Jorts

Aoi Hiiragi began serialising Mimi o Sumaseba in Shueisha's Ribon magazine in August 1989; Studio Ghibli adapted the work in 1995 under director Yoshifumi Kondō with a Hayao Miyazaki screenplay. The Baron, a hand-carved figurine sitting in Shiro Nishi's antique shop in that 1995 film, was a minor figure in both the manga and the Kondō feature. Hiiragi published a follow-up manga titled Neko no Danshaku Baron in 1994 that expanded the Baron's backstory and the Cat Kingdom premise; Miyazaki commissioned a feature adaptation of that material in 2000 and assigned the directorial role to first-time feature director Hiroyuki Morita, an animator who had worked under Satoshi Kon on Perfect Blue (1997). The Cat Returns (Neko no Ongaeshi) released in Japan on 20 July 2002 paired with the short Ghiblies Episode 2; combined feature runtime was kept under two hours to allow double-screening. The Cat Returns alone runs 75 minutes. Yoshihiko Hakamada voiced the Baron in Japanese with deliberately formal, archaic phrasing meant to suggest a figurine carved decades earlier. The English dub, supervised by Pixar producer John Lasseter under the Disney-Tokuma Shoten distribution agreement, cast Cary Elwes in the role, with Elwes drawing on his own The Princess Bride (1987) vocal cadence to fit the gentlemanly register. The film grossed approximately 6.46 billion yen in Japanese theatrical release, the highest figure for any Japanese release that year and the seventh-highest gross worldwide for a Japanese film in 2002 across all markets. Production budget was approximately 2 billion yen, modest by Ghibli standards. Morita's direction never received another feature assignment at Ghibli; he subsequently worked as a freelance storyboard supervisor on various Production I.G and Madhouse projects. The Baron design, with his cream-coloured fur, top hat, and tailcoat, has remained one of Ghibli's most-merchandised characters at the Mitaka museum gift shop and through Studio Ghibli's licensing partner Donguri Kyowakoku.