This one puts you in the odd position of watching something that almost never got to exist. Finished in 1992, then stranded when the money vanished, it limped out through scattered TV broadcasts and the occasional regional screening while everyone involved waited. Twenty-three years later a crowdfunding campaign finally bought it a theater and a Blu-ray, which is a happier ending than most shelved features ever get. What's actually on the reel is gentle to a fault: Masumi Iino's picture-book stories about a small cat named Tom, Yumiko Imai's illustrations, a save-the-planet adventure pitched at kids and paced like a nap in the sun. No stakes that bruise, no spectacle showing off, just a soft little thing that keeps going. Watch it knowing somebody cared enough to pay to see it on a big screen.

Tom is a small cat, and he and his companions set out on a big adventure to save the world. The special adapts a set of children's stories about Tom written by Masumi Iino and illustrated by Yumiko Imai. The film was finished in 1992, but financial problems stopped its planned theatrical release, so it reached audiences only through television in some regions and the occasional local screening. A crowdfunding effort later brought it to Japanese theaters and to Blu-ray in 2015.