“Rokku: Wanko-no-Shima” – Realism Doesn’t Necessarily Make Great Viewing

The next of my posts about movies which I studied for my article “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?” is about Rokku: Wanko-no-shima (ロック　わんこの島) (Isamu Nakae, 2011), also known as Wanko: The Story of Me, My Family and Rock or Rock – Dog’s Island. This is another movie amongst those that I studied that involves a volcano (see also Dante’s Peak, Volcano, and When Time Ran Out…). But that is where the similarities end. For, not only is this one of the Japanese movies that I studied, it is also based on an actual event and story, as a summary on IMDb clarifies.

The story is based on a real story of the residents of the island of Miyakejima, which erupted in 2000 and had to be evacuated.

A family, Matsuo, Takako, Matsuo’s mother Fusako, and Matsuo and Takako’s young son Shin live on the island of Miyakejima, 200 km south of Tokyo. Together, they run a small bed and breakfast for tourists and have two pet golden retrievers, Hana and her son Rock. Shin is in charge of taking care of Rock every day, and despite some typical rambunctiousness from Rock (including peeing on Takako on multiple occasions), they lead a happy life. However, Hana becomes ill, consuming Fusako’s attention, and the island starts to be hit by multiple earthquakes, causing visitors to cancel their reservations at the inn.

Soon they find out the source of the earthquakes – the island’s volcano is erupting.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1776974/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

Just because there are elements of truth and reality about the story, that doesn’t make it particularly watchable. In terms of the revised list of conventions that I developed as part of my article “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?“, the movie scored a 12 out of the 17. One of the useful aspects of including this movie in the study was that it challenged me to think about what was meant by ‘a main character’ (should it include pets) and by ‘isolation’ (does it mean just the protagonists, a whole community, and what about if people chose to be isolated?).