What Doraemon's Gadgets Taught Me About How 'Common Sense Changes' | Looking at Doraemon's Prophetic 'Okonomi Box' from a Modern Perspective

Good morning. Today, I'd like to write a diary entry about my thoughts. Does everyone know about the Okonomi Box?

I suspect not many people know about it. The Okonomi Box is one of Doraemon's handy gadgets.

The 'Okonomi Box' that I seriously wanted when I read the manga

The Okonomi Box is a square box like the one shown above. It has a microphone and is a gadget that can turn into anything, as long as it's square.

The Okonomi Box is basically a modern smartphone

Examples of things it turned into include a television, a record player (perhaps an iPod function in modern times), and an instant camera.

It really is just like a modern smartphone, isn't it? I think the foresight at the time was amazing. I use mine in the same way now. Its functions as a versatile square information terminal are very diverse.

The realization that trying to apply current common sense as-is leads to difficulties

Television, records, instant photos. These were the cutting edge of information media at the time. I realized that if you think about having these anytime, anywhere, it becomes difficult as time goes on.

Take television, for example. It has been realized, but you could say it hasn't been intentionally realized, or rather, that function is rarely included. There used to be 1seg mobile phones. You could say it was realized. But perhaps it should be called a uniquely Japanese thing. I think it eventually died out.

As of 2025, it seems that 1seg programs are ending one after another. However, the 1seg broadcast itself still seems to be running and viewable. Nowadays, with the spread of 4G/5G and Wi-Fi, we can comfortably watch high-quality video streaming, so almost no one uses it anymore.

Records, too, can now be put into a smartphone and listened to at any time. This is also old-fashioned, and you can access and listen to them via the internet at any time. At the time, the only idea was to spin a record disc to produce sound. It might have been difficult to go beyond that idea.

For instant photos, the smartphone camera is the equivalent today. In the past, we used digital cameras for space-saving digital storage, but today, taking photos with a smartphone and uploading them to social media is the mainstream, isn't it? Even if you don't upload them to social media, you keep them personally. But the storage location is not just inside the smartphone, but saved to the cloud, right?

Things have changed a lot, haven't they? Perhaps that idea was 100% difficult or even unthinkable back then. If it were me at the time, I would have thought it would be nice if the photos I took came out in my hand. The instant cameras of that time would produce a photo the moment you took it, and the image would gradually emerge. I used to think, 'That's mysterious,' 'That's convenient,' or 'I want one too.'

It's like the Instax cameras of today, but back then, I think it was on the 'want list' or 'wish list'.

I want to enrich my thinking and imagine various forms myself

What was taken for granted in the past has changed its form completely and become taken for granted now. To people from even further back, the television, record player, and instant camera of that time were dream gadgets that they couldn't even imagine.

At the time, I thought, 'Ah, I'm so glad I was born in this era.It would be way too inconvenient without things like television' (at least, looking at it from the perspective of those three items).

People today probably think, 'Ah, I'm so glad I was born in this era.Records and instant cameras must be so bulky and inconvenient.'

But back then, it didn't feel inconvenient at all; I actually thought things had become quite convenient.

That said, even this super convenient tool that lets us easily gather information with a smartphone in one hand and contact anyone anytime via phone or social media...

When we look back on it in 10 or 20 years, we will surely think, 'I can't believe we managed to put up with that back then.' In that sense, I felt it's important not to fear change and to keep trying new things. I want to move forward with that mindset.

3-line diary: Actively utilizing remote work

I'm thinking of actively utilizing remote work a bit more. While work progresses better when I'm on-site, there are some things that actually progress better when I'm at home. So, I'm going to try to incorporate remote work while also keeping in mind how to successfully resist the temptations of being at home.

1 year ago: It seems I was looking back at future predictions from the year 2000

Do people's thoughts follow the same trends throughout the year? Looking back at a year ago, I was looking at the future as seen from the past. Coincidentally, it's the same topic as today. I didn't aim for that at all.

Am I on some kind of cycle? At that time, I used the year 2000 as a subject to look back on. A year ago, the video was still active, but it has been made private—perhaps due to copyright or something—but I remember it in my head.

The 2000s feel relatively recent to me. But when I think about that time, I can't help but think it was an inconvenient era. Times keep moving forward and things keep getting more convenient, but whether that leads to feeling happy is, I suppose, up to the individual.

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