I think Nakineko did a spectacular job painting an incredibly delicate picture on how children respond to divorce and parental expectations. With their cat fantasy spin added into the plot, I thought that the movie was in a very strong position to make a sharp statement about the very real problems of the modern family.

Unfortunately, I felt that movie shy-ed away from that, and instead, ended the movie on a generic chase through a magical town into a fist (paw?) fight to solve all issues. From there, "I don't hate her" magically becomes "I like her" and the everything that Muge learns in her cat adventures is blurted out as dialogue, spoon-feeding the viewers with things that the viewer could already painfully see.

The worst of it was that the most important aspect of the movie was treated as an afterthought. The movie beautifully painted two broken families in the first half the movie, and the resolution to those problems was just thrown haphazardly at the end in the form of static-ish images behind a credit roll. The images and text presented no meaningful commentary on how the Nakineko team viewed families with split custody and parents with expectations, so I felt quite empty at the very end. The resolutions to these problems were where I was most invested in, and not whether Hinode would respond positively or negatively toward Muge's feelings or not, so that was a bit unfortunate.

But although the movie did fall quite flat at the end, the movie up until the emotional climax (and ESPECIALLY the emotional climax) was masterfully directed. The children are young, and acted young, and we the viewers were able to understand that they are young. Their decisions, actions, and reactions were all within what we could consider as reasonable responses in the situation that they were put in. Coupling the strong direction with a healthy use of reoccurring symbols (the use of the scarecrows was a nice touch), carefully animated art in critical scenes (Muge tears :( ), and dialogue through motion told me throughout the movie that the Nakineko team was working hard to say things through their art and direction. I'm not sure how involved Mari Okada was in the composition and direction of this movie, but I do think that it did overall have that Mari Okada delicacy throughout the film. Oh, and Yorushika dealing with the insert songs is always a lovely treat, too. So, I can give bonus points for that. :D

All in all, I think that Nakineko was a rather beautiful movie up until the emotional climax, but everything after that felt a little cheap and generic. I felt like if the Nakineko team took that climax and put a stronger emphasis on using the relationship between Muge and Hinode to shed light on to how to approach the familial problems they presented in the first half, then I would have been able to score this one in my personal books a little higher. But because it devolved rather spectacularly into focusing on the romance aspect between Muge and Hinode, I must give this one a 80/100.