The cat statue in Studio Ghibli’s Whisper of the Heart is called the Baron.
The Baron is a decorative statue of a gentleman cat owned by antique-shop proprietor Shiro Nishi. Shizuku Tsukishima encounters the statue while exploring the shop, and it inspires her developing story about a cat-like nobleman. The statue later becomes central to the film’s imagined sequences.
The character’s full name is Baron Humbert von Gikkingen. He returns as a major character in The Cat Returns, another Studio Ghibli film, where he is voiced by Shigeru Miki in Japanese. The two films are connected by the Baron but are not direct continuations of the same plot.
Whisper of the Heart was directed by Yoshifumi Kondō and released in Japan in 1995. It was the only feature film he directed before his death in 1998. The screenplay was written by Hayao Miyazaki, and the story is based on a manga by Aoi Hiiragi. The Baron is therefore both an object within the film and a bridge to another Ghibli fantasy.