as the only person who is involved in Indonesian dub Doraemon that sings the song. Additionally, that's the only time the translation of “Yume Wo Kanaete” was ever sung officially in Indonesian dub Doraemon.
Shizuka did show several hints that she actually likes Nobita, and have crush on him. Some of them can be seen at
In the episode “The Two Shizuka-chan”, Shizuka blushed when Nobita asked if she likes him.
In the episode “Dramatic Gas”, Shizuka replied “Actually, I do too” when Nobita said that he likes her.
In the ending of episode "Shizuka-chan in My Pocket" , Shizuka thanks Nobita for helping Chika and helping her to prepare for her birthday party. After that, Shizuka smiles at Nobita and says: "You did that for me and Chika. I saw what you did from inside your pocket".
In the ending of episode "Nobita's Three Visionary Swordsmen", Shizuka felt happy and embarrassed when she dreamt about Nobita becoming a hero and saving Shizuka (who is a princess). This shows that Shizuka indeed desires Nobita, considering one of Shizuka's dreams is to get her dream man.
Shizuka is the 3rd main female character who appears with black hair from Fujiko Fujio's animated series after Izumi from Parasol Henbe.
Izumi and Shizuka are also styling their hair with pigtails.
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