Doraemon Event, Sept. 3

I wrote before that you just can not blink in this town. This adage remains true. On September 3, I was walking through the Noborito train station to change from the Nambu to the Odakyu line, and I didn't see anything unusual. A couple of hours later, on returning there was a big crowd at one end in front of a covered sign. After the event ended, I went back home to get my backpack, and less than 40 minutes later, everything was dismantled and the crowds gone. So I wasn't able to get a photo of the sign. Anyway...



Doraemon's official birthday is Sept. 3, 2112. Apparently due to this, the Fujio F. Fujiko museum is scheduled to open on Sept. 3, 2011, about a 20 minute walk from the Noborito station. In fact, the museum will be fairly close to the Taro Okamoto museum, which I wrote about before. The event that I'd seen at the station was an invitation for children to step forward to play with Doraemon before pulling a rope to reveal the sign - an announcement that 365 days remain before the grand opening. Since the sign was also gone when I came back, I don't know where it will be permanently mounted, if anywhere. It looks, though, as if the museum will be related to the Kawasaki City Museum in some way (the KCM periodically hosts manga-related exhibits, and has long had a link on their website back to the Fujio homepage).



Just for amusement value, I'll mention here that the Doraemon TV series airs on Fridays, and this last Friday was Sept. 3. The episode that night was "Doraemon's Birthday".