‘Lives at Right Angles’ offers seldom-seen portrayal of autism in Japan

Though autistic people have appeared in Western films such as the pioneering “Rain Man” (1988) and reality TV series like the Netflix hit “Love on the Spectrum,” they are seldom seen on the big screen in Japan. Or perhaps I should say characters clearly identified as autistic: Roku-chan, the boy who drives his imaginary trolley along an imaginary track in Akira Kurosawa’s “Dodes’ka-den” (1970) is never described this way, though to the modern viewer he exhibits autistic traits.