Ghost Cat Anzu Review

Rotoscoping is a unique animation technique that involves drawing over live-action footage frame by frame. This technique has been used in various ways, from creating the glowing lightsabers in Star Wars to fully rotoscoped films like A Scanner Darkly and Ghost Cat Anzu. While it’s not the first fully rotoscoped anime, with works like The Case of Hana and Alice and the TV show Flowers of Evil preceding it, Ghost Cat Anzu is the latest example of this technique in anime. However, despite its distinct visual style, Ghost Cat Anzu is an uneven film; its lack of an engaging story and compelling characters makes the unique visuals insufficient to fully hold my interest.

Karin is an 11-year-old girl whose mother passed away a few years ago. Her debt-ridden father, worn down and desperate, brings her to her grandfather’s house in the countryside, intending to leave her there while he sorts out his issues with loan sharks. He promises to return on the anniversary of her mother’s death. Alone and struggling, her grandfather asks Anzu, a ghost cat, to look after her.

For its one-hour-and-thirty-one-minute runtime, the film has surprisingly little story. For nearly two-thirds of it, not much happens; it plays more like a slice-of-life drama as Karin and Anzu engage in playful antics, from taking odd jobs to meeting other spirits and even gambling. While charming, it lacks substance until the third act, when the film tries to delve into deeper themes of moving on and finding a sense of home, especially for Karin. Despite this attempt, she lacks a well-defined character arc. She is simply a girl who feels abandoned by her father and struggles with the loss of her mother. There’s no clear sense of how long she spends at her grandfather’s, nor any meaningful conversations about her mother. As a result, when the third act shifts to address these emotional aspects, it feels rushed and haphazard. For all we know, she could have been with her grandfather for only two weeks.

Anzu consistently brings humor to the film. Watching this human-sized cat ride a scooter—and then get pulled over by the police for not having a license is always funny. The world of the film accepts spirits as a natural presence, roaming around, so every joke that plays on this premise lands well.

Visually, Ghost Cat Anzu looks appealing, though the rotoscoping technique feels inconsistent. Karin and Anzu look fantastic throughout the film, with beautiful color work and expressive emotions. However, the secondary characters appear out of place; they’re drawn in a way that makes them look as if they belong in a different movie. The background art, on the other hand, is consistently stunning and serves as a true highlight of the film.

In the end, there’s not much more to say about this film; the story is inconsistent, the characters are one-dimensional, and the animation is just adequate. Ghost Cat Anzu is simply an okay film. By the time the credits rolled, I didn’t feel my time had been wasted, but I wasn’t fully engaged either. It was just fine.

★★1/2

Played as part of Scotland Loves Anime 2024 / Mirai Moriyama, Noa Gotō, Munetaka Aoki, Miwako Ichikawa, Keiichi Suzuki / Dir: Yōko Kuno, Nobuhiro Yamashita