The Cat Returns
Short description
Haru Yoshioka is an ordinary high school girl who feels out of step with those around her. One day, on her way home with her friend Hiromi, she spots a cat about to be hit by a truck and pulls it to safety. The cat surprises her by standing on its hind legs and thanking her in human speech. It turns out to be Lune, prince of the Cat Kingdom. His father, the Cat King, decides that Haru should marry Lune as a reward, and she is drawn into the Cat Kingdom against her wishes. With help from the Baron, a refined cat figurine who comes to life, the stray Muta and the crow Toto, she tries to find her way back home while the King's servants push ahead with wedding plans.
The film was directed by Hiroyuki Morita and written by Reiko Yoshida, with Toshio Suzuki among its producers. Its voice cast includes Chizuru Ikewaki as Haru, Yoshihiko Hakamada as the Baron, Aki Maeda as Yuki, Tetsu Watanabe as Muta, Yousuke Saito as Toto and Takayuki Yamada as Lune. It was made by Studio Ghibli and released in Japan in 2002, running 75 minutes. It was Morita's first directorial feature, preceding One Piece: Episode of Luffy - Hand Island Adventure by a decade.
The film took about 54 million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds 7.1/10 from roughly 72,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.1/10 from about 2,500 votes, showing broad but moderate approval across both audiences. Its film critics' rating stands at 6.8/10 from 24 reviews.
What's left behind the scenes
- Initially, the anime was planned as a short film, but Toshio Suzuki was impressed by the script and the main character Haru, and happily allowed Hayao Miyazaki to make the anime a feature-length film.
- Work on the film began when Studio Ghibli received an offer from a Japanese theme park to create a twenty-minute animation starring cats.
- The English title is "The Cat Returns" because the character of the Baron previously appeared in the film "Whisper of the Heart" (1995) as a statue, but was nevertheless one of the main characters of the film. A literal translation from Japanese is "The Cat's Gratitude."
- The film took 3 years to make.
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