And Japanese character popularity shows no sign of slowing: Netflix has secured exclusive rights to new episodes of Pokémon, while Hello Kitty is moving toward her Hollywood debut.

Koji said whitewashing is “a nonissue” for “Bullet Train.” “The Japanese characters — Kimura and the Elder, his father — are very much the heart of it,” Koji said.

The lack of Japanese characters in Oppenheimer is an intentional choice. And that choice is explicitly political, emphasizing the American characters’ distance from the horrors they wrought in ...