The Cat Returns (猫の恩返し, Neko no ongaeshi?, lit. The Cat's Repayment of Favors) is a Japanese animated film directed by Hiroyuki Morita, produced by Studio Ghibli and released to Japanese cinemas in 2002.The story follows a girl called Haru, a quiet, shy, and unassuming high school student who has a long-suppressed ability to talk to cats. One day she saves a darkly colored, odd-eyed cat from being hit by a truck on a busy road. The cat turns out to be Lune, Prince of the Cat Kingdom. In return, the cats shower her with gifts of catnip and mice - and then she is offered the Prince's hand in marriage. Her mixed reply is taken as a yes……
It received an Excellence Prize at the 2002 Japan Media Arts Festival.
Alessandro Stradella was, along with Henry Purcell and Heinrich von Biber, among the most striking and idiosyncratic composers of the late seventeenth century. He is known principally for his cantatas on sacred subjects such as "La Susanna" and "San Giovanni Battista," which prefigure Handel's oratorios, and from which Handel borrowed freely. Stradella's musical eccentricities were paralleled by his irregular life. A member of the minor nobility, he ran through his inheritance while young, and thereafter supplemented his musical earnings by questionable financial dealings that incurred the anger of influential families.