\[⚠️ SPOILER WARNING! ⚠️

This post contains major spoilers for the episode "Finding Owners With the Time Machine!" If you haven't watched it yet and want to experience the story yourself, I'd recommend watching it first! 

You've been warned!\]

I'm talking about the "Finding Owners With the Time Machine!" episode from the 1979 series — 1993, Season 15, Episode 1263 (Special).

This is honestly one of those Doraemon episodes that I remember for its really unique story... So here's the plot:

The episode begins with Doraemon, Nobita, Shizuka and Gian going to the back-hill to hunt for beetles.

While they're there, Doraemon discovers something unexpected, a little puppy inside a carton.

They feel sorry for the puppy and want to take care of her, but there's one problem: none of them can keep her at home.

So they decide to look for someone who can adopt her.

They first go to Suneo, hoping that he might take the puppy in. But Suneo refuses because the puppy isn't a fancy breed, and he even compares her to his own dog.

Since they can't find an owner, Doraemon and Nobita decide to temporarily take the puppy home.

They use the Small Light to make the puppy tiny and hide it inside a drawer in Nobita's room.

Doraemon named her Chibi.

But things don't stop there.

Later that evening, while Suneo is walking his dog, his dog discovers another carton, this time containing two kittens.

Suneo brings the kittens to Nobita and asks him to take care of them.

Then Shizuka arrives with two more puppies, and Gian brings yet another kitten.

So suddenly, Nobita's drawer is basically turning into a secret animal shelter.

They try hiding all the tiny animals inside Nobita's desk drawer, but their parents are suspicious and eventually discover what they're doing.

Of course, Nobita's parents refuse to let them keep all these animals.

Now they're completely stuck.

They have all these puppies and kittens but nowhere to keep them.

That's when Nobita comes up with an absolutely crazy idea:

Why not travel to different periods in history and find people who would be willing to adopt them?

And so, Doraemon, Nobita, Shizuka, Gian and Suneo use the Time Machine to travel through different eras of Japanese history in search of owners for the animals.

Their first stop is the Heian period.

There, they meet Murasaki Shikibu, who is in the middle of writing her famous work, The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatari).

They give her one of the kittens, and she agrees to take care of it.

Then they travel to the Sengoku period.

There, they give another kitten to a child who will eventually grow up to become Toyotomi Hideyoshi, one of the major figures in Japanese history and one of Japan's "Great Unifiers."

After that, they travel to the Edo period, during the reign of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi, who was known for his animal-welfare policies.

They find a peasant willing to take one of the puppies.

Then they travel to the Meiji period, where they give another puppy to Saigō Takamori, one of the important figures of the Meiji Restoration.

And there's an especially interesting one.

During the late Meiji period, they give a black cat to the famous writer Natsume Sōseki.

He later writes the famous novel "I Am a Cat" (Wagahai wa Neko de Aru).

At this point, they're successfully finding owners for the animals throughout history.

But there's still Chibi.

They eventually travel to the Shōwa era, where they give Chibi to a young boy named Wataru Ishibashi.

Unfortunately, the town where Wataru lives is later destroyed by aerial bombing during the war, and he narrowly escapes being bombed.

This makes Nobita, Doraemon and Shizuka extremely worried about what happened to Chibi.

Later, they investigate the historical records in a library and discover that the animals they gave away really did end up with the historical figures they met.

Gian even finds a statue of Saigō Takamori with the dog.

But then they realize something.

They start thinking that Chibi might have died during the war.

Everyone feels terrible about it.

Just when things become really sad, Suneo suddenly comes running toward them.

He has some news.

He tells them that Chibi didn't die

The dog that Suneo has with him is actually Chibi's descendant/child.

Everyone is relieved, and then immediately starts making fun of Suneo for bragging about his dog earlier.

And that's basically how the episode ends.

I really like this episode because it combines Doraemon's usual comedy and gadgets with actual historical figures and different periods of Japanese history.

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Such a memorable episode!

If you haven't watched it yet, you should definitely give it a watch!

Have you guys seen this episode? What do you think about it?

Such a Memorable Episode...