What Isle of Dogs Gets Right About Japan www.newyorker.com

posted by  banzaitokyo | 6 years ago in Art & Culture

A week ago, I saw Wes Anderson’s “Isle of Dogs,” or “Inu-ga-shima.” I saw it as someone who, upon hearing that name, is forcibly reminded of Oni-ga-shima, the isle of demons where Peach Boy, a hero of Japanese folklore, fights evil with his canine band of brothers. In the first grade, I was cast in a school production, in Tokyo, as one of the demons. The role required red face paint and Sharpie horns and growl-prancing, and I was as terrifying as a four-foot Japanese Caliban could be. This is all to say that I watched “Isle of Dogs” as a Japanese person—as someone who was born in Japan, who spent my childhood and adolescence there, and who looks and speaks and reads and eats like a native.