Ghost Cat Anzu Anime Film Wins Fantasia International Film Festival Audience Awards' Gold Prize

The anime film Ghost Cat Anzu ( Bakeneko Anzu-chan in Japan) won the 28th Fantasia International Film Festival Audience Awards' Gold prize in the BEST ANIMATED FEATURE category. The festival's official website announced the news on August 7. Mononoke the Movie: Karakasa (aka: Mononoke the Movie: Phantom in The Rain ) also won the Bronze prize in the category, in addition to the Axis: Satoshi Kon Award for Excellence in Animation for best animated feature film. The Fantasia International Film Festiva, which focuses on genre films such as action, fantasy, horror, science fiction, animation, has been held in Montreal, Canada since 1996. This year's festival was held from July 18 to August 4. The Audience Award was determined by popular vote of the audience attending the festival. The anime feature film adaptation of Takashi Imashiro's Ghost Cat Anzu manga opened in 71 theaters across Japan on July 19, 2024. The festival's official website describes the film: What is there to do in Iketeru? The idyllic beachfront village is where 11-year-old Karin has been unceremoniously dumped by her father Tetsuya, a shifty widower with a big debt to loan sharks. Karin has been left in the care of her grandfather, now the keeper of Sousei-Ji Temple, who in turn assigns her to his adopted son, 37-year-old Anzu Nakamura. This Anzu is an affable fellow, if rather uncouth and feckless. Oh, and he’s also an immortal ghost cat. That’s certainly strange, but no more so than the other assorted entities hanging around the town—loveable losers, a lot of them, humans and yokai alike. In any case, Karin, already exasperated by her father’s absence and pining for her departed mother, isn’t all that impressed with the furry ginger lout. The girl and the oafish, oversized cat make a day trip to Tokyo, to visit her mother’s grave, but things get entirely out of control when a detour to hell, by way of an out-of-service toilet, invokes the wrath of a legion of infernal demons... Ghost Cat Anzu Trailer RELATED: Ghost Cat Anzu Anime Film to Premiere at Cannes Film Festival 2024 Mononoke the Movie: Karakasa , which tells a continuing story of the Medicine Seller from the 2006 Mononoke TV anime, opened in 229 theaters across Japan on July 26, 2024. A second film, subtitled "Hinezumi" ("Fire Rat"), was announced to release on March 14, 2025 alongside a third film additionally planned to conclude the film project. The festival's official website describes the film: Asa and Kame strike up an immediate friendship when they arrive at the same time for their first day of duty at the Ooku, the splendid pleasure palace housing the harem of Lord Tenshi. The two young women are there to join the many hundreds of other maidservants—men are barred from entering, with immediate beheading the price of trespassing. It soon becomes clear that behind the luxurious lifestyle and ritualized routines of the Ooku lie sinister schemes and cynical rivalries. Meanwhile, a mysterious wandering potion-peddler known only as the Medicine Seller subtly insinuates himself into the Ooku, just as an uncanny, otherworldly menace begins to reveal itself. Mononoke the Movie: Karakasa Trailer RELATED : Mononoke is Both Ghost Story and Social Criticism Source : Fantasia International Film Festival official website ©2023 "Ghost Cat Anzu" Production Committee ©Takashi Imashiro / Kodansha

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