Many of you may have seen the 1988 movie “My Neighbor Totoro“, directed and written by written and directed by the immensely creative Hayao Miyazaki and made into an animation by the fantastic Studio Ghibli (see it!). In one scene sisters Satsuki and Mei stand by as their friend, a large catlike spirit animal named Totoro, boards the Cat Bus. Shaped like a cat and able to fly, it’s amazing, and a great imaginative creation. Here’s the scene where the Cat Bus first appears. (It also appears later in the film.)
Now, by clicking on the two-page article from Toyota Times below, you can learn how Toyota created a drive-able Cat Bus. (All photos from Studio Ghibli.)
Indented text from the Toyota site:
Toyota’s APM Cat Bus was unveiled to the press in a ceremony on February 27, 2024.
It was modeled on the iconic bus in which Satsuki and Mei hurtle through the night sky in the Studio Ghibli film My Neighbor Totoro.
The design is based on Toyota’s Accessible People Mover (APM), a low-speed, short-distance BEV used at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games. But let’s jump right into the details.
You can’t help but smile. This whimsical design is the work of Naoki Nagatsu, Professional Partner at Toyota’s Vision Design Division, and his team, in close communication with Studio Ghibli director Goro Miyazaki.
The tail end and insidewith furry seats:
The concept for the APM Cat Bus was “fantastical feline shapeshifts into APM.” Bringing out the details required the unique carmaking skills of veteran designers.
Director Goro Miyazaki placed particular importance on those otherworldly eyes. [Miyazaki is shown below, and his words are doubly indented.]
The two eyes don’t actually face forward but slightly out to the sides. This was Miyazaki’s advice for achieving that supernatural look, but positioning the left and right pupils nicely on the spherical eyeballs was difficult.
To begin with, we had to get the car sitting perfectly level.
Incidentally, the APM Cat Bus’s steering wheel is centered in the vehicle—not placed on one side, as is usual—because the weight difference would cause a slight lean if the tire pressure were not adjusted. Now that’s fine-tuned craftsmanship.
The caption: “Four mice adorn the roof, peeking out so that they are visible from the eye line of a 100cm-tall child.”
One of the Cat Bus’s standout features is eyes that shine in the dark. How were they brought to life?
The team crafted eyes in many color and shape variations, repeatedly testing how they lit up indoors, under natural light, and in the dark. When the APM Cat Bus is actually operating, most people will see it during the day. That makes the nighttime cat eyes all the more special.
The APM Cat Bus is based on the Accessible People Mover, which was designed to accommodate seniors, mobility-impaired passengers, pregnant women, and parents with young children.
As such, it is configured to provide easy access for all types of people, with a ramp that can be deployed in just 10 seconds.
It allows a wheelchair user and their companion to board from opposite sides. Another basic APM feature is the raised driver’s seat, which makes it easy to turn around and check that the passengers are safe when setting off.
Where can you see it?
Ghibli Park visitors can catch the Cat Bus for themselves at Expo 2005 Aichi Commemorative Park (Nagakute, Aichi) from March 16, with tickets featuring illustrations by director Hayao Miyazaki.
There’s also a Ghibli Museum in suburban Tokyo.
I’ve loved all the Ghibli animations, and now there’s a new one I haven’t seen, “The Boy and the Heron,” which is highly acclaimed, and nabbed a 97% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It also won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. I can’t wait to see it. “Spirited Away,” from 2001 and another of Miyazaki’s films, was a fantastic animated story.
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From the Washington Post, we have the story of a cat purloined as it was inside a stolen truck. Citizens went up in arms to recover the moggy. Click to read:
“I don’t ever usually leave an animal in the car, but I thought he was perfectly safe,” said Heffernan, explaining that she had just taken Dundee to the veterinarian and she left him in her truck because it was too cold to bring him out, and she knew she could run her errand fast. She locked the doors.
“This can’t really be happening,” Heffernan thought to herself, as she stood in a Tractor Supply store parking lot in Paradise, Calif., on Feb. 28.
