Name(s): The Cat Returns / Neko no Ongaeshi / 猫の恩返し / The Cat’s Repayment / Das Königreich der Katzen / Haru en el Reino de los Gatos / Le Royaume des chats
Format: Movie
Studio(s): Studio Ghibli

Like any Ghibli movie, The Cat Returns features many of the studio’s themes, such as a female lead and such lead being transported from the normal world into something fantastical. The difference here is that The Cat Returns has the nature of a fairy tale, specifically. It’s goodhearted unassuming nature about its own oddities remind me of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and that’s of the highest compliment for this movie since that’s one of my favorite books. It’s an innocent movie from beginning to end.

The best thing about The Cat Returns is that it does honor to its simplicity by keeping the magic fleeting and not trying something more ambitious than it deserves unlike some other Ghibli films. This feature ends at 75 minutes, and it shouldn’t have been a minute longer.

The amusement of the anthropomorphic cat world wears off a little too quickly (and that goes for, of course, the cat jokes), but Baron Humbert von Gikkingen’s charm and finesse does not, and he and his hilarious sardonic fat cat friend, Muta, indeed carry the movie. Haru herself is a very typical main character with no noteworthy aspects. She’s a blandly likable but good natured klutz with some bad luck she doesn’t want. Couldn’t be simpler. As an aside, the animation and art quality isn’t anything special by Ghibli standards, and relative to their most known works must be considered worse.

It’s nice to see Ghibli make a movie that doesn’t ever bite off more than it can chew, though I’ll take the ambitious but flawed, more famous works over this side dish. It’s fun while it lasts, but I’ve always been more of a dog person.