Cat Classics on Film: The Cat Returns

We don’t watch much anime, but we do make an exception for movies with cats in them, like The Cat Returns, a Studio Ghibli production originally released in 2002 in Japan as Neko no ongaeshi. We found that this film has plenty of delightful moments and some pretty good characters—and all the best characters are cats.

The plot

The movie opens with this quote:

If you find yourself troubled by something mysterious or a problem that’s hard to solve, there’s a place you can go where you’ll always find help. You just need to look for it.

So you know you’re about to meet someone who is or soon will be troubled by something mysterious or a problem that’s hard to solve. That person turns out to be Haru (voiced by Anne Hathaway in the English version), a schoolgirl whom we meet as she is waking up late for school. Haru gets to class only to be laughed at by everyone, including the cool boy she has a crush on.  Devastating. Later that day, Haru heroically saves a cat from being hit by a truck (we found this to be the most dramatic scene in the film). Afterward, the cat unexpectedly rises up on two legs, bows, and speaks, thanking her.

Haru thinks the talking cat was kind of odd, but that is nothing compared to what happens that night, when a whole procession of cats walking on two legs comes up her street and straight to her house. With them is a fat, scruffy-looking cat who turns out to be the groovy-talking Cat King (I mean he literally says things like “Groovy, babe”; clearly, this fellow has hit the nip too hard). That cat Haru saved earlier? He was actually the son of the Cat King, and Haru is about to be handsomely rewarded for her actions.

The story of The Cat Returns is also told in this
picture book, available here (affiliate link).

Great, right? Well, not exactly. You see, cats (at least according to this movie) are terrible gift givers, because they give things they would like, such as pretty little boxes filled with mice. Oh, and the opportunity to marry the prince whom she saved earlier. Marrying a prince is every girl’s dream, right? Um, no … and certainly not when the prince in question happens to be a cat. But the prince is sooo cool, the king’s messenger tells Haru. She’ll see when they come to take her to the Cat Kingdom.

And now we’re back to the something mysterious and the problem that’s hard to solve. How is Haru going to get out of this—or should she just go along with it? Enter the Cat Bureau and the Baron (voiced by Cary Elwes), a dapper little cat in a well-cut suit and top hat. This Baron is actually a cat figurine that came to life in the earlier movie Whisper of the Heart (which has just gone on our Netflix list). He and his friend Muta (a slimness-challenged white cat voiced by Peter Boyle) will help her. But this turns out to be far more difficult than anticipated, because this Cat King reveals himself to be the worst sort of ruler—the kind who’s groovy on the outside and cruel and controlling on the inside. How will Haru ever escape his twisted kingdom and stop herself from becoming something she is not?

Our verdict

We enjoyed The Cat Returns a lot, and we really did not expect to. Anime films we’ve seen in the past have been … um, not really our thing. They just didn’t intrigue us, either visually or in terms of plot. But this one was a winner on both counts. We enjoyed the animation and the story. The characters of Muta and the Cat King also caught our interest. Muta is the perfect sidekick to the Baron; he’s sort of the Oscar to the Baron’s Felix (that’s an Odd Couple reference, in case you didn’t catch it). And the Cat King…we just love how twisted he is.

Recommended!

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good movie; two paws is for a great movie. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the movie through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!