Original title: Neko no Ongaeshi

Studio Ghibli’s only sequel (sort of…), The Cat Returns is a spin-off from Mimi o Sumaseba/Whisper of the Heart (1995), featuring The Baron, the cat that had featured in the novel being written by the lead character of the earlier film. The film has its roots in a request from a Japanese theme park for a 20 minute short film which they decided in the end that they didn’t want after all. Reluctant to let go of a good idea, Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki decided to use it as a project to once again try to find a director to join him and co-founder Isao Takahata at the top table (an ongoing project which never really yielded positive results). The film was handed over to staff animator and wannabe director Hiroyuki Morita whose initial work so impressed Miyazaki that he decided to turn it into a feature film.

The Cat Returns takes the fantasy elements from Whisper of the Heart and spins them out into a story about teenager Haru (Chizuru Ikewaki in the Japanese original, Anne Hathaway in the English dub), a shy and clumsy high schooler who one day saves a cat from being run over on a busy city street. The cat is later revealed to be Lune, Prince of the Cat Kingdom (Takayuki Yamada/Andrew Bevis) and as a thank you for saving his life, Lune has his minions repeatedly leave her presents of catnip and live mice in gift boxes. Which is annoying enough but then Haru learns that she is to be married off to Lune as another display of gratitude. Haru is guided to Muta (Tetsu Watanabe/Peter Boyle), a large white cat (seen many times in Whisper of the Heart) who leads her to The Baron (Yoshihikō Hakamada/Cary Elwes), the protagonist of Shizuku’s novel in Whisper of the Heart, who helps Haru when she’s abducted by the cats and taken to their hidden kingdom. There, Haru starts slowly transforming into a cat as the King (Tetsuro Tanba/Tim Curry) reveals his hidden agenda – to keep Haru in the kingdom long enough to complete her transformation and force her marriage to Lune.

Morita has his own distinct style, pleasingly opting not to simply ape the trademark Miyazaki look. His animation is sparser but no less charming for its technical simplicity. There are still very recognisable elements of the Ghibli house style, particularly the narrative’s focus on a young woman finding her way in the world and it’s still a gorgeous and beguiling film – just different to what we’ve come to expect, falling somewhere between the traditional but breathtaking Miyazaki style and the more experimental work by Takahata.

It’s smaller in scale than the box-office behemoths Mononoke-hime/Princess Mononoke (1997) and Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi/Spirited Away (2001) and that seems to have upset some fans who were expecting more of the same. But if there’s one thing you learn very quickly while working your way through the Ghibli filmography is that no two films are ever quite the same – Takahata’s atypical Hōhokekyo Tonari no Yamada-kun/My Neighbours the Yamadas (1999) had been sandwiched between the two Miyazaki hits for example.

It’s a much funnier film that we expect from Ghibli. All of their films contain elements of humour (Yamadas was a basically an animated sitcom) but The Cat Returns is a more overtly knockabout film and is none the worse for that. The parade of impractical presents bestowed upon Haru by the grateful cats for example, or the return of the original “Grumpy Cat”, Muta, give Morita plenty of scope for sight gags and silliness. Some of the jokes might be a bit obvious and some of the action bordering on slapstick but you’d have to have a heart of stone not to at least raise a smile or two.

There are moments of inspired surrealism too – the nocturnal parade of cats walking through the city streets on their hind legs, carrying the cat king to visit Haru, for example, or a staircase made of living crows. As with Spirited Away, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a key influence on The Cat Returns. Haru finds herself in a dream-like world of talking animals and when she first arrived she shrinks down to a size more in keeping with the feline population (and in doing so, the overweight Muta starts to resemble Ghibli mascot Totoro). Tim Curry – speaking in a hip, urban drawl and constantly addressing Haru as “babe” – is clearly having a great time as the Cat King and the elaborate but awkward feast in Haru’s honour is very much in Carroll’s style.

What it perhaps lacks is the emotional depth of the best of Ghibli. It’s a fun ride (and short too – 75 minutes – the shortest Ghibli film since Umi ga Kikoeru/Ocean Waves (1993), the company’s last attempt to find new talent from withing its ranks) that might have fared better with some fans had it not opened in the wake of Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. It still did remarkably well at the box office – like most other Ghibli films it was the most successful home-grown film at the Japanese box office that year – but its reputation is less stellar than its more feted predecessors. Get past the simpler animation and smaller scale and there’s still so much to enjoy in a film that may lack the big Miyazaki set-pieces that will linger in the memory long after the end credits roll but which has more than its fair share of charm.

Sadly it didn’t do a great deal for Morita’s directing career which never really went anywhere after The Cat Returns. He directed the television series Bokurano: Ours (2007) but angered fans of the manga it was based on by writing on his blog about his disdain for the source material. He remained busy as a storyboarder and assistant director, but at Ghibli and beyond, but he never directed a feature film again. The search for a third director to take on some of the burden from Miyazaki and Takahata continued with Ghibli employing Miyazaki’s son Goro (Gedo Senki/Tales from Earthsea (2006), Kokuriko-zaka Kara/From Up on Poppy Hill (2011), Āya to Majo/Earwig and the Witch (2020)), another former animator, Hiromasa Yonebayashi (Kari-gurashi no Arietti/Arietty (2010), Omoide no Mānī/When Marnie Was There (2014)).