The “Fourth-Dimension Pocket” Was Real All Along — Doraemon’s 55-Year Legacy on Modern Technology
On April 15, 2026, the reprint series Fujiko F. Fujio Masterpiece Theater: Doraemon quietly came to an end in the pages of Monthly CoroCoro Comic. The final chapter was “A Very Long Day Through the Time Door” from Volume 31 of the Tentomushi Comics edition, and the last page carried a simple message: “Thank you sincerely for your long and wonderful support.”
But what Doraemon left behind goes far beyond the memories it gave to children. The “secret gadgets” depicted over more than half a century have never stopped firing the imaginations of engineers and researchers — and one by one, those gadgets have become real.
“Wouldn’t It Be Nice If…” — And Then It Happened
Doraemon launched in 1969 across six of Shogakukan’s grade-school magazines. The story followed Doraemon, a cat-shaped robot from the 22nd century, and Nobita — the boy who kept pulling an endless variety of secret gadgets out of a fourth-dimension pocket to make everyday life a little more extraordinary. The total number of gadgets depicted is said to be around two thousand.
The technological leaps of the past 55 years are remarkable on their own — but what’s truly astonishing, looking back, is just how deeply Fujiko F. Fujio understood the future. The worlds he imagined for children turned out to be blueprints.
The Secret Gadgets That Became Everyday Life
“String-less String Phone” → The Mobile Phone
A device that lets you have a conversation without any wire connecting you — that’s the mobile phone, now one of life’s absolute essentials. When the manga launched, the idea of transmitting a voice wirelessly was pure fantasy. Today, people around the world carry one in their pocket without a second thought.
“Translation Konjac” → AI Translation and Real-Time Translators
One of the most beloved and frequently appearing gadgets in the series, the Honyaku Konnyaku is a piece of konjac jelly you eat that allows you to understand and speak any language. Today, pocket-sized translation devices exist, and AI has made translation faster and more accurate than ever. It’s fair to say we’ve essentially arrived.
“This-Way-That-Way TV” and “Unmanned Exploration Rocket” → Drones
These gadgets involved launching a small camera device and watching footage from distant locations on a monitor. Drones capable of remote aerial photography have made this a reality. Today drones are part of the social infrastructure — used in agriculture, infrastructure inspection, disaster response, and more.
“Dream Machine” and “3D Television” → VR and AR Headsets
Gadgets that deliver immersive, three-dimensional visual experiences have become real through VR and AR technology. In the manga, characters wore helmet-like devices — and VR headsets work in exactly the same way, transporting you into an entirely different space. What was once the stuff of science fiction is now accessible to ordinary people.
“Tracer Badge” → GPS and Smart Tags
The tracer badge, used to track someone’s location, has been realized in full through tablet computers and GPS tracking tags. What makes this particularly striking is that touchscreen technology didn’t even exist when Fujiko F. Fujio dreamed this up. His foresight is genuinely astonishing.
“Dictation Typewriter” → Voice Recognition and Transcription AI
The Kikigaki Typewriter transcribes automatically as you speak into it. Voice recognition technology has now reached a fully practical level — generating meeting minutes, producing captions, and showing up in everyday situations across the board.
Is the Smartphone the Fourth-Dimension Pocket Itself?
When you look at it this way, almost every realized secret gadget has converged into one device: the smartphone. Just like Doraemon’s pocket, the pocket in your own jeans now holds the equivalent of nearly thirty secret gadgets.
Translation, navigation, maps, voice recognition, photography, information at your fingertips — all from one device. Modern life really does look like an endless series of scenes where Nobita runs up to Doraemon saying, “Do this for me! Now do that!”
The Gadgets We Haven’t Reached Yet — Are Getting Closer
Of course, the Anywhere Door and the Take-copter are still dreams. But technology is catching up. NTT Docomo, for instance, is developing “FEEL TECH” — a system that could let you taste food you see on screen. Ideas that once seemed completely absurd are slowly, quietly taking shape.
Fujiko F. Fujio described the world of Doraemon not as “Science Fiction” but as “Sukoshi Fushigi” — “a little bit mysterious.” That spirit of just-slightly-beyond-the-possible has kept pace with the times for 57 years and counting.
Imagination Builds the Future
An entrepreneur once said: “Whatever the human mind can imagine, it will eventually be able to create.” The 55-plus-year history of Doraemon is living proof of those words. The “wouldn’t-it-be-nice-if” gadgets that Fujiko F. Fujio drew for children planted seeds in the minds of researchers and engineers — and those seeds have bloomed into real technology.
The reprint run in CoroCoro Comic may be over. But the impact Doraemon has had on human imagination is nowhere near finished.
The fourth-dimension pocket still exists — inside the minds of engineers all around the world.