In Search of the Lost Future (尋找失去的未來) is a visual novel developed by Trumple and released in 2010. Its biggest selling point was the gorgeous art, but the scenario and just about everything else had too many fatal flaws, and Trumple eventually stopped operating — shut down, in plain terms. Companies that put out one title and die aren’t rare, and Trumple is hardly the only one. The game later got a Chinese fan translation, and I’m sure plenty of people have played it — most of them drawn in by the art. Then In Search of the Lost Future got announced for an anime adaptation… and I was baffled. Why? The company’s already dead. You’re adapting its work — what for? Hoping a sequel sells well enough to summon the company’s ghost back? Or some other reason?

Nobita Nobi is a loser in life and a hopeless student at school, but he’s close with his childhood friend Shizuka, and he gets along with the goofy Suneo who studies abroad and the teasing, sharp-tongued Gian who’s also good with a flying kick. Together they start a club at school dedicated to researching weird stuff. One day Nobita meets a naked cat-shaped robot who calls itself Doraemon and claims to come from the future to change Nobita’s miserable past. If things stay as they are, Shizuka, the girl Nobita loves, will be confessed to by Dekisugi in a few days and taken away, and Nobita will suffer a brutal NTR and grow up into a complete waste of a human being. To save himself, the future Nobita sent Doraemon back to help his past self reach the future where he can marry Shizuka. But as time goes on, Nobita realizes he’s fallen in love with Doraemon, and Doraemon notices Nobita’s feelings too. Their love isn’t allowed, though, because Doraemon comes from Nobita’s miserable future, and once Nobita’s present is changed, Doraemon will disappear. Before Doraemon vanishes, an emotionally overwhelmed Nobita and Doraemon do all sorts of things together, try all sorts of positions, and Nobita teaches Doraemon what making love means. Even so, Doraemon completes its mission and disappears anyway. A lost and empty Nobita preserves Doraemon’s memories, and twenty years later, together with a grown-up Shizuka, Suneo, and Gian, he recreates Doraemon and imports the vanished Doraemon’s memories into the new one. When Doraemon wakes up carrying its precious bond with Nobita, Nobita proudly names the lover he created Doraemon, and the two live out a shamelessly happy life together.