So, let’s talk about Hello Kitty! Even if you don’t know her name, you’ve definitely seen her at least once in your life. The official mascot of a company called Sanrio, Hello Kitty is the second most financially successful franchise in human history, only beaten by Pokemon. First created in 1974, Hello Kitty has won many hearts with her cute design and wholesome innocence, and even now, merchandise of her and her family, friends, and cohorts continue to line shelves, as she’s one of Japan’s most beloved cultural symbols, an emblem of creativity, community, and yes, cuteness, that has joined the pantheon of global pop culture. But would you believe that it actually took a while for her to start appearing in anime and cartoons? Many think she made her animation debut in the 1987 American cartoon Hello Kitty’s Furry Tale Theater, but that’s not true. She did make some non-speaking cameos in Sanrio’s early movies like Nutcracker Fantasy, the first Unico movie, and Journey Through Fairyland, but her true animation debut was through a rather…odd stop-motion short film called Kitty and Mimmy’s New Umbrella, which was bundled with one of the Unico movies for home video.
I say odd because the summary for Kitty and Mimmy’s New Umbrella makes it seem like its titular characters are just spending the episode playing with new umbrellas that their mother buys them. That is a good chunk of the movie’s plot…but it also happens to come with weird musical sequences involving talking bugs, flying flowers, puddles that transport the girls into the sky, and scenes involving a mole constantly getting stepped on. No, really. This Hello Kitty movie is weird in the same way that Sanrio’s other stop motion movie Nutcracker Fantasy is weird, and I mean that in a positive manner. Then again, the two properties have the same staff working on them, which doesn’t surprise me one bit. Kitty and Mimmy’s New Umbrella is one half Kitty and her sister just playing around, and the other half is eerie, ethereal, almost psychedelic stop motion animated sequences that I’m pretty sure is a result of the animators being self-indulgent and having fun just because they can.
And really, the animation by itself is really good, especially by the standards of the eighties. Sure, the stop-motion isn’t Laika level quality, but it does have a lot of charm to it that you can’t easily find in most productions like this anymore. The actual animation is fairly smooth, and the musical sequences are lively and whimsical as they should be, even if the sequence with the dancing bugs feels rather superfluous. There’s also some neat little details that add to the experience, like how when Kitty cries, her bow randomly disappears and reappears when she makes her cartoony crying face, among other things…though why is there a bell ringing sound whenever their tails wag? There is one point where Kitty and Mimmy read a letter that’s written in rather fractured English, complete with Mimmy’s name being misspelled. But the set pieces are really nice for what they are, and it’s clear that the animators really put a lot of care into bringing these iconic characters to life.
Speaking of the characters, don’t go into this movie expecting there to be a lot of character development. This is clearly aimed at toddlers and preschoolers, and the movie just consists of Kitty and Mimmy playing around and having weird adventures involving dancing bugs, that’s it. The other characters are just kind of…there, not really doing anything besides sing or take up space. Or in the case of the mole, being stepped on by the girls all the time. Poor guy. One character only appears at the very end of the movie and doesn’t do much, but with the film being as short as it is, it can’t really afford to do more than it really has to. Yeah, the characters are kind of vanilla, but sometimes vanilla can be good once in a while. The soundtrack and songs are very nice too, as is the voice acting. This is the first time Hello Kitty has ever been given a voice, provided by the late Fuyumi Shiraishi before Megumi Hayashibara would be cemented as her primary voice actress.
For a short movie that marks Hello Kitty’s first full appearance in the animated medium, I say Kitty and Mimmy’s New Umbrella managed to hit a home run on that front. It’s not going to bring the house down, as it’s very clearly a cute movie aimed squarely at preschoolers, and it’s content to be just that. I certainly don’t mind it, as not only is Kitty and Mimmy’s New Umbrella a cute, wholesome, whimsical kids movie, it laid the groundwork for Hello Kitty’s animated appearances in the future, so Kitty fans owe the movie that much.
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