japan in the future. all the dogs have been taken to nagasaki city and sent to this trash island on the pretext of protectingans from an outbreak of dog flu. all these dogs are dumped on this island and a young boy separated from his dog which has been sent to the island flies there to try to find him. when he gets there he finds a pack, they describe themselves as scary indestructible alpha dogs, their battle cry is "let's have a vote." they help him find his lost dog. you can read this as a parable about outsiders and closed borders, or a story about leadership and pack action. you can see it as a lovely film about a boy and a lost dog. there is... is it fun, serious? both those things. really good fun, often very funny and because it is wes anderson, quirky and offbeat. some things in it are quite grisly. there's a sort of live sushi sequence, our young hero gets a propeller pop stuck in his head at one point and one dog is told to stop licking his wounds, literally, and you even get an organ transplant, so it's not entirely cute and cuddly. it is scratchy. notjust the dogs, it's the animation. it has thi