Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to announce we’re returning to the venerable films of Toei Doga, this time screening the much-loved Wonderful World of Puss ‘n Boots, one of the final films of the studio’s original golden age. Coming out shortly after the landmark Horus, Puss ‘n Boots was actually something of a step back in terms of dramatic content – Isao Takahata’s first masterpiece was a true outlier in its era, and it would take some time for projects like the World Masterpiece Theater to catch up with his vision of a more tonally somber, morally ambiguous medium.

That’s not meant as a jab against Puss ‘n Boots, though! There’s no shame in offering a rip-roaring adventure, and Puss ‘n Boots further benefits from involving most of Toei Doga’s best animators at the peak of their powers. The legendary Yasuji Mori is once again handling animation direction, meaning I’m sure we’ll be able to admire the fluid sensitivity of his character acting scattered throughout the film, while Yasuo Otsuka, Reiko Okuyama, and Hayao Miyazaki all stand among the film’s formidable slate of key animators. Otsuka described his time on Puss ‘n Boots as something like a playground of unbound animation, and Miyazaki’s contributions here are so legendary that he himself would end up echoing them in later projects like The Castle of Cagliostro. Hell, the film’s so iconic that its protagonist still stands as Toei’s mascot, half a century down the line. I’ve rambled more than enough about the film’s unimpeachable credentials, so let’s get to it!

The Wonderful World of Puss ‘n Boots

We open on a scene of dramatic action, as our heroic feline is chased through a graveyard by a cadre of equally furry assailants, all while lightning cracks in the background. I like how this lightning is used to play with the color palates here – everything is momentarily lit in brighter, more colorful hues as the lightning strikes

Ooh, and a dynamic transition here, with the glow of the lightning morphing into the sheen of this official’s knife

“You freed the mice!” “Well, that’s because the moon was so blue tonight.” The context for this chase is established in moments, alongside a clear indication of our protagonist’s irreverent personality. The pacing already feels more “modern” compared to the early Toei Doga films, similar to how Horus started with a sequence of frantic action. You generally can’t start slow in more modern adventure films, particularly those intended for children

Our hero’s name is Pero

And another dynamic transition, as Pero cuts through both his bindings and the screen to reveal the film’s title. The direction feels extraordinarily confident and propulsive here, and also more directly aligned with the animation – a clear change from the earlier Toei Doga films, which involved more standout displays of character acting on top of a flat background than this sort of fusion of animation and overall storyboarding

Love the playful designs of this big boss cat and his three subordinates

And more excellent flourishes of composition, with these three nooses dropping down and briefly being filled with silhouettes of the minions being hanged. Just so much creativity and fun art design in every moment!

It’s funny, this extremely confident and altogether familiar articulation of a children’s adventure is making me appreciate all the more how strange Toei Doga’s earlier films were, how melancholy and frequently unconcerned with child-friendly payoffs

Even the opening credits echo this transition, offering an energetic chase between Pero and pursuers in the background, rather than the stately procession of title cards that preceded prior films

Also like how Pero and his pursuers remain eminently cat-like, frequently stopping to nap or chase butterflies

You can definitely sense the seeds of Castle of Cagliostro’s Lupin in Pero’s behavior. He even sounds like Lupin

Pero looks into a nearby cabin, wherein two brothers are plotting to deny their third brother Pierre his share of the inheritance. Their designs call back to Little Prince’s collection of geometric shapes, though somewhat softened, with the characteristic tapering of form indicative of Mori’s designs

The brothers pile on poor Pierre in various other ways, insulting his cooking and demanding he remove his ugly face from their vicinity

Pierre invites Pero inside. An interesting twist here – Pierre would have been the protagonist in earlier Toei Doga films, but here the animal companion takes center stage

Love how the smallest of these three pursuing cats can barely fit in his robes. Delightful character animation as he shuffles along, almost lost within his sleeves

He’s too short to even draw his sword, and instead falls out the window. Top shelf stuff

Oh my god. The first pursuer gets his sword bent on a pot, and then immediately whips out an anvil to start hammering it back into shape. Even the humor feels like delightful proto-Lupin nonsense

Meanwhile, the tiny cat is still outside, repeatedly trying and failing to leap onto the windowsill. I can see exactly what Otsuka meant – this film is already proving a pure celebration of animation’s whimsical, naturally amusing capacity for comedy and storytelling. Every movement is playful and full of energy

