Neko no Ongaeshi(The Cat Returns) (2002)

A 17-year-old girl named Haru saves a cat from a car accident. Little she knows that the cat is the son of the Cat King, who rules over a feline realm of an alternate world. Haru is offered a reward but nothing the kingdom's feline messenger offers seems enticing to the girl. In fact, she could do without any of them (catnip, foxtail grass, etc.) As an alternate reward, the messager offers to take her to the feline land where she can slouch around, eating and sleeping all day just like any household cat. Now, THIS sounds enticing to Haru, who doesn't seem to fit in anyway in her own human world, seeming to be one step behind everybody else all the time. However, all is not what she expected in the feline world where strange adventures await her...

More a spin-off than a sequel to Ghibli's earlier opus "Mimi wo Sumaseba (Whispers of the Heart)," the film is based on a story by Reiko Yoshida ("Whisper of the Heart"). It was executive-produced by Hayao Miyazaki, with Hiroyuki Morita at the directing helm. Morita's earlier credits include "Tenchi Muyo! In Love 2," and while "The Cat Returns" marks his first directing job with Ghibli, he had worked as an animator on the studio's earlier classics such as "Kiki's Delivery Service."