title_name=The Cat Returns
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猫の恩返し
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Neko no Ongaeshi
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Animanga/Movie| Information
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'' ( '''''Neko no Ongaeshi'''''; lit. ''The Cat(s) Return a Favour'') is a 2002 (バロン 猫の男爵 ''Baron, Neko no Dansyaku''; lit. ''Baron, the Cat Baron''), which has been published in English by
VIZ Media .
In 1995, Studio Ghibli released a movie entitled "
Whisper Of The Heart ", which was based on a
Manga by Aoi Hiragi about a young girl writing a fantasy novel. Although the girl's life had no magical elements, short fantasy scenes depicted what the girl was writing about. Those short scenes were so popular that fans demanded that a movie be made of the fictional girl's novel, and that movie was .
- - A 17 year old girl, the protagonist of the film.
- - Usually called Baron; a cat statue with a soul.
- - A fat, cynical cat who leads Haru to the Baron. (The Japanese word for pig is "Buta". Muta is mistakenly called this, much to his chagrin, on a couple of occasions.)
- - A statue of a raven who comes alive, much like the Baron.
- - King of the Cat Kingdom.
- - Prince of the Cat Kingdom.
- - The bespectacled advisor to the king.
- - The excitable messenger for the king.
- - A mysterious white servant cat of the Cat Kingdom
The story follows a girl called Haru, a quiet and unassuming schoolgirl who has a long-suppressed ability to talk to cats. One day she saves a cat from being hit by a truck on a busy road. The cat turns out to be Lune, Prince of the Cat Kingdom. In return, the cats shower her with gifts and inform her she is to be wedded to the Prince of the Cat Kingdom.
Haru hears a kind female voice which tells her to seek out the Cat Bureau. Haru meets Muta, who leads her there to meet the Baron and Toto. Soon after meeting them, Haru and Muta are taken to the Cat Kingdom by force, leaving Toto and the Baron in the human world.
Haru is invited to a feast at the castle of the Cat Kingdom and she begins to slowly turn into a cat. At the feast, the Baron (in disguise) dances with Haru as part of the entertainment, before being discovered. They are helped by Yuki, a snow-white female cat who works as a servant in the palace and who had tried to warn Haru to leave the Cat Kingdom. Haru, the Baron and Muta's escape leads them through a maze to a tower, which contains a portal back into Haru's world.
Lune and his guards return to the Cat Kingdom to discover the King was not acting on his behalf and he has no desire to marry Haru, having instead planned on proposing to Yuki; also, Muta is revealed to be a notorious criminal in the Kingdom (having devoured a whole lake of fish in one session), and Yuki as being the strange voice who'd advised Haru to go to the Cat Bureau. In her childhood Haru had saved Yuki from starvation by giving her the fish cookies she was eating, and Yuki has now repaid her in kind.
Eventually Haru, Muta and the Baron escape, with the aid of Prince Lune and Toto, and Haru discovers her true self and her affection for the Baron.
Hiroyuki Morita
Reiko Yoshida
Yuuji Nomi
Satoko Morikawa
Toshio Suzuki
Hayao Miyazaki
Studio Ghibli
Aoi Hiiragi
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