Lots of great gags predicated on pacing too – a variation on that classic “Duck Season, no Rabbit Season” bit with this cat preemptively dodging an apple then getting hit by the next one, plus the inherent humor of the two brothers attempting to distribute their ill-gotten gains while this chaotic action scene goes on around them

Pierre’s design is more rounded and realistic than his brothers, an aesthetic distinction that also carries through to his more grounded style of character acting. He feels the most like an obvious Yasuji Mori character, standing out similarly to Helga in Horus

Having divided their father’s fortune, the nasty brothers kick Pierre and Pero out of their home

A classic Mori Moment as Pierre stands utterly still, incapable of reckoning with this hideous change in fortunes while Pero inspects his bag of belongings. The following sequence of character acting is similarly excellent, Pierre’s body crumbling against the door as he begs to be let in. This discordance in Toei Doga films has become one of my favorite things about them – in the wake of something as utterly farcical as that last scene, a moment of genuine grief and despair

A held shot on his crumbled bag and loose potatoes emphasizes his destitution

“I don’t see any sense in sticking around this shack. The world is a vast place, you know?” Echoes of Gulliver’s Journey to the Moon in Pero reviving Pierre’s spirits

Lovely backgrounds as the two set off on their adventure. I think Little Prince’s unique modernist style will always be my favorite among the Toei Doga aesthetics, but all of their films are beautiful in their own ways

The two seem to be journeying through a fantastical European countryside, another shift from the generally Chinese and Japanese legends of early Toei Doga films, and another indication of the evolving interests of Toei’s key artists

“It says here that the richest and strongest man in the country will be given Princess Rose as his bride!” Quite the energizing pitch here – are we actually in for some kind of tournament?

Nice depth-rich compositions that peer through several levels of scenery within this castle town. Earlier Toei Doga films frequently employed foreground debris to create a sense of depth in spite of the action all still taking place on one plane. Here, we see characters moving across all the levels of the scenery, a trick that Miyazaki will embrace for most of his future projects (even the TV-bound Sherlock Hound offers some of them)

Princess Rose passes by in her carriage. A funny contrast between her rounded, somewhat more realistic Mori-style design, and the exaggerated, angular caricature of her driver

Pero promises to hook his good buddy Pierre up with the princess

Remarkable breadth of distinct costumes in these crowd scenes. Unlike many prior Toei Doga films, there’s no real “set costume” for the king’s subordinates, they all have their own form of regal dress

The various princely suitors all introduce themselves with a representative form of dance. Movement is characterization here, and the entire film is infused with a musical sensibility that extends beyond its overt musical theater sequences

Suddenly a great gust of wind blows all of the suitors out of the audience hall, and a terrible, looming figure appears!

He introduces himself as Lucifer, Prince of Darkness. Seems like an upright sort of fellow

Always amused by the contrast of Christian iconography generally being used for stuff like children’s villains or goofy inversions like Mr. Satan in Japanese media, which of course plays havoc on their adaptation into countries that see Satan as anything more than a fairy tale. Christianity is an imagery gold mine if you can accept that certain audiences are going to take your plundering a little too seriously

Lucifer recreates the king’s palace in diamond, which is more than enough evidence of his suitability for the king. Echoes of Little Prince’s crystal palace here

I like how Lucifer’s skin color reflects his mood – pink for his romantic ardor, green with bitterness when he gets rebuffed

Excellent color choices as the scene shifts to a decaying ruin, Lucifer exploiting his powers to convey the consequences of defying him

The king is given an ultimatum: three days from now, he must bring his daughter to Lucifer’s castle to be wed. A clear timer to impart a greater sense of urgency, another departure from earlier Toei Doga’s more freewheeling narrative approach. It kinda felt like the team weren’t even sure how to end Anju to Zushiomaru, with its story devolving into a series of fight scenes that departed heavily from the source material

Pero sees all of this as a great chance for Pierre, who need simply defeat Lucifer in combat to gain the hand of the princess

The Castle of Cagliostro parallels are only stacking as the film continues; this is essentially the main plot of Cagliostro, and Rose’s castle even resembles Cagliostro’s lonely home

As Rose sings of her hopes and misfortunes, a group of mice appear to steal Pero’s fish, offering another opportunity for more goofy character acting. Another odd tonal contrast that’s common within these Toei Doga features: the animal mascot characters engaging in goofy shenanigans while the human characters lament their terrible fate, a feature of both Horus and Anju to Zushiomaru

Gotta love this mouse leader’s tuna can hat, though. Where did he even find a tuna can in this era?

