While Haru is older than Chihiro, the heroine of “Spirited Away,” she also finds herself on a mission to discover her own true nature that’s as compelling as it is unplanned. But a mysterious voice instructs her to seek out the Bureau of Cats, a charming miniature town to which she is led by Mouta, an intrepid and overfed white feline.
When she later learns the cats intend for her to marry the prince, she panics. Haru learns she saved the king’s son, Prince Loon, and is given a scroll promising her immediate happiness. That night, in one of the toon’s most fluidly drawn sequences, a magnificent procession of upright cats pulls up to Haru’s door with their king - a fat cat with a jeweled forehead - in a palanquin, as Secret Service-style bodyguards fend off less sophisticated neighborhood cats. When Haru asks her mother if cats can talk, mom reminds her that when she was a little girl, she shared a box of fish-shaped crackers with a stray cat and reported that they’d had a conversation. With a formal bow, he says he must go, but will return to thank her properly. Standing on its rear paws, the cat addresses Haru with great poise and, speaking eloquent Japanese, thanks her for saving his life. Grabbing her friend’s lacrosse stick, Haru dives in front of a truck, scooping up the feline and propelling them both to safety in the nick of time. Walking home with her closest girlfriend, Haru spots a graceful cat as it heads into traffic with a gift-wrapped package between its teeth.
High school student Haru, who lives with her equally spacey mom, is always late to school.