When I was growing up, I was not a Disney kid. I did remember my parents bringing me to watch Snow White and Sleeping Beauty in the theaters. I thought they were fun to look at as movies but didn’t think too much about them after. What captured my heart and imagination were the comics and animation by the Japanese duo creators team Fujiko Fujio who created Doraemon, the robot cat character, that became my world as well as that of many other Asian kids. It’s really a pity that Doraemon hasn’t yet crossed over to the Western world… and perhaps it’s because Fujio’s properties so perfectly reflect the Asian middle class and its culture. Doraemon is without doubt one of the most successful comic properties out of Japan.

Doraemon is the name of the comic series and also the name of the titular character, the robot cat that was sent from the future by the protagonist Nobita’s great great grandson to help Nobita out in the present so that his future could improve. The concept itself is incredibly brilliant, and might have inspired James Cameron who wrote a certain film about the killer robot who was sent back in time to terminate the future leader of the revolution—the exact antithesis to Doraemon.

In the very first episode, Doraemom crawls out of Nobita’s desk drawer and surprises the middle-class loser boy with his mission. Doraemon lives with Nobita and becomes his best friend. He is full of futuristic gadgets that he can pull out of his kangaroo-like pouch. Each episode centers on a gadget that he brings out to help Nobita. Inside the desk drawer is a time machine where they can travel from the past to the future. In one episode, Nobita travels to different times of his life and gather his selves in one critical moment to finish up his homework… wild eh?

Besides Doraemon, I also loved Fujio’s Parman who’s an ordinary Japanese teenager who gets a superhero suit from an alien to fight crimes. Parman has three other superhero friends who fight crimes with him—a girl, a fat boy, and a monkey. And when Parman is fighting crimes, he has a robot doll that becomes his double to stand in for him in his ordinary life.

As a kid, I found the relationship between Parman and his double to be extremely homoerotic.

And then there’s my third favorite Ninja Hattori Kun that concerns a young Ninja who lives with a Japanese family and becomes the best friend of an ordinary Japanese boy, Kenichi. Of course the young Ninja, his little brother and dog help Kenichi with his problems.

I also loved Kaibutsu-kun (Little Monster), the prince of Monster Land who travels to the human world with a vampire, a werewolf and Frankenstein’s creature to battle monstrous unrests and befriends an ordinary boy to learn about humanity.

Last but not least, there’s Obake no Q-taro, which, very much like Doraemon, is the titular little ghost who comes to live with an ordinary Japanese family and becomes the best friend of an ordinary boy. Each episode concerns the antics of the boy and the ghost. My aunt nicknamed me Q-taro when I was young. Q-taro is the first work by Fujiko Fujio and I daresay it’s the precursor to the smash hit Doraemon.

When I was twelve, I loved Fujio Fujiko’s works so much that I decided to learn Japanese. I was learning Japanese all the way up till 15 when I had to leave for Canada. I learned Japanese so I could read Doraemon. So you can see where the roots of my proud Japanophilia come from.