A homeless dog hunting the tiger that murdered his mother. Rock's revenge becomes the whole town's fight, and there's no irony in that commitment, no winking at the stakes. This is Miyazaki's first animation work, and you can feel him learning to move a camera through a world, learning what matters enough to draw twice. The voice acting is thin, the budget shows in every frame, but the story moves with the clarity of something that knows exactly what it wants from you: watch a dog become what his town needs him to be.

Rock is a stray dog driven by one goal: revenge on Killer, the zoo tiger who killed his mother. The other dogs in town have suffered from Killer's cruelty too, so they rally behind Rock in his quest. Among those who help him is Goro, an aging stray. This 1963 feature film sets a revenge story in a world of animals, mixing action, adventure and drama as a young dog sets out to avenge his mother.