Awesome Art: The entire film is an awesome achievement in animation. The sheer amount of detail in its landscapes and characters designs is truly impressive.
Awesome Music: The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's "I Won't Hurt You," used during two of the film's quieter moments.
Ensemble Dark Horse: SPOTS. No master could ever ask for a more badass, noble, and loyal dog. "Man's best friend," indeed.
The black owl, who, despite appearing ominous at first glance, turns out to be very noble and comes to the dogs' aid several times.
Harsher in Hindsight: Came out on Disney+ during the COVID-19 pandemic. Those watching it for the first time or returning to the film since 2019 are in for an unintentionally haunting experience.
Memetic Mutation: (opens trash bag) Ok, it's worth it. (cue Big Ball of Violence) Explanation A scene in which Rex calls to examine the contents of the trash bag before fighting over it, and upon examination, Chief declares it's worth it, and a literal dog fight breaks out, which has become memetic for its funny nature and being edited to whatever popular subject was available to meme about.
Offending the Creator's Own: Many people have criticized the film's depiction of the Japanese. The storyboard artist and the voice of the Big Bad, Kunichi Nomura, is Japanese.
Gondo is only the focus of one big scene, but his badass design, sad-but-also-sorta-funny monologue, and excellent voice acting by none other than Harvey Keitel leave a huge impression.
Squick: The sushi scene, as well animated as it is, still depicts the chef cutting open a live fish to chop it up into fillets (with visible blood), and ripping a crab (again, live) in half. The fact that the chef poisons the meal only makes matters worse.
Near the end of the film, there's a half-minute long scene of Atari and Mayor Kobayashi's kidney transplant.
Strangled by the Red String: Tracy suddenly develops a crush on Atari partway into the film despite not actually having met him, and it barely results in anything other than a brief moment of just-as-abrupt reciprocation in the film's climax.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: After their misadventure in the crushing, compacting and incinerating plant, Rex, King, Duke and Boss — despite having initiated the journey across the island and led the effort to find Spots up to that point (particularly Rex) — wind up reduced to tertiary characters as Chief and Spots rise in narrative importance.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Tracy Walker, as the protagonist of the film's B plot, serves as an Intrepid Reporter working with the school newspaper to expose the crimes of the Kobayashi administration, and even participates in protests against their actions. The reason? Apparently she just wants to prove that her conspiracy theory about Mayor Kobayashi is true. This is despite the fact that her own dog, Nutmeg, is also trapped on Trash Island, and it would have been so much more sensible for that to be her main drive. And given how she discusses Atari Kobayashi risking his life to save his own dog, there was potential for her to feel guilty, wondering if she's doing enough to save Nutmeg.
What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Despite the movie being about a boy searching for his dog with the help of other dogs, it is officially rated PG-13. It contains outright gore and mild swearing.
The Woobie: Pretty much every single dog in the movie qualifies as this but special mention goes to Gondo and the "cannibal" dogs who had to resort to eating their comatose friend to survive alongside having to deal with being laboratory test dogs beforehand.
