This’ll be a bit rude, but I’m sure many, many anime films are released in Japan that don’t get an international theatrical release. So why this one? It’s not a bad movie but it is pretty shaggy, unfocused, and unremarkable.

The film is about a little girl who is dropped off at her grandfather’s shrine where she happens upon Anzu, the shrine’s cat. A humanoid feline who walks, talks, carries a flip phone, and rides a moped. This is an unusual situation but she rolls with it.

And… well… a lot of random, shaggy moments happen in this rather unfocused film. It eventually finds its way to a plot, but it more often feels like a casual hang in the countryside with a cat that looks like what happens when Heathcliff and Garfield have a baby who kind of talks like (in the English dub) John Ratzenberger.

I found a lot of this wandering aimlessness a little on the dull side. I kept thinking the film felt like My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away had a hang out and I was left alone trying to figure out what the point of all this was.

When it does stumble on a plot, it gets pretty fantastical and weird. I kind of held on and went with it, kind of wondering if I was missing some of the point. Like maybe this is all deeply rooted in Japanese folklore and I’m just the ignoramus along for the ride.

The art and animation is a mixed bag. The backgrounds are all fine… very much in line with typical anime but not at the top of its form. The character design though are a little off model from standard anime. Which is a fine thing if the models weren’t so off-putting and deformed. The main character looks fine… typical anime… but all the other humans (and non-humans) did not appeal to me in the least. And that includes the cat… which is a problem for a movie named after him.

I’m pretty mixed on the film but I’ll slide it a solid rating for the distinct possibility some of my distance from the story was due to its link to Japanese folklore. I wasn’t bored (for the most part), just a little discomfited by the art and distracted by the shaggy pacing.

Score: 75