NakiNeko drew me in right as it was announced, but not for the reasons one may expect. I first saw the announcement through the r/Yorushika subreddit back in January, before COVID and everything else. I was instantly hooked because I was and still am very into Yorushika, so the thought of being able to hear their music on the big screen was instantly appealing to me. As time went on, COVID happened and the movie was slated for a Netflix worldwide release, which still excited me because getting to watch an Anime Film the same day it releases in Japan time is a blessing, with us non-Japanese usually having to wait for months before the BD of any anime movie drops. One day, I was getting bored so I decided to do some more digging and found out that Studio Colorido at the helm. At that point in time I was super excited about it as I knew of the Studio through one of their other works - Taifuu no Noruda (Which wasn't that good but there was Galileo Galilei) So this shot up my hype even more. However, time passed and I forgot about it so here I am writing a review for it after having just seen it almost 3 months after its release. (Which was actually 1 day before my birthday). Anyway, on to the actual show.

NakiNeko is a film about growth, appreciation and learning to treasure the little things you have in your everyday life. Our story follows a junior high girl (Sasaki Miyo) and her struggles to come to terms with living with a step-parent and confessing her love for her classmate (Kento Hinode). Oh and she can turn into a cat.

Story

• The story actually wanted to tell a very solid message, but unfortunately doesn't execute it well enough. The story unfolds very slowly, with a lot of the first half not having too much going for it, we are just playing out different scenes with essentially the same meaning in an effort to "build" the characters' personalities. The later half of the show (Nekojima onwards) was very well executed, with a clear concept and ideology, albeit the whole idea of Nekojima itself seeming like it was inspired by the Festival of The Spirits in /anime/10408/hotarubi-no-mori-e .

• Everything seemed like it was going on the right track until we hit the ending (Last 15 mins or so) which was so dragged out and distorted it almost seemed like they lost the message of the story in the first place.

- I could be totally misunderstanding it, but I think that having the message "Cherish everything you have around you, good or bad because you don't know what you have till you don't" is a much better message than "I love you and I want to hear you say I love you too more than anything and watch the sunrise with you" for a 13 year old.

Characters

• In all honesty I liked all the characters other than MC.

- Miyo as a character is just plain creepy. I get that she is 13 and is going through the process of her first love, but the lines she was written with are just way too creepy for a kid. It would be too lenient to call what she has with Hinode an "Obsession". What she was doing in her cat form is simply stalking. And she never improves as well due to the story. If the story had been trying to tell the message I was hoping for them to, she would have shown tremendous growth. Instead she just turns into a creepy 13 year old who actually has her wildest fantasies come true.
- The rest of the cast was fine most of the times, doing what the plot required them to. There is only one small gripe about them - their dialogue and some of their actions. While this may actually lead some people to see the show more favorably, it does not bode well for me. Like I mentioned in the story section, the first half of the movie is filled with a lot of character "building" moments. An example of bad action would be when Miyo decides to jump off the school building ledge to reprimand Niibori and Bannai. The idea is that Miyo has a burning passion for Hinode, hence her hastiness. However that just felt plain stupid and unrealistic. Yes, I am talking about realism in a fantasy Anime because much of the dialogue before such as when Hinode's sister was telling her mother "You're still relying on a man to support us? That's so old fashioned" were clearly trying to build a sense of realism into the characters, yet they pull out such an unrealistic thing to do after all that build up? But other than these the other characters are very well handled.
- The 2 "Antagonists of the show were brilliant and in my opinion, single-handedly saved the show from going to shit. We have Nekoten acting as a gatekeeper to the doors of being a cat/human. He actively encourages our MC to go over to the cat side, but never outright forces her to, making it hard for viewers to hate him. Kinako was a villain for a short time, but her time as it was probably the most important in the whole show, she tied up every single loose plot point(Miyo and her actions) and set up the future ones (Nekojima) the second she became the antagonist.

Animation

• Between this and Taifuu no Noruda, Colorido has improved their animation by a humongous margin, to the point where it looks Ghibli-esque. I liked the animation a whole lot. One more point is that the first Nekoten encounter was sublime in its atmosphere. Breathtaking lighting.

Music

• I was able to pay more attention to the music of this show and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Yorushika did a good job of course (Totally Unbiased), but the Nekoten encounters had OSTs so good they were able to hold their own.

Conclusion

Nakineko all in all wasn't too bad of a movie, however my rating of it isn't that high due to the fundamental problem of its overall message and some little gripes I had with it along the way. I think that it is a solid watch if you're able to ignore the problems that I mentioned above.