In Doraemon, Shizuka Should Have Been Much More Than Nobita's Love Interest

As a kid, I loved watching cartoons, and my favourite was Doraemon. Many of you will identify with my fascination with the bottomless pockets of Doraemon and his amazing gadgets. The series gave me a peek into the future that I was going to have. However, as I look back, I realise one thing I didn’t like about the show: Shizuka always remained at the margins and that needs to change.

If you have watched Doraemon, you must be aware of Shizuka Minamoto, the love interest of most of Nobita Nobi’s friends, including him. When I was a kid, it was romantic to be the love interest of a boy who goes that extra mile to impress you. Be it following you around, aka stalking, buying expensive gifts or being jealous when you talk to some other boy. All these things seemed gestures of love.

From where did I learn these ideas?

Of course, from the shows I watched. Doraemon was just one of the many other shows that reduced its female character to the mere love interest of the lead male character. In Doraemon, even though Shizuka is a brilliant student and a self-sufficient person, her relevance in the show is just about being the unapproachable love interest of Nobita. He used to stalk her and try to impress her with Doraemon’s gadgets (not even through his abilities). He got jealous when Shizuka mingled with other boys, and he dreamt of &t=29s" target="_blank" rel="noopener">marrying her one day without knowing how she felt about him.

In the show, we rarely got a glimpse of Shizuka’s life apart from how Nobita imagines her to be. Only when Nobita was present in the scene, Shizuka gained the spotlight, and this eroded Shizuka’s importance as a character in the viewer’s mind.

Today, I look at Nobita and men who can cross any limit to impress women even though the women have no interest in them very differently. When I was a kid, I appreciated being treated like an unapproachable princess who could only be impressed through expensive gestures. But today, I see the fault in it. Any relationship based on materialistic things like gifts and unwanted gestures can never be happy. Gifts cannot promise a good future for a relationship, even though they might make the present look beautiful.

Shizuka’s character was powerful, but it was not recognised for that facet. She was a studious and multi-talented girl with ambitions, and she was not ready to sacrifice her policies, classes or her dreams. She was a single girl in the “boys” group. In today’s society, finding a woman like that isn't easy. Women still are not allowed to have ambitions or have the time to spend on their hobbies or talents. Moreover, in India still, having male friends is unsanskari because it is assumed that the ladka ladki kabhi dost nhi ho sakte.

Women are allowed to be around unknown men only after they get married. So Shizuka’s character was the prototype of the women we need in our society- firm, ambitious and aware of her rights.

Maybe new-age Nobitas should try to be a good friend to Shizuka by supporting her rather than trying to impress her. 

So dear cartoon makers, build proper female characters so that girls watching them can better understand their gender.

The views expressed are the author's own.