THE company behind Japanese animation character Doraemon said it wants more exposure of the cartoon in the Philippines in a run-up of global and Philippine anniversaries.
Abe Franco, general manager of Animation International Ltd. Philippines (AIL) said there will be tours in major shopping malls in Metro Manila and also in schools nationwide starting this year. Franco said the company hopes to get children start watching again the Japanese anime that’s pushing 50 years old.
He admits the Doraemon character has not been getting much-needed exposure in the country as the series being aired on television are mostly reruns of past episodes of the series.
“Actually, that’s the perception of people [that Doraemon show is mostly reruns] because it is the way [the TV channel] is bringing their programing schedule,” Franco said. “But Doraemon by itself has 1,500 episodes and, hopefully, this year we might be [releasing] new [episodes] on TV.”
Doraemon is about robotic cat servant, who travels back in time from the 22nd century to aid a preteen boy.
For now the company will be concentrating on its mall and school tours for Doraemon, originally a manga series that later on translates into anime. AIL officials admit the Doraemon character in the Philippines is not as popular as in other areas such as Hong Kong, since there isn’t much exposure in terms of marketing.
How much AIL is spending for the marketing and promotion of Doraemon, Franco was not forthcoming.
The last time a movie on the character was shown was in 2015, when AIL also held a mall tour in the country.
Tim Kondo, the Hong Kong-based general manager of AIL, said Doraemon has a movie almost every year in Japan and then exported to other markets.
“Doraemon has been here but not much exposure except on TV,” Kondo said. “Before we start preparing for this product we also have research and we found there’s so [many] Doraemon fans like my age, the older generation. So we want to bring something that can excite the fans.”
He admitted, however, that the company still has to learn about how the Philippine market will react to Doraemon character despite its existence in the market for almost 20 years. It started on Philippine TV in 1999.
Franco said the activities are in preparation with the 20th year anniversary of Doraemon’s introduction to the Philippine by 2020, the character’s 50th anniversary.
“Young kids have less opportunity to be exposed to Doraemon in the Philippines. That’s why we want to push again and we also wanted to push the TV side to make the situation different. In other countries Doraemon has been on TV all the time,” Kondo said. “Here it’s quite quiet in the recent years so we want to boost the exposure.”