The mice pulling down their hats into conical disguises is another beat you see all the time in anime, but would never see in American media. Even Redline had friggin’ “Lynchman” as a character

The three cat minions urge Pero to eat these mice and repent his crime. I like the implication that they’ve just been hanging out in the bushes for the last several days, enjoying the adventures of Pero and Pierre until duty rouses them to action

Pero defeats his assailants with a gag anyone can appreciate: the two of them run off a cliff into open space, only falling once they realize they’ve left the ground behind them. Truly the essence of cartooning

Even Pero feels bad about sending the baby cat off the cliff, but such is the fate of his cruel oppressors

The mice decide to become Pero’s followers in gratitude. Wouldn’t be a Toei Doga film if we weren’t stacking mascots on top of mascots

Excellent sight gag as the mice whip out measuring tape to take Pierre’s measurements, apparently always prepared to fit a young man for a princely new outfit

More excellent layouts as the mice investigate the town. This castle town is so inviting, and this whole film is so energetic; I’m not surprised this film essentially became Toei’s statement of purpose

Ooh, inventive cut reintroducing Pierre’s brothers. We seem them approaching on a horse-led wagon, and then as the camera pans up an inn, they reappear opening the window at the top. A playful way of conveying their movement without movement, as if we’re scanning across a picture book and seeing them appear time and again

I like how even the inanimate objects are given ways of “dancing” along with the rhythm of the music. Previously they had the bouncing potatoes in Pierre’s bag lend the bag a sense of rhythm, and here the uneven wheels of the mice’ wagon make it so it essentially nods along with the beat

The mice gallantly sing of their bravery and willingness to challenge anyone, even a big dog

They’re doing a bit of a Cyrano de Bergerac conceit here too, with Pero providing the romantic entreaties while Pierre just stands on the castle wall staring at the princess

Unfortunately, he is again interrupted by the three cat pursuers, leading into a genuine Scooby Doo-style chase among the castle corridors. Lupin indeed!

You can really appreciate the loose mandate offered to these animators in the frequency of these wacky chase sequences. The film frequently digresses for a few minutes simply to celebrate the energy and comedy of these cats in contest

Another classic gag sequence as the lights go out, and Pero’s pursuers find themselves accidentally dueling each other

Pero stumbles into the king’s chamber. The king is apparently not surprised to receive a cat as an envoy, but I suppose kings would be accustomed to such things

Pero claims he is the envoy of Duke Caraba

With Pero indisposed, the mice sub in as Pierre’s new hype men

Ooh, lovely animation of the white rose falling from Pierre’s hands. Also an interesting effect used to convey this overwhelming light as he considers his feelings – it looks like they shined light through layers of colored paper or glass beneath the animation cels

The castle looms high above, its towering peak emphasizing Pierre’s feelings of unworthiness. And so he flees, unable to rise to the title of Duke Caraba

Excellent flourish of Pierre’s brother pounding his hand on the railing in fury, then immediately blowing on his poor bruised hand

Pero’s angry fist serves as our next energetic transition, leading us to the two brothers touting their accomplishments to an unimpressed and suspiciously cat-shaped gate guard

This is quite a funny film in the context of Castle of Cagliostro; it’s basically just “what if Lupin was played by a cat,” meaning all of his seductions must be transposed into evidence of “Duke Caraba” being worthy of the princess

Pero now employing his army of mice to strong-arm peasants into praising Duke Caraba. An echo of Horus’ dramatic stills, here naturally paced to the beat of the drum

More playful alignment of the musical beat and the animation, as a gramophone recording of Duke Caraba’s theme song is played forward, backward, and with a stutter-step, each variation matched to the marching of the king’s procession

This film has such clear unity of intent; playful animation of animal companions has always been a staple of Toei Doga films, but never before has it been such a central priority, facilitated by both the direction and the persistently animation-timed soundtrack

Pero manages to snag Pierre a second set of fancy court clothes, truly a wingman beyond compare. Love his self-satisfied whisker twiddling, another very Lupin flourish

Really, for as much as this cat reminds me of Lupin, he’s also revealing how much Lupin is like a cat. Supremely confident and agile, prone to fucking with people just because he can, kinda stupid

