The dog exile colony in Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs is located near the fictional Japanese city of Megasaki City.
In the film’s imagined future, Mayor Kobayashi orders all dogs from Megasaki City to be banished to Trash Island after an outbreak of “snout fever.” The dogs’ exile creates the central setting for the story, where they search through mountains of garbage for food and clues.
Megasaki City is fictional, but the film draws on Japanese cinema, animation, design, and cultural imagery. Anderson used both English and Japanese dialogue, with human conversations in Japanese often left untranslated so that visual storytelling and context carry meaning.
Isle of Dogs premiered in 2018 and became Anderson’s second feature made with stop-motion animation, following Fantastic Mr. Fox. The film won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin International Film Festival.