My First Anime: The Cat Returns

[ulthar]

I got THE CAT RETURNS for my daughter because the reviews seemed really good and the story looked interesting.  I have not 'gotten into' anime or Japanese films in general before (not really intentionally, just too many movies, not enough time).  This was the English dub of the original, with Anne Hatheway, Cary Elwes, Peter Boyle and Tim Curry in lead parts.

The story was interesting.  As the blurb says, 'think Alice in Wonderland, with kitty litter.'  Haru, a shy school girl with 'bad luck' saves a cat from being hit by a truck and learns he is the prince of the Cat Kingdom.  The King is veeerrrrry grateful, and showers her with gifts (some of which are not really good gifts for a human girl), and plans to 'take' her to the Cat Kingdom to marry the prince.  Needless to say, Haru does not want to marry a cat and live in the cat kingdom.  As Haru finds inner character, it's a coming of age story (so many are about boys, so this was sorta refreshing) without all the American teen angst and spoiled baby-ism that haunts so many Western attempts to capture adolescence on film.

The first thing that struck me about this was 'oh man, look at the colors.'  The animation was not as 'fluid' or 'realistic' as what I am used to, but the color palette and richness was unbelievable.  Most modern animation seems to work within a limited palette for a given scene, but this was just so much more lifelike.  It gave the 2d art a 3d feel, and I liked it.

I also liked song over the closing credits.  I don't understand Japanese, but this song was pretty cool.  I *think* I know what the song was about, just from the emotion.

If the production style for THE CAT RETURNS is typical, I can see why some of you guys like anime so  much.  I may have to explore this genre some more.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Ulthar,

For family friendly Anime, I recommend Howl's Moving Castle, My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away.  Grave Of The Fireflies is one of the best, and most emotional anime films I've ever seen and it is by far my favorite due to the plethora of emotions that it aroused in me.  Maybe not one for the kids, eventhough it's quite tame considering it's dealing with war.

[Jim H]

"This was the English dub of the original, with Anne Hatheway, Cary Elwes, Peter Boyle and Tim Curry in lead parts. "

Just for future reference, the Studio Ghibli english dubs (Cat Returns, Laupita, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, etc) are virtually the only worthwhile english dubs.  I think the English dubs on most of them are better than the Japanese original.  Most anime has simply atrocious english, it's amazingly bad.  In particular, they do a very bad job of matching what an actor sounds like (regardless of how good of an actor they are) with what the character looks like, if you get what I mean.  That was a big chunk of what they got very right in the Ghibli english dubs.  

So, if you want to watch non-Ghibli anime (and a few other exceptions, like Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, which was MADE to be in English) and can't stand subtitles, be prepared for awful voice acting.


" The animation was not as 'fluid' or 'realistic' as what I am used to, but the color palette and richness was unbelievable."

That is pretty typical.  Anime stylistically (and often for budget reasons) has limited animation in many scenes.  Even in very polished high-budget works, this is often the case.  And it is not that they're incapable of doing smooth stuff.  Watch Princess Mononoke and you'll see what I mean.  Most of the action scenes are amazingly fluidic, supra-Disney at times, but then a calm scene where people are walking is animated at like 8 frames a second.  Just the way it goes.

"If the production style for THE CAT RETURNS is typical, I can see why some of you guys like anime so much. I may have to explore this genre some more."

Some of it is typical, some of it is not..  It's a superior film, cream of the crop, and is Studio Ghibli, which means it has a look significantly different from much of the rest of anime, which is almost unbelievably stagnant and unoriginal at times.  

Many characters in anime are virtually interchangeable in personality and design..  So many different animes are amazingly similar in visual look, it boggles my mind.  The contrast is particularly strong if you compare it to American theatrical and TV animation.  I mean, contrast say The Simpsons, Spongebob Squarepants, and Disney.  Almost no anime differ visually that much.

Some have commented on this at YTMND, if you've ever seen it...

http://japanisnotoriginalatanime.ytmnd.com

http://animegirlsexpression.ytmnd.com

That said, I do like some anime.  I've just become more critical of it lately due to so many people at my college who are like "Anime is GOD!!!".  Gets annoying.

