GHOST CAT ANZU - Mark Reviews Movies

Ghost Cat Anzu, GKIDS

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 14, 2024

Ghost Cat Anzu becomes as strange as one might expect from a movie featuring its title character. Anzu (voice of Mirai Moriyama) is a 30-something-year-old cat who is human-sized, stands on his hind legs, talks, and behaves like the stereotype of a driftless 30-something who still lives in his childhood home. The character's funny, because his sitcom-like existence stands in such sharp contrast to the slice-of-life story surrounding him. Well, it's a plain and grounded tale up to a point, since it does, after all, feature a walking, talking, scooter-driving cat.

Eventually, Shinji Imaoka's screenplay, adapted from the manga series by Takashi Imashiro, embraces what Anzu represents within the story: the strange and otherworldly. Much of that, especially during the chaotic third act, feels as if it comes out of nowhere. There's a certain charm to Anzu when he's just a background oddity, but when the plot veers into the odd, the narrative loses its grip on a sense of what matters here. It becomes weird, seemingly for the sake of it.

Initially, the human story at its core revolves around Karin (voice of Noa Gotō), an 11-year-old girl who has left her home in Tokyo with her father Tetsuya (voice of Munetaka Aoki) to return to the father's childhood village in the country. Tetsuya has gotten into trouble with some loan sharks, and desperate for money to repay his debt, the father has come back to ask for cash from his own father Oshō (voice of Keiichi Suzuki), a monk from the town's local temple.

The request doesn't go over well with the monk, so Tetsuya leaves for the city to figure out something and asks his father to watch over Karin while he's gone. Oshō tasks Anzu with keeping on eye out on his granddaughter.

That's the basic setup—at first, at least. We watch Karin attempt to adjust to life in the country, while pining for home, being disappointed in her father's continuing failures, and preparing for the upcoming anniversary of her mother's death. Not much happens in the way of plot, but directors Yōko Kuno and Nobuhiro Yamashita know they don't really need one, given the frustrations of our human protagonist, the eccentricity of its eponymous feline sidekick, and the animation style, which meshes painterly backdrops and cartoon-ish caricatures.

Despite their sometimes-rough design, the characters here are given an extra edge of life and fluidity by way of rotoscoping, and the smoothness of their motions is complemented by some naturalistic vocal performances. The actors sound as if they were recorded, not in a studio, but in locations that match the story's assorted settings. There are disparate elements in the technical qualities of the movie, in other words, but everything blends together in a unique and satisfying way.

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said of the story, which gradually feels forced to be about more than simply living with and appreciating these characters. Karin becomes a side player in her own tale, which makes some sense considering the inherent appeal of Anzu. He really is an intriguing character—a spirit of sorts given physical form and caught between his instincts as a cat and his status as just another, ordinary resident of the village.

He does chores at the temple (even though he's not particularly good at them, if his attempt to make dinner is any indication), drives into town to earn some money giving massages and doing odd jobs when they come up, and is treated as anyone else in town would be. Anzu is even pulled over by the cops at one point, arguing that he assumed he didn't need a drivers license since he is, after all, a cat.

It's easy to become caught up in simple aims and relaxed attitude of the movie, because that's all the story is. Karin waits for her father's return and becomes increasingly certain that Tetsuya will let her down yet again, and Anzu does his schtick. Even when other supernatural elements and figures (such as forest sprites that the cat mistakes for birds) appear here, there's an everyday quality to them.

Anzu discovers the lair of a frog monster, who just wants to relax in his cavern home, refresh himself in an underground hot spring, and dig more holes to find new ways to enjoy the easy life. Obviously, he and Anzu become fast friends, because that's all the cat wants, too. When Karin decides to return to Tokyo to look for her father, Anzu tags along and seems more impressed by all the food options available to him than anything else about the big city.

The story doesn't need more than this, but it goes for more anyway. That's particularly the case in the story's final act, which suddenly becomes about Karin's grief (after sidelining the character), her realization that her supernatural pals might be able to help her reunite with her mother, and a trip to an afterlife that's set up like a resort hotel. There's plenty of imagination on display in this section of Ghost Cat Anzu, but the newfound focus on plotting, action (The whole thing resolves with a lengthy chase), and an effort to be about something deeper diminishes and dilutes the simple charms the movie has adopted until that point. A funny anthropomorphic cat is strange enough, perhaps, although not for the filmmakers, apparently.

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