edgepedia

Arts and culture / Screen and stage / Film and television / Films and standalone screen works / Films by genre, form, and subject / Animated and short films / Japanese anime features / Released 1999 to 2013

General · Edgepedia6 min read

Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur 2006 (ドラえもん のび太の恐竜2006)

Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur 2006 (ドラえもん のび太の恐竜2006, Eiga Doraemon: Nobita no Kyōryū 2006) is a 2006 Japanese animated film, the 26th entry in the annual Doraemon theatrical series and a remake of Nobita's Dinosaur, the series' first movie from 1980. Produced by Shin-Ei Animation, it was released by Toho on March 4, 2006, runs 107 minutes, and is notable as the first theatrical Doraemon film made with the voice cast renewed in 2005. The film was also produced as a commemorative work for the 35th anniversary of the Doraemon manga.

Key factDetail
Japanese title映画ドラえもん のび太の恐竜2006 (Eiga Doraemon: Nobita no Kyōryū 2006); English-language catalogs list Doraemon and the Little Dinosaur1
ReleaseMarch 4, 2006, distributed by Toho; 35 mm, color; run time listed as 107 minutes (Kinenote lists 106)1 • 2
Position in series26th Doraemon theatrical film; remake of the 1980 first film Nobita's Dinosaur3
First for the new castThe first feature-length theatrical release of the revived Doraemon franchise after the entire voice cast was replaced in April 20054
Main staffDirector Ayumu Watanabe (渡辺歩), chief director Kōzō Kusuba (楠葉宏三), animation director Kosuke Kondo...

Wait—I should not correct. Let me restate: animation director Ken'ichi Konishi (小西賢一), music Kan Sawada (沢田完), original story Fujiko F. Fujio5 |

| Piisuke's voice | Ryunosuke Kamiki (神木隆之介), then 13 years old6 |

| Reception | IMDb 7.2 from about 2,300 votes; Kinenote user average 72.6 out of 100 from 150 raters7 • 2 |

Spoilers

Story

Nobita, stung by Suneo showing off a dinosaur fossil, sets out to find a fossil of his own. Digging for one, he discovers what turns out to be an egg of a plesiosaur, and with Doraemon's help it hatches into a Futabasaurus, a plesiosaur that lived in the seas near Japan in the Cretaceous period. Nobita names the baby Piisuke (ピー助) and secretly raises it in his closet, without telling his mother. As Piisuke grows too large to hide, the town is thrown into an uproar, and Doraemon and Nobita decide to take him back to the Cretaceous period, 100 million years in the past1.

The journey goes wrong in stages. While traveling by time machine, the group is chased by dinosaur hunters, and Piisuke is accidentally sent to North America of 100 million years ago. Nobita and his friends find him there, but then the time machine breaks down, and Suneo and the others are captured by the hunters. Doraemon and Nobita rescue them, reach Japan of 100 million years ago, and find a herd of Futabasaurus, Piisuke's own kind, waiting there. They leave Piisuke with the herd and return to the present1. The cast of the new series carried over the familiar ensemble: Wasabi Mizuta as Doraemon, Megumi Ohara as Nobita, Yumi Kakazu as Shizuka, Subaru Kimura as Gian, and Tomokazu Seki as Suneo5.

Production

The film was produced by Fujiko-Pro, Shogakukan, TV Asahi, ADK, Shogakukan Production, and Shin-Ei Animation, with Ayumu Watanabe directing and Kōzō Kusuba serving as chief director; Watanabe and Kusuba also wrote the screenplay1 • 5. Ken'ichi Konishi, an animator known for work with Studio Ghibli on My Neighbor Totoro and Howl's Moving Castle, was animation director, and Kan Sawada composed the music8. The theme songs were performed by Sukima Switch and Rimi Natsukawa5.

Casting Piisuke was a conspicuous choice: the part went to the child actor Ryunosuke Kamiki, then 13, and an earlier promotional flyer already presented him as the film's featured guest voice8. Because Kamiki was around the age at which a boy's voice changes, later commentary noted that his performance as the grown Piisuke divided viewers, even as his voicing of the baby dinosaur was generally well received6.

