Title- Puss in Boots Travels Around the World in 80 days.
Voices
Osami Nabe- Pero
Chikao Ôtsuka- Dr. Garigari
Takuzô Kamiyama- Carter
Sanji Hase- Killer A
Isamu Tanonaka- Killer B
Ado Mizumori- Killer C
Well here’s something I thought about doing for a while now. A review of Puss in Boots. Don’t worry, I’m not going to be reviewing any film that happened to have a game adaptation, but this is a special case. Mainly as Pero the Cat had a whole episode based around him in Captain N and he was one of the only characters I believe from outside of the games industry to be given such a prominent role (well barring Bo Jackson and the other guy, and Wombatman doesn’t count) So I was pretty interested in seeing how he was in his own show.
First of all, a little history lesson. Toei Animation had a series of films starring a character based on Puss in Boots from the Folklore tale. There were three films in total and since I haven’t even seen or read the original Puss in Boots, let alone the other two movies I can’t say how much they follow the original. This movie, was also based on the story of “Around the World in 80 days” although I can’t say I’ve read that either, so I’m not sure how close the story is to that. Basically, the third film in the series had a game adaptation. It was a pretty average, except the ridiculously cheap final boss. When the game came to the US, the story was changed rather radically, possibly to avoid the “Around the World in 80 days” similarities due to copyright. I dunno. Basically in the US version, Pero the Cat worked for Count Grueman. One day the Count found a mouse and told Pero to deal with it. Pero being a kindhearted cat, let the mouse leave rather than kill it. Grueman then decided that Pero was useless, so he tested his time machine on him to send him into the past. Pero’s mission is to find and beat Grueman and Dr Gari Gari (the scientist behind the machine) and use the time machine to return home. Meanwhile the Cat Kingdom has sent some assassins after Pero for breaching their code of conduct by letting the mouse live.
Puss in Boots would have faded into obscurity, if it weren’t for the strange fact, that someone out there was enough of a fan to actually write an episode of Captain N starring Puss in Boots, or Pero. The episode followed the US storyline and if you’ve read my review of it you’ll know I like the episode and it’s one of my favourites as it’s surprisingly one of the few episodes which pretty much follows the game’s storyline solely and Kevin’s just along for the ride. Enough about that though, what about this movie itself? Well it’s different in certain ways, but I was actually surprised by some of the similarities. Since this isn’t one of my “History in Animation” articles I think I’ll just say what differences I preferred in the characters etc.
So firstly Pero himself. Well, despite a different look, Pero’s actually pretty much the same character, which really surprised me given Captain N’s usual standard for changing things. The only real difference, is that this version’s obviously already had two films, so we’re not really being introduced to him. The only thing you really need to know, is that Pero is an outcast from the Cat Kingdom for releasing a mouse, similar to the US story, but I think that was the overall plot of the first movie, so now, a comedy trio of Cat assassins are after Pero, and have been from the sounds of it for two whole movies now. On the subject of the Cat assassins, it’s actually quite interesting, in the movie they are initially separate from Dr Gari Gari and Count Grueman, but join up with him later. Whilst I thought that the Captain N versions were just henchmen for them, it’s possible they actually have a similar story to the original versions, mainly as it’s clear in Captain N that they’ve been hunting Pero a while before Kevin gets involved. There’s also only two Cat assassins in Captain N, whereas there are 3 here. Overall, I prefer the Captain N version as except for the youngest, the other two cat assassins don’t really have any personality, whereas the Captain N version, at least has the dumb big guy and the weasel-like little one. Also the assassins in the Captain N episode actually dress for the setting, whereas in this movie they don’t that often.
Next up, we get what seem to be all the new characters. Firstly there’s a Hippo called Carter who seems to be Pero’s best friend. At first I thought he was in all the movies, but now I’m not too sure, especially as at the end Pero leaves him to carry on running from the assassins (he doesn’t leave Carter for the assassins to get of course.) Then there are two mice who are pretty obviously just in this film as they are just two of a family of 20 in the restaurant Pero’s working at at the start of the movie. Finally there are the two villains. Count Grueman is a rich fat pig who basically bets Pero his whole fortune that he can’t go around the world in 80 days and reach the top of the clock tower in the town he starts from. Of course as he’s a villain he sees to it that Pero can’t make it. He’s very different from the Captain N version as he doesn’t personally enter the fray until the very end, and even then most of the time he’s simply laughing at Pero whilst he struggles to find a way to climb the tower since Grueman’s basically just locked the doors leading to stairs upwards. Overall this is a far better villain than the Captain N version since this guy’s a businessman villain who despite his hugeness very rarely gets his hands dirty himself. The final character to mention is Dr Gari Gari. Here he’s portrayed as far more cool, he’s basically a mercenary who builds giant machines to trap or kill Pero. He can be pretty evil at times like when he tries to kill a baby Seal, but he strangely seems to view his job as more of a competition than a true battle. He’s even seen looking at Pero with admiration in the ending.
As for the film itself, I enjoyed it. The only part that ever so slightly lagged was a bit with them in the igloo, but it wasn’t too long. The movie had some pretty fun action scenes, highlights being the car chase, plane chase and the final battle in the clock tower. There were some very interesting breaks from the norm in the story, such as the only possible love interest being actually just some cat who seduces and drugs Pero in order to make him lose three days sleeping. Then there’s the fact noone really dies, which could be seen as a good or bad thing. Personally I felt the way Count Grueman was left was probably worse than death for him (not in a violent way though.)
Overall a really fun movie. If you enjoyed the Captain N episode it’s worth checking out, if only for curiosities sake.