Ghibli reccomendations: Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Sky Captain Laupita..  Really, all of their movies are worth watching at least once.  

For more western stylings: Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo.  Failures in Japan, but everyone in the west loves them.

Others I've liked: Trigun (my favorite), Vampire Hunter D (didn't like its sequel, Bloodlust, however), Bleach, Naruto (up to around episode 110), Dragon Half...

[Mr_Vindictive]

Jim,

I must agree on Vamp Hunter D.  I saw the film when I was about 8 and ended up buying it as my first DVD many years later.  Bloodlust was a huge disappointment though.

I'm glad to see that you recommend Naruto.  I just got about 30 episodes or so to watch on a new Divx/DVD player I bought for my game room.

[Andrew]

I have not seen this one yet.  I want to, because the group who made it really work at making solid films and have talent.

"Grave of the Fireflies" was mentioned.  Powerful film, expertly done, but I would probably not show it to children.  Heck, I have seen it cause tears in a number of adults.

I would definitely suggest "Kiki's Delivery Service" as safe for young children and a good story with good messages.

[Jim H]

"I'm glad to see that you recommend Naruto. I just got about 30 episodes or so to watch on a new Divx/DVD player I bought for my game room."

Cool.  Just remember after I think episode like 106 (something in there) Naruto starts getting into filler episodes.  If you're not familiar with the term, this is where the manga an anime show is based on isn't advanced enough for them to keep making new episodes based on them.  So they just make up their own stuff to fill up time.  Sometimes this is good, but Naruto's fillers are disappointing and only mildly amusing.

[Neville]

"The cat returns" is a Studio Ghibli film. Ghibli is best known for having produced most of Hayao Miyazaki's films, so if you enjoyed this one I'd suggest you to rent / buy as many of Miyazaki's films as you can. Most of them are family-friendly, but others such as "Princess Mononoke" or, to a lesser extent, "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind", have some violence, so keep that in mind.

There's also some other stuff by Miyazaki / Ghibli that should be on your list as well, such as the teen romance film "Whisper of the heart" (Miyazaki wrote the script), the already mentioned "Grave of the fireflies" or, specially, the TV series "Future Boy Conan". Those series are awesome, but they may be hard to find.

[dean]

Yet again, Ghibli must be mentioned as just plain outstanding Anime creators.  I haven't actually been too bothered by the issue of bad dubbing as such in anime [it's alot more forgiving than live film] that somebody mentioned above.

And yes, somebody also mentioned that there's alot of crap, rehashed plot-lines and stories in Anime just like in any genre/industry, but it's certainly worth exploring.  I'm relatively outspoken about my somewhat unhealthy obsession with all things "Ghost in the Shell" which I really enjoy, so I can't reccomend that enough, but there are certainly plenty of classic anime series and movies that are must sees in my book.

Though I must admit that in Anime, more than any other type of film, there is a lot of frustrating moments where you'll pick up a film that looks and sounds great, but you're just lost in terms of story, because it's based on a source that the producers just assume you already know alot about.  In some ways it's great, because I'm assuming alot of fans would really enjoy them, but as stand-alone films they suffer because of this [I just watched Advent Children and thought it was great, but unfortunately I never played the game it was a sequel for and as such it was a little lacking]

[Jim H]

Advent Children was lacking as a film even if you've played the game.  I know the storyline of FF7, it didn't help matters...  It still had mostly bad, overblown action sequences and a plot that was extremely thin and, in the end, meaningless.

There were a few cute references that you wouldn't notice if you hadn't played the games, but other than that, I don't think it would make a big difference in enjoyment of the film, as I didn't think it was a good film to start with.

[dean]

Jim H Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Advent Children was lacking as a film even if
> you've played the game.  I know the storyline of
> FF7, it didn't help matters...  It still had
> mostly bad, overblown action sequences and a plot
> that was extremely thin and, in the end,
> meaningless.


Oh sure the plot was paper thin, and everything really was meaningless [I mean, let's ressurect a dead character from the game into the movie and make it out as some big dramatic moment! Sure that'll work] , but that being said I thouroughly enjoyed the film despite this.  It's not the first film, nor the last, that had no real point to it other than flashy visuals.  Characters? They barely bothered to explain the main character at all, so what hope was there for the rest of then, but I enjoyed it since I am a big fan of the visual style of that film and the design of the whole Final Fantasy-type world in general.

