Zorori's whole identity is tied to something his mother gave him, and the movie doesn't make a huge deal out of that until the moment it disappears. The joke setup (an alarm clock for free donuts) crashes directly into something real, something a kid watching this actually understands. That's the whole trick of Zorori: it sneaks genuine heart past the comedy, then acts like it was always just about the donuts.

Zorori builds an alarm clock machine so he will never oversleep and miss free donuts. When he thinks of his mother and sheds a tear, something odd happens: scenes rush past, and the ZZ mark on his costume vanishes. He cherishes that mark because his mother put it there, even though he has no idea what it means. After a crash landing in the street, Zorori, Ishishi and Noshishi are rescued by a fashion design student, and they soon realize she is Zororene, Zorori's mother. The alarm clock has turned into a time machine and carried them into the past. With Zororene's help, and later that of Zorori's father Zorondo Ron, the trio set out to recover their machine from the police and a kaiju. The film celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Kaiketsu Zorori children's books and mixes adventure with comedy.