The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots

A cat called Pero is sentenced to death for saving a mouse and runs. Three inept cat assassins are sent after him. On the run he meets Pierre, a miller's son whose only inheritance from his father is a cat, which is to say himself. The two set off together. Pero's plan is to pass Pierre off as a marquis and marry him to Princess Rosa; first the ogre Lucifer has to be dealt with. This 1969 Toei Animation film holds a place of its own in the studio's history: Pero became Toei's emblem and mascot and still is. The best animators of the period worked on it; the chase across the castle walls was drawn in alternating cuts by Yasuo Ōtsuka and a young Hayao Miyazaki. That sequence later became the model for the similar ones in The Castle of Cagliostro, Miyazaki's first film as director. The source is Perrault's tale; Kimio Yabuki directed.