While she was concerned about losing her 2000 Ford F-250, she was far more worried about Dundee — an 8-year-old Siamese whom Heffernan rescued off the streets in 2018. He was in a carrier in the passenger seat.
Heffernan immediately ran back into the store and called the police. Although Tractor Supply did not have video footage of the theft, the store next door did. It showed a gray vehicle dropping off a person nearher truck. A figure then entered her truck, Heffernan said, and both vehicles drove off around 12:25 p.m.
Strangers came out, searched, and even donated money for a reward. The truck was found the next day, but Dundee was missing (his medication, which he requires, was still in the car):
They picked up Heffernan at the store, and a group of about a half-dozen neighbors spent from 1 p.m. to around 3 a.m. searching the streets for Dundee, who has a thyroid condition and needs daily medication. They also contacted Pamela Bezley, another neighbor who runs a cat rescue group, and she began searching, too.
News of the stolen cat spread rapidly on social media, with people posting in several Facebook groups to be on the lookout for Dundee. Many strangers joined the search.
“People just came out in droves,” Curtis said.
Heffernan said she received hundreds of messages with words of support and potential leads, and people pushed to get the story covered by local news outlets.
“The offers that were coming in from strangers were just incredible,” said Heffernan, noting that people pitched in reward money for Dundee’s safe return. One man pledged $1,000, but Heffernan capped the total at $500 to prevent the thief from holding out for more money.
The day after the truck disappeared, police found it in Chico, about 15 miles from where it was stolen. Dundee was nowhere in sight.
The truck was stripped and was missing the ignition and catalytic converter. The locks were damaged, and the dashboard was pulled out. The thieves placed Dundee’s medication, which was on the floorboard in front of the crate, in the glove box.
Finally, someone said he had the cat and nabbed the $600 reward:
Finally, someone called and said they had Dundee. Heffernan promised to keep their identity secret and vowed to take a no-questions-asked approach. Heffernan — along with Curtis and Bezley, who runs Concow Feline Rescue — met the person at an apartment complex in Chico. They gave the person the $500 reward, plus an extra $100, and took Dundee home. Heffernan said she does not know whether the person was responsible for stealing the truck and believes they saw the torrent of posts on social media about the reward.
It’s a bit weird that the person who probably stole the cat got all the dosh for a reward. But of course what cat lover would mind that? The important thing is to get your moggy back! But now the cops should investigate the person who had the cat to see if he stole car + cat!
Here’s a 2½-minute news piece about Dundee’s rescue, and showing the cat.
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If you’re around Pasadena in early August, they’re having a big two-day Cat Convention, which you can read about by clicking on the poster below. Tickets run from $35 to the VIP special tickets at $175 with apparently lots of cat perks. Unfortunately, the schedule, which is here, says that things won’t be finalized until the summer, but stay tuned.
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Lagniappe: I took a photo of this sign in mid-March. They’re fixing up the south facade of Rockefeller Chapel, barely visible to the left. and the whole facade is covered in Black Cat scaffolding. The company is apparently in Chicago, and they have hats and tee shirts for sale, but sadly, the wonderful tee shirts are sold out.
h/t: Debra
Poor Dundee. What an ordeal! He has quite the story to tell.
Yes, poor Dundee. He must feel a lot better now that he’s on his medication again. He is a gorgeous cat!
And I love the animated cat bus, especially the tail and all the legs. That took some imagination.
Glad they got the cat back!
The cat bus is really cute!
> …Heffernan capped the total at $500 to prevent the thief from holding out for more money.
Which does sound sensible. And Heffernan, was smart enought to take the two women from the cat rescue with them.
If they gave this person an extra unexpected $100 they must have thought they weren’t the initial catnappers, but someone who advocated for the cat in some way.
“Or—and hear me out here—sometimes cats look like other cats.”
https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/weekend-update-3516-part-2-of-2/2997387
The movie clip makes me want to hurry to remedy my absence of entertainment technology.
I can feel the ” kick in the gut” panic that had to have hit that woman finding both her transportation and her cat missing in a blizzard. Ugh! Such inconsiderate criminals.