The director Hiroyuki Morita, who worked on well-known Japanese "anime" titles such as 1988's "Akira" and "Lupin III", started his career at Ghibli as an animator for "My Neighbours the Yamadas" and boy, what a great directorial debut he's made with "The Cat Returns"! In a nutshell, the story is about a girl named Haru who quickly manages to save a purple cat just as a truck was about to run over it as it was crossing the road.
Sadly, not all of their movies are noted as much as the more widely-known Miyazaki or Takahata movies before them and what a shame to say that a movie like "The Cat Returns" has to be one of those lesser-known movies in question. Of course, every now and again, a new director comes along and contributes to Ghibli's colourful and increasingly popular catalogue of animated classics. For some others, the name "Isao Takahata" comes to mind too, who brought us films such as "Grave of the Fireflies" and "Pom Poko" (those two films I'm still yet to see). (This review focuses on the English-dubbed version of the movie) What do you immediately think of when the words "Studio" and "Ghibli" are said together? For most, it's overall the works of "the Japanese Walt Disney" himself Hayao Miyazaki, who brought us such modern animated classics such as the delightful "My Neighbour Totoro", the imaginative and enchanting "Howl's Moving Castle" and of course Ghibli's Western-market breakthrough, the Oscar-winning "Spirited Away".