Anime Stars Join the Jellicle Ball for CATS Japanese Dub

It’s fair to say the recent film adaptation of Cats hasn’t been doing all that well. But the big-screen take on the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is hoping for a new life in Japanese cinemas, complete with an all-star cast of anime voice actors and musical stars handling dubbing duties.

The Tom Hooper directed film takes the wildly popular musical, itself adapted from the works of TS Eliot, and fleshes out the storyline with a few spots of dialogue. Through the eyes of recently abandoned cat Victoria, we meet the Jellicle Cats: a group of quirky and whimsical felines, each of whom is vying for a journey to the Heaviside Layer and rebirth into a new life.

Koichi Yamadera (Spike Spiegel, Cowboy Bebop) will dub Idris Elba’s Macavity, the criminal mastermind attempting to eliminate the competition on the night of the Jellicle Ball. Singer Rinko Urashima will play Rebel Wilson’s Jennyanydots, the lazy cat with a penchant for training mice. Singer RIRI takes her first dubbing role as Taylor Swift’s Bombalurina, now much more loyal to Macavity than she was in the original musical.

Mamoru Miyano (Reo, Sarazanmai) and Miyuki Sawashiro (Fujiko Mine, Lupin the 3rd) join forces as troublemaking twins Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer (Danny Collins and Naomih Morgan). Kazuhiro Yamaji (Silver Fang, One Punch Man) appears as Ray Winstone’s barge cat Growltiger. And Godzilla film star Akira Takarada dubs Ian McKellen’s aged feline thespian Gus the Theatre Cat.

The cast overall sounds excited to be taking part, with Yamadera noting that Macavity’s role is significantly larger than it was in the musical. Miyano recently saw the film and described his reaction as „impressed and shocked.“

Cats will hit Japanese cinemas January 24.

>> Cats Movie Website (Japan)

Source: Music Natalie

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Kara Dennison is the co-founder of Altrix Books and co-creator of OEL light novel series Owl’s Flower, with writing credits across the Internet. She blogs at karadennison.com and tweets @RubyCosmos. Her latest book, Vanishing Tales of the City, is now available from Obverse Books.