Place in the series and remake choices

The first Doraemon theatrical film, Nobita's Dinosaur (1980), had been expanded by the original creator Fujiko F. Fujio himself from a short manga episode into a large-scale adventure, and it established the template the series has reused ever since: a spectacle setting away from everyday life, the familiar circle of friends deepening their friendship through adventure, and the meeting and parting of Nobita and Piisuke3. The 2006 film returned to that story as the first remake in the series' history9, and it served a double function: after the voice cast was completely replaced in April 2005, ending the long run of Nobuyo Ōyama as Doraemon, this was the first theatrical feature of the renewed franchise4.

The remake largely preserves the main characters and plot, deepening the characters and rendering the adventure with the animation techniques and direction of the time, including heavier use of CG3. Viewers comparing the two films have pointed to specific differences. In the 1980 version, Nobita and the others ultimately had Piisuke delivered to Japan by the Time Patrol; in the 2006 version, after their confrontation with the dinosaur hunters, they bring Piisuke to Japan under their own power, a change one reviewer identified as the largest10. The famous farewell scene of the old film, in which Nobita embraces a ball and thinks of Piisuke, was cut or shortened, which some fans of the original regretted11.

Reception

Aggregated user scores sit in the moderately favorable range: IMDb lists 7.2 from about 2,300 votes7, Kinenote's average is 72.6 points from 150 raters2, and Filmarks records a 3.8 average across 26,651 reviews, with 64 percent of ratings between 3.1 and 4.012.

<p>Discussion of the film has long circled around its drawing style. Critics and commenters described the Tyrannosaurus sequence in particular as jagged and rough, to the point that some frames look like unfinished key animation13. Defenders read the same passages differently: the film frequently sacrifices clean silhouettes for the sense of a huge body in motion, prioritizing velocity and weight over per-frame beauty, and the dinosaur action scenes were praised by contemporary reviewers as high-level work13 • 14. An essay by the writer Kyo Yoshida called it, among the post-Fujiko Doraemon films, the one he found by far the most enjoyable to watch, while noting that several changes from the manga had struck him as uncomfortable15.

The film's position as a turning point has outlasted its release. A later interview with the director of the 2020 film Nobita's New Dinosaur described both the 1980 original and the 2006 remake as subjects on which the Doraemon series pivoted, and spoke of respect for Watanabe's work with the acknowledgment that simply doing the same thing again could not beat it16.

References

  1. Doraemon Nobita no Kyoryu 2006, Japanese Film Database (JFDB)
  2. 映画ドラえもん のび太の恐竜２００６, Kinenote
  3. 中田美喜子・作田愛, リメイク6作品とオリジナルの概要一覧, 人間生活文化研究 (Hachinohe Gakuin University repository)
  4. 映画ドラえもん のび太の恐竜２００６, allcinema
  5. 映画ドラえもん のび太の恐竜2006, 映画.com
  6. 映画『ドラえもん のび太の恐竜2006』感想, みやノート
  7. 映画ドラえもん のび太の恐竜2006, JustWatch
  8. 2006年3月、キミがまだ見たことのない,chirashi flyer
  9. ドラえもん 映画リスト, Shin-Ei Animation
  10. Filmarks review by おさる
  11. 映画ドラえもん リメイク作品新旧比較, オタクのための情報サイト
  12. 映画ドラえもん のび太の恐竜2006, Filmarks
  13. 『のび太の恐竜2006』はひどい？作画崩壊説を検証, たたみの冷凍みかん箱
  14. 映画「のび太の恐竜2006」感想, はなバルーンblog
  15. On "Nobita no Kyouryuu 2006", 吉田拡
  16. 今井一暁監督＆服部隆之インタビュー, MOVIE WALKER PRESS

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026

© 2026 Biostate AI. Free to use with credit under the Edgepedia Community License. Embed a reference card.

Report an error

Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur 2006 (ドラえもん のび太の恐竜2006)

Pick at least one reason.