That being said, the narrative’s mid-section would benefit immensely from a little fleshing-out.

With a hefty dose of the fantastical, a hint of peril, and a sprinkling of comedy, Baron: The Cat Returns entertains from start to finish.

In general, the manga’s plot follows a fairly linear path there aren’t too many twists or turns and the whole thing remains easy to follow from start to finish. Having landed in a bizarre and unfamiliar world, the teenage girl now finds that she must get back home before she turns into a furry feline herself. In order to save her from this unwanted union, she soon enlists the help of two cats, the Baron and Muta, but before they can do anything Haru is whisked off to the kingdom of cats. To show his gratitude, the Cat King insists that Haru marries the prince, though she is less than enthusiastic. As such, a lot of my choices in what to read have been based on whether or not I enjoyed the animated version and, as a rampant Studio Ghibli fangirl, when I discovered that The Cat Returns was based on a one-volume manga, I immediately went and ordered it.īaron: The Cat Returns follows the story of Haru, a young, clumsy girl who doesn’t seem to have all that much going for her until one day on her way home from school, she saves the prince of the Cat Kingdom from being run over by a truck. I started out as an anime fan, and only later became interested in manga.

The cat returns stream