A Whisker Away is one that I sort of watched on a whim today while I was browsing Netflix for something to pass time. I ended up finding this and remembering that I had put this on my planning list a while back so I decided to give it a go. I don't really know what I expected, but the summary on Netflix certainly set me up to believe that this was going to be a crazy watch. Somehow, it still failed to describe how insane this movie would get at times. Not only that, but the jarring pace of the story and rapid transitions were somewhat difficult to follow occasionally, but I'll cover that stuff more deeply in a bit. Suffice to say A Whisker Away absolutely smacked me around narratively. This review does hit some spoilers, so read at you own risk. Read the last paragraph if you want my thoughts in summary.

On a technical side, the sound design of A Whisker Away was very generic as far as anime movies go. Some of the tracks were nice, but at other times, I couldn't help but feel as if the song detracted from the scene. I think there's one later on in the movie when Muge is stuck as a cat and her stepmother's cat is using her body. The impostor cat is doing some out of character stuff for Muge with Hidone and the soundtrack is just absolutely wack. That's the only specific example that immediately comes to mind, but I'm sure if I watched it again, I could point out some more. The voice acting is absolutely a standout for this movie though, especially Muge, who is able to display the emotions she's feeling so aptly, and the other voice actors aren't slouches either. The ending song is quite nice though, which is always a huge positive for an anime movie.

The visuals are extremely nice, reminding me of Flavors of Youth to a great extent, with similar shading and use of lighting. The animation was extremely smooth, especially where the Taro was concerned. As a cat owner, I can say that this movie captured cats and their movements so perfectly, from their cuteness to their random ego attacks to their strutting around. Legitimately top tier feline animation. As far as character designs go, these are fairly generic anime characters. It serves the purpose well, but its not like they're extraordinarily distinct or phenomenally detailed or anything.

Favorite Character: Miyo "Muge" Sasaki

Between Muge's crazy and lovable personality and Yoriko's loyalty and sense, I was having such a hard time deciding who to put here. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I absolutely adored Muge's personality, especially in the first half of the movie, and thus could not reasonably put Yoriko here without completely lying, although she definitely shines later on. I decided on at least compromising and putting both of them in the picture here, which I think perfectly shows off exactly just how cute the first half of this movie is.

This movie is something else. It starts as an adorable teenage romance; a girl who's head over heels for this boy who doesn't really realize that she exists outside of her reputation as a erratic girl. Oh yeah, and the girl is also the guy's stray cat in her off time and they have a cute connection while she's in that form. Honestly, the whole balancing dynamic in the first half is super fun and fairly lighthearted, which appealed greatly to my cold, dead heart. But after that first half, A Whisker Away takes an absolutely wack turn and gets really dramatic, fast paced, and kinda sad. Then, the cat world appears. Honestly, I think that was the weakest aspect of the entire movie. The cat world weakens the entire rest of the movie due to is outlandish nature and removal from the entire world and cast, which was the strength of the entire work up until that point. The resolution was pretty dry too, with, predictably, the boy coming to save the girl, the power of love, etc. I will say, the resolution being such a lighthearted and happy one helped recover some of the damage done by the random climax of the show, but only just a little.

I think if A Whisker Away was more grounded (as much as one about a girl turning into a cat can be anyway) and kept the otherworldly aspects out of it, it could have been a much tighter story. It definitely would have helped to have the actual cast in the climax, instead of some random cat goons who show up out of nowhere to save the day in the end. All in all, Muge's personality, the surprising character depth at times, and the cuteness of the movie are absolutely the reasons to give this a watch, but there are some extremely obvious flaws despite these positives. It's honestly a really enjoyable watch either way, but certainly one that you have to turn your brain off for, especially because you feel jerked back and forth because the plot says so. However, I certainly don't think one could go too wrong here.