Nobita, today, you have to eat a lot.
— Tamako Nobi telling Nobita Nobi.
Tamako Nobi (
Appearance[]
In all of her appearances, Tamako is depicted as a slim woman who wears rounded glasses just like Nobita, her appearance also varies from adaptation. In the manga, Tamako had black hair and wore different shirts or blouses with a skirt and on some occasions, an apron.
She occasionally takes off her round glasses to reveal her big eyes. Nobita and Doraemon think she looks better without those.
Tamako in the 1973 anime
Tamako in the later episodes of the 1979 anime
Tamako in the 2005 anime
Tamako as seen on Stand by Me Doraemon
Personality[]
— Tamako scolding Nobita.
Tamako is very serious about Nobita's exams and often scolds him for hiding the results, but deeply loves Nobita and cares for him. Her personality doesn't change very much, being a bit hot-headed at times, but usually quite calm but is very serious most of the time when dealing with Nobita, and sometimes Nobita scolded by her due to his very lazy and air-headed nature. Nobita sometimes thinks she is rather very mean, blunt, condescending, heartless, tyrannical, sadistic, and very dismissive without a sense of humor and gets mad over the smallest thing. Her demands & punishments sometimes goes too far resulting in Nobita needing Doraemon's aid to get out of the mess. He also believes that she treats him like an errand boy by making him do some shopping for her. Tamako is the one who cooks and cleans the house (like a typical Japanese housewife), sometimes with the help of Doraemon. She is mainly serious managing the house's finance, such as when Nobita asks his mother to buy a computer, only to scold him as she thinks it is a waste of money. She also always bans Nobita from raising pets.
While she is considered the most very hot-tempered woman with the tendency to scold at Nobita and anyone who pushes her buttons greatly, her fear of insects in general is enough to spark her ire. When she becomes very terrified, she starts shrieking in terror and begs someone to get rid of the cockroaches, similar to how Doraemon is often chased away by harmless rats.
Although Tamako always scolds Nobita for his laziness to either clean his room or do his homework, this trait is in fact inherited from Tamako herself, as she always got scolded by her mother for not cleaning her room or secretly going outside to play with her friends throughout her childhood, as seen on We're Gonna Steal Mom's Diamond chapter/episode, where Doraemon and Nobita time travel back to the past to see her childhood days and how she accidentally lost an expensive ring from the "thefts". Tamako was shown to be embarrassed by it when they mentioned her childhood days in the present.
Family[]
- Nobita Nobi (son)
- Nobisuke Nobi (husband)
- Mrs. Kataoka (mother)
- Mr. Kataoka (father)
- Tamao Kataoka (younger brother)
- Nobiru Nobi (father-in-law, deceased)
- Nobita's paternal grandmother (mother-in-law, deceased)
- Nobirou Nobi (brother-in-law)
Quotes[]
- "Nobita! Go and study!"
- "You two are making enough noise to wake the dead!" (Scolding Nobita and Doraemon, English dub)
- 'No No No No... NOBITA!"
- Dialogue when Nobita and Doraemon explain how they scrambled the house in The Nobi House Turns Into a Giant Maze!?:
- Doraemon: "And that's how it happened..."
- Tamako: "Interesting..." (blows her top) "DON'T EVER THINK OF DOING SOMETHING SO STUPID AGAIN!!
- Doraemon & Nobita: "We won't! We swear!"
- Tamako: You got zero mark for your test again!!!
Etymology[]
- The name Tamako means "ball, sphere, bullet, lens, jade, bulb, bead, gem, shot, jewel, shell, coin, bowl, pretty girl" (玉) (tama) and "child" (子) (ko), which literally means "the child of beauty/the child of gem" altogether.
- However, her kanji name also means "eggs" ("Tamago").
- Tamako's surname Nobi means "field, wilderness" (野) (no) and "ratio, proportion" (比) (hi/bi).
- Her maiden name Kataoka means "single, piece" (片) (kata) and "ridge, hill" (岡) (oka).
Trivia[]
- In the 1973 anime, Tamako was shown with brown hair, however, it was changed to black in the 1979 and 2005 anime to match her hair color in the manga and also match with the rest of the Nobi Family.
- According to Shintaro Mugiwara, Fujiko's assistant and the author of Dorabase manga series, Tamako was given the family name "Kataoka" because Fujiko couldn't came out a better family name for her so he take random kanji words from the workbook instead. Mugiwara remarked that "Kataoka" sounds so weird that it doesn't even feel like an actual family name at all.
- Tamako handles the household's finance.
- So far, Tamako is the only main female character to have flashy, glowing white eyes when she is angry. This is frequently shown in the 2005 anime.
- Tamako shares her fear of cockroaches with Dorami and mice with Doraemon.
- Tamako was born in 1941.
- Out of all the main characters' mothers created by Fujiko F. Fujio, Tamako is the only one that wears glasses. Even though so, she appears to have the similar facial feature as others' when she takes it off.
- Furthermore, she also shares her hairstyle with Kiteretsu's mother from Kiteretsu Daihyakka and Shota's mother from Q-Taro the Ghost, except with black hair color.
- In the episode “ The Versailles Mama”, her facial appearance without glasses is extremely similar with Shizuka and her mother, except with thinner eyelid. This could indicate that she wears less makeup than those two and prefers to keep her natural face.
- She also shares the same hairstyle with Shizuka's mother, except without a bun.
- Even though she appears to be much scarier when angry in her 2005 version, but actually her 2005 voice actress does her voice quite soft. Meanwhile her 1979 voice actress did the voice really harsh as the yelling was really much louder and intimidating though Tamako's appearance was much calmer when angry.