The Cat Returns

Directed by Hiroyuki Morita
Written by Reiko Yoshida, Aoi Hiiragi (comic)

Okay, The Cat Returns actually came out in Japan a few years ago, but was never released into theaters in the States, so far as I know. It was just released here on DVD in February, and I had never seen it before, so I am going to consider this a “new” movie and review it anyway, for the reasons stated above and also because you can’t stop me.

A few years back, when an old friend and fellow anime-freak whose name I can’t even remember offhand, but whose picture is in my photo album, and I will probably wake up at 4 AM tomorrow morning shouting his name, told me that Studio Ghibli was making a follow-up of sorts to Whisper of the Heart, dramatizing a short, sort-of-story-within-story from it, I was pretty damned curious what it would be like.

Whisper of the Heart, if you haven’t seen it, is a great movie in ways which cannot even really be put into words. It’s one of those movies that you describe to people, and they look at you like you’re crazy, like, “Okay, so that’s the first fifteen minutes, what about the other hour and forty?” Carla Speed McNeil, in the endnotes of her fine book Finder: Talisman, describes it thusly: “Whisper of the Heart [is] a beautifully plotted exercise in serendipity and ‘real’ magic. If you can get past the John Denver song that serves as a theme, it’s amazing.”

Maybe Disney should have put some money into bringing that movie to the states. Bundled it as part of the two-disc set, perhaps? After all, if you haven’t seen (or likely have never even heard of) Whisper of the Heart, you’re probably going to be confused by the title. To which cat does the title refer? And to where is he returning, exactly?

I love John Denver, by the way. I also love cats, always have. Weird thing is, cats seem to like me as well. Like they can sense if someone is a cat person or not. Weird. And I wanted to like this movie. I really, really wanted to like this movie. But I didn’t. And that makes me sad.

Here’s the story: one day, young (though, notably, not as young as your typical Ghibli heroine) Haru saves a cat from getting hit by a truck. Later that night, a royal cat procession arrives at Haru’s house to formally thank her – turns out the roadkill-bait was the prince of the Cat Kingdom. In gratitude, the cats bestow all sorts of little cat-gifts on Haru (catnip in her pockets, locker full of live mice, you get the picture) before revealing that they plan to kidnap her away to the Cat Kingdom so that she can marry the prince. The only way to stop them, for some reason, is an appeal to the Cat Bureau, the sole member of which is a living cat statue called The Baron (who, in inanimate form, was featured prominently in Whisper of the Heart – the cat returns, get it?). Before any plans can be made, however, Haru is kidnapped, and it’s up to the Baron, along with his helpers a very fat cat named Muta (also from Whisper of the Heart) and another living statue, a crow named Toto, to get her out. Add to this the complication that Haru is herself turning into a cat and must leave the kingdom by dawn, and there you have it, a heavily watered-down version of Spirited Away (which was, in turn, a heavily watered-down version of…well, water, I guess).

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like about The Cat Returns. The animation on the cats, before and after anthropomorphization, is quite detailed (my favorite are the secret service cats, though the camo-colored ones are a hoot) and realistic, obviously the work of cat lovers. There are little surprises all over, particularly in the Egyptian-inspired decorations and all the little fish-motifed accoutrements (watch for the calamari-thrower). The obligatory climactic dive/fall is spectacular, and its resolution clever at least.

Still, as a whole, it just wasn’t as textured and rich as I’ve come to expect from a Ghibli production. Add to this a run-time of a hair over an hour fifteen, and you’ve got all the earmarks of a rush, rush, rush production. The plot and characters, meanwhile, didn’t really do anything, or mean anything. For all its many, many faults, Spirited Away at least was emotionally true. Nothing resembling anything here. A few moral-ish pronouncements are made (“Believe in yourself”, “Speak your mind”), though basically they seem to be put in to belie the messages within the plot itself (“Don’t stick your neck out for anyone”, “Helping others just leads to trouble”).

Overall, a disappointing effort from the usually dependable Studio Ghibli, an unworthy follow-up to a great (or at least very, very special) movie. Pity the children (inner and otherwise) if this is what the “new generation at Studio Ghibli” (as to which it is frequently referred in the admittedly enlightening “making of” feature on the DVD) have in store for us now. I fairly live in fear of Howl’s Moving Castle, which arrives stateside this June. In the meantime, see if you can get any of your cooler friends to lend you Whisper of the Heart. Failing that, neither My Neighbor Totoro nor Kiki’s Delivery Service should be hard to find at your local video store in one form or another.

EDWARD! That was his name! See, you didn’t even have to wait until 4 AM.