Pero always moves with such a distinct strut, as if he is approaching for a dance, each leg crossing dramatically over the other. His natural movements strongly imply his confident, somewhat performative personality

“Everything will work out? But I’m going against the devil, you know?” Pierre has some understandable concerns about Pero’s lackadaisical ethos

Though less extreme, the differences between Pero and Pierre call back to the differences between Horus and Hilda – the first all confidence, a clear cartoon character who expresses themselves boldly and physically, the second a somber, anxious character more reminiscent of live-action dramas, with naturalistic character acting to match. Through this dynamic, all of the strengths of Toei’s animators are expressed across these films’ oppositional leads

Pierre’s obviously less of a revelation than Hilda, though. With Takahata at the helm, Horus was largely Hilda’s film – Puss n’ Boots clearly belongs to Pero, offering less moral complexity to Pierre’s position and less time for him to ruminate on his feelings. He’s basically just “timid,” an object Pero has to push through the plot’s hurdles, characterized most significantly through his graceful animation

“Pierre! It’s time to go on a walk with the princess!” Alright, so this could be a key scene for texturing both Pierre and the princess

My god, such smooth movement on this taunting bow by Pero. They definitely varied the drawing count for that one, with the extra in-betweens emphasizing the sense of a labored, sarcastic gesture of deference

It’s funny – Miyazaki and Otsuka saw Horus as heralding a new era of human drama in anime, but it was really Pero that ultimately won out, save for occasional outliers created by artists like Miyazaki and Takahata themselves. There’s no one to blame there – children will generally prefer a goofy cat to a depressed princess, and the shape and scope of their entertainment follows suit. But I still have to wonder, what would anime be like if it was Hilda who had become Toei’s enduring symbol instead of Pero? What if Horus, rather than being shorted on its theatrical run, had actually been pushed towards the international festival circuit? An intriguing turning point in the history of the medium

Hah, I love the architectural embellishments of Lucifer’s fortress, like this cuckoo clock suspended on a ramshackle tower. Some Toei Doga films are enjoyable simply as parades of fantastical settings, like Little Prince and Gulliver

The animators are clearly having a lot of fun with Lucifer as well – his face is like putty, squashed and stretched by his hands as he stares at Rose in ecstasy

As Pero conducts a chorus of angel-voiced mice, Pierre confesses he is not truly a duke, and Rose responds that upbringing means nothing to her. Good, I’m glad these kids are finally working out their misunderstandings – and in a way that emphasizes Pierre is defined by his honesty, and Rose by her appreciation of people’s true nature. A key scene for actually selling what Pero is fighting for

Another great gag for our tiniest pursuer cat, who gets caught up in the romantic music as the three plan their next abduction

Interesting visual effects for this tornado coming to spirit Rose away. It almost looks like they actually scratched the cel, adding to the rough texture of the spinning wind

With tears in his eyes, Pierre’s expression at last changes, his mopey upturned eyebrows sloping down and giving a stronger, angular definition to his face. Simple shapes always carry a certain tonal charge; the less “round” Pierre becomes, the more he grows into a man worthy of the princess

Lucifer’s castle is delightful! An amalgamation of discordantly extending towers and walkways, like an upside-down octopus waving its stone extremities

Oh my god, Lucifer’s got a gramophone with a bone for a needle arm. Fantastic

Some nice varied character acting for Rose as she learns of Pierre’s alleged cowardice

“Would you not like to demonstrate your strength by transforming into various creatures?” Ahh, where is this one from!? Classic fable regardless, tricking the pompous wizard by flattering him, then capturing him in a form that can’t escape

The animators must have had a lot of fun with all these animal transformations. Continuing this film’s overall theme of basically being an animator playground

Yep, after a parade of animal transformations, Pero requests a final shift into a mouse

Wonderfully smug expressions from Lucifer after he is nearly defeated, but regains his skull necklace magical focus

Pierre raises his sword. He has conquered his fears!