[Jim H]

That I can agree with.  It did have some good visuals of the cityscapes and deserts.

[Inyarear]

Most of these suggestions for further animes to watch that I've been hearing are pretty good. I'd also recommend Kodomo no Omocha (Child's Toy); that series is hilariously crazy, and it's centered around a hyperactive young girl. To be sure, it's for a slightly older crowd. (The girl keeps referring to her manager as her "pimp" even as it becomes clear very early on that he's nothing of the sort.) Still, compared to most of the crap on TV these days, it's practically good clean fun.

For a bit of drama and humor mixed together, the original uncut Sailor Moon episodes are actually better than you'd think from seeing the braindead cut-and-dub job Dic did on them. Again, those episodes are actually more for pubescent teenagers than children--an inconvenient point back when Dic was bringing the series over to North America, since pretty much all the local TV cartoons then were strictly for kids. I should also mention that the dub carefully glossed over some homosexuality on the part of the villains and a couple of the anti-heros for the sake of touchy parents here. (In Sweden, the censors then decided to re-dub the American dubs for their audience because they didn't want homosexuals portrayed in such an unflattering light!) The episodes also tend to be rather repetitive.

As most of us who are into anime will also tell you, a few dubs (Studio Ghibli's) may be worth a view, but in most cases it's best to view animes in the original Japanese with English subtitles ("subs"). That does take a little more effort on the audience's part, but as I also like to say, TEACH THE FRIGGIN' KIDS TO READ ALREADY. Even when the dubbing companies care about the quality of their work (they usually don't), they often have to speed up or slow down their voice actors' lines to fit what's going on up on the screen, and the stuff comes out sounding flat and fake. That effect cuts both ways, incidentally: I've heard people say that Japanese dubs of Disney's films sounded awful too.

For some pulpy children's stories, you might also try the Detective Conan series (which I believe is called "Case Closed" here in America). Those stories are a little more suspenseful and involve slightly more violence than American cartoons usually do, but it's all sanitized and cleanly handled in the style of Hardy Boys novels. Those stories are also more aimed at young boys than young girls, I should add.

If you search carefully online, you can probably find the translated lyrics to those Japanese songs you hear with anime; given that music tends to feature prominently in anime, it's rather a crime for people to leave those untranslated, but dubbing some of them into English is next to impossible. When Buena Vista brought Kiki's Delivery Service over here, for example, they just plain replaced the songs at the beginning and the end. All four of the songs used in that movie are excellent, by the way, and I fully recommend that film to you. (In fact, that film may be one rare example in which the dub was actually better than the original. For some reason, in the original Japanese, Gigi has a really high and whiny voice; maybe that's the way Miyazaki thought a real cat's voice would sound if he could speak human language.)

In Japan, much the same way as here, teenagers tend to drive a lot of the market. Finding good stuff for the younger kids isn't that easy. What most anime fans (such as myself) like about anime is that a fair amount of it really is more for mature audiences (in the sense of "handles lots of realistic situations even if the setting is rather fantastic" more than "involves sleeping around like a two-dollar whore"). If you're looking for an anime for yourself rather than the kids, you could try out Ayashi no Ceres for a  smorgasboard of everything good and bad that goes into typical animes; in that story, the blood and tears flow freely, there's a lot of sexual tension (though only a touch of actual sex, and that's all implied rather than shown), and there's a lot of human suffering throughout. Oddly, the writers still found a way to jam a lot of humor in there too.

In short, you can get just about anything in anime, if you look hard enough. If you're into something really off-beat and your daughter is calm and philosophical enough to sit still for it, I'd also recommend A Night on the Intergalactic Railroad to you. That film... well, let's just say you kind of have to see it for yourself to get what it's about.

In any case, you'll probably find that all these animes are better than the cartoons made for adults here in America. As I like to say about the Heavy Metal films, they didn't fail at the box office because they were animated... They failed because they sucked! If you'd care to mix some American stuff with your Japanese experience, though, you might try The Last Unicorn or (if you can find a copy) The Mouse and His Child.