In a timeless and fictitious Japan, the dictator of Megasaki — a cat lover — has banned all dogs to Trash Island. A twelve-year-old boy will sneak out on the island looking for his dog and unwithingly start a revolution. The stop-motion animation is amazing and quite stunning. The story is clever and cute — but, frankly, I’m a cat lover myself. The movie was well received (with a critic rating of 89% on Rotten Tomatoes) — although there was some harsh critics claiming it was succumbing to “the trope of the white savior” as the white foreign-student is organizing the revolt (but lets not forget that the REAL hero is the young boy!) and that it was a prime “example of racial stereotyping and cultural appropriation” ! On this I totally agree: it was a great hommage to the popularity of Japanese culture in the West (anime & manga, Kurosawa’s movies, etc.) and it’s an outrage that they didn’t select real dogs to play the parts! All in all, it’s beautifully entertaining, a great animation that I fuzzily recommend to everyone (although I am quite sure my cats will not like it). 

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