Unfortunately it seems his fears were well justified, as his sword does nothing to Lucifer

And so Lucifer becomes a three-headed dragon. Toei sure love their multi-headed dragons

Still room for playful expression work though; love his wounded expression as Rose faints at the sight of his new form

Man, it really speaks to this film’s priorities that we reached the “final battle” with almost a third of the film still to go. This is a story about action! With the plot largely concluded, it’s a rollercoaster led entirely by physical challenges

Lucifer’s dragon actually has some texture to its scales, making me assume it won’t be employed for anything as ambitious as the Little Prince’s dragon – simply too difficult to animate that many scales in motion, as One Piece’s animators have learned over Wano’s dragon-stuffed finale

It’s funny, Lucifer’s goofy expressions are so charming that it’s hard to feel particularly threatened by or mad at him. The animators liked him too much to make him truly villainous

Ooh, love this sequence of Pierre and Pero reflected in Lucifer’s orb, with the scenery warping around the edges as they float to the entrance of Lucifer’s castle. I wonder if this sequence was by Otsuka – it sort of reminds me of his “training” sequence in Gulliver, which employed similar tricks of perspective

“If the sun were out now, I would have disintegrated!” Well, I guess we’ve got our victory condition

While Pero loses faith, our mouse leader heroically snags Lucifer’s bone focus. They’re getting significant mileage out of “tiny mouse drags a skull around”

The storyboarding amplifies the sense of danger as Pierre scales the castle – lots of high-angle and low-angle compositions, emphasizing the great distance he has to fall if he stumbles

This whole sequence is also emphatically Lupin-esque, a chase scene across high towers involving all sorts of bodily contortions to stay grounded

With the skull having fallen directly on the dopy pursuer cat’s head, Puss ‘n Boots has at last achieved its raison d’etre

Rose continues to wait on her balcony for Pierre to save her. Obviously the films have very different priorities, but it’s hard not to feel how significant of a step back from Hilda this princess is – not just none of Hilda’s moral complexity, but also basically no agency within the story altogether. This film’s plenty of fun, but Horus was infused with a substance that Puss ‘n Boots clearly can’t match

Oh no, Lucifer destroyed his delightful clocktower! Well, at least it exploded into a very Sherlock Hound-reminiscent array of loose cogs and springs. Miyazaki sure loves making mechanical things collapse and explode

Holy shit is this an ambitious cut – Lucifer drops his hanging crows’ roost and we see it swing from the inside, the pursuer cats bouncing alongside a pile of individually animated bones as they’re all tossed to and fro. This sort of deeply perspective-oriented cut, wherein the entire composition is actively moving, is a wild departure from the film’s usual style of characters moving along one plane in front of a flat background

The rope snaps! Pierre and Rose tumble downward!

Lucifer’s castle is a character in its own right – hidden panels, spinning towers, levers that prompt all manner of physical transformations. It’s the kind of secret base you’d dream up as a child, another concept that would carry on from here to Sherlock Hound through Moriarty’s various hideouts

Holding himself and Rose aloft through one hand gripping a rope, Pierre manages to swing himself and his princess through a window and back into the castle. Dude has really come into his own over the last twenty minutes

Their chase takes them all the way up to the castle’s highest reaches, which appear to include a hollow belltower and an open-air colosseum. Delightful

Pierre’s dual with Lucifer is also animated on 2s or 1s, allowing Pierre to look remarkably agile as he dodges and thrusts

Lucifer losing his sword facilitates another distinctive sequence, as he holds a cat’s saber daintily between two fingers while dueling Pierre. So much of this film seems driven by the logic of “what other fun things can we force these delightfully expressive bodies to do”

In contrast, Rose is animated with a fluidity and realism that calls to mind Disney’s early princesses, who were frequently animated to match live-action footage through rotoscoping

A fantastic cut as Rose reaches the tower’s summit, panning around her in order to dynamically shift from focusing on her face as she prays for the sun, to peering outwards towards the approaching sunrise. This film is pulling off some remarkably modern-feeling tricks with perspective

The castle tumbles as the sun rises, and Lucifer is defeated! But what will become of our tumbling heroes!?

Ah good, the crows become a flock of doves and guide them to safety. Close one

And Done

Goddamn, what a ride! Puss ‘n Boots offered the most action- and comedy-packed Toei Doga experience yet, filling every loose moment with fanciful character acting, energetic duels, and endless visual gags. While I obviously tend to prefer the sort of poignant, morally ambiguous drama represented by Horus, it is impossible to deny the vitality and virtuosity of Pero’s adventures. Like Castle of Cagliostro, the film is a shining exemplar of animated whimsy and aesthetic ambition from start to finish, demonstrating both the Toei team’s current mastery of character-rich animated acting, as well as the ambitions pushing them towards wild sequences like the finale’s various perspective-shifting cuts. Puss ‘n Boots is simply a fantastic animated adventure, another key wonder in Toei Doga’s formidable collection.

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