Cryptozookeepers try to capture a Baku, a dream-eating hybrid creature of legend, and start wondering if they should display these beasts or keep them hidden and unknown.
Direction
Dash Shaw's rotoscope-adjacent style is gloriously imperfect and alive.
Production
Every frame looks like a lost '70s underground comic come to life.
Writing
Casually devastating dialogue about capitalism and creatures.
Director
Dash Shaw
Lake Bell
Lauren Grey (voice)
Michael Cera
Matthew (voice)
Alex Karpovsky
David (voice)
Zoe Kazan
Magdalene (voice)
Louisa Krause
Amber (voice)
Angeliki Papoulia
Phoebe (voice)
Thomas Jay Ryan
Nicholas (voice)
Peter Stormare
Gustav (voice)
Grace Zabriskie
Joan (voice)
Emily Davis
Pliny / Waitress (voice)
Maxim Pozdorovkin
Russian 1 (voice)
Irene Muscara
Giulia (voice)
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Dash Shaw and his wife Jane Samborski animated much of this in their Brooklyn apartment over six years, with friends voicing characters between day jobs.
The Baku's design deliberately subverts cute mascot culture—this isn't your anime dream-eater, it's a melancholic, utilitarian being that looks exhausted by its own existence.
US
