A teenage girl rescues a mysterious cat from traffic and soon finds herself the unwelcome recipient of gifts and favors from The Cat King (Tetsurô Tanba and Tim Curry), who also wants her to marry his son, Prince Lune (Takayuki Yamada and Andrew Bevis). With the assistance of a fat, grouchy real cat and a an elegant cat statuette come to life (both characters featured in Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart (1995)), the girl visits the Cat Kingdom and narrowly escapes again.—castipiani