Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu

Miyo Sasaki is an energetic high school girl who comes from a broken family consisting of her unconfident father and an overly invested stepmother, whose attempts at connecting with Miyo come across as bothersome. Seeing Kento Hinode as a refuge from all her personal issues, she cannot help herself from forcing her unorthodox demonstrations of love onto her crush.

While Miyo is unable to get Kento's attention as herself, she manages to succeed by interacting with him in the form of a white cat, affectionately nicknamed "Tarou" by Kento. But Miyo soon realizes that she cannot help Kento with the various problems she overhears in her cat form and is now caught between two tough choices. Will she continue her relationship with him as a cat, or will she reveal her identity and risk what they have in order to help him as her human self?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Sasaki, Miyo Main

Shida, Mirai Japanese

Hinode, Kento Main

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Cat Store Owner Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Kinako Supporting

Kitamura, Eri Japanese

Fukase, Yoriko Supporting

Kotobuki, Minako Japanese

Kakinuma Supporting

Miki, Shinichiro Japanese

Tamaki Supporting

Sakuma, Rei Japanese

Isami, Masamichi Supporting

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Sasaki, Youji Supporting

Chiba, Susumu Japanese

Sugita Supporting

Yoshida, Oolongta Japanese

Takei, Katsuhiro Producer

Suzuki, Kousuke Producer

Kannae, Masahiro Producer

Kumamoto, Norio Assistant Producer

Reviews

Oct 2, 2024

AshanDev26

Recommended

Welcome to my very first Anime Review. Today we shall be covering one of the animated films streaming off Netflix. “A Whisker Away”. This film has gotten some very mixed reviews so I thought I’ll just go ahead and give you my honest opinion about the film. Now this review was originally written for a YouTube video I was planning but considering I wrote a decent amount I figured it would be suitable for MAL. Anyways let’s get on to the review!

The Story:

I loved the story in this movie. It was very different and unique. It’s one of those films that just feels atmospheric ... and gets you really immersed. Like Alice in Wonderland or Spirited Away where the protagonist experiences an amazing and beautiful fantasy experience. The story introduces our main character Miyo who is head over heels in love with her classmate Hinode. Both characters struggle with their own personal life problems which forces our protagonist into a state of depression and moments where she wants the world, she lives in to end. Then she meets The Mask Seller. And… is it a job requirement to be creepy to sell masks? This guy literally puts chills down my spine. He offers Miyo a mask that gives her the ability to transform into a cat. She uses this to run away from her own personal issues. We later learn that Hinode actually found her as a cat and the moment they shared is what made her fall in love with him in the first place. Life as a cat starts to feel a lot better then how it was as a human. I don’t blame her. You trade in school or work for a life of belly rubs. However, it’s obvious things won’t be good for long. (Don’t trust creepy mask salesmen) We get to learn why the Mask Seller does this business of selling masks, the drawbacks of this gift that was given to her and some very interesting plot twists that tied the entire story together nicely.

The Animation:

The animation here might be one of the strongest points for most people. It can be bright and beautiful and especially during the later half of the film where we get a glimpse of Cat Island and the great art direction there. Now it’s not to the level of Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name or anything and it’s not the greatest thing ever but it certainly is good, solid and nice to look at. You can appreciate the detail that is placed in certain sceneries and the vibrance as a whole. Just the cover art itself is gorgeous and enticed me to watch it right away.

Sound:

The Music for the film was good. Nothing outstanding that blew me away but pretty good and fitting for the story. Nothing extraordinary but overall good tracks that fit the feel for the movie.

Characters:

I believe this is where most people had issues with the film. Miyo is a fine protagonist but to most people she comes off VERY…and I mean VERY strong. I said earlier that she was in love with Hinode. Well, that was to the extreme where she was basically announcing it obnoxiously everyday while he just tries to ignore her existence. Now when watching it I did think she was very extra and I wasn’t a big fan of this character trait but it didn’t make me hate Miyo. She’s just a high schooler crazy in love. Also, a bit of a stalker while she was a cat but…It didn’t ruin the experience for me like how it might have for others.
Then we have Hinode who is an okay average character. Nothing particularly interesting about him as a character and nothing to dislike either. I guess this average personality could cause some to dislike him as a whole. But we do get to experience some development on him and how he grows in the movie and his relationship with Miyo as a whole.
The rest of the characters aren’t really worth mentioning. Yoriko is just… a nice friend to have…And I don’t like seeing her cry. The mask seller though, might just be the best thing about this film. The definition of creepy and eerie and so mysterious that it just intrigues you every time he’s on screen. The core of the plot comes together because of him so…let’s give him an applaud… And no, I’m not just saying that because he has me as a hostage.

Conclusion:

Overall, I enjoyed the film. It kept me interested throughout the entire watch and every time I had to pause for whatever reason I couldn’t wait to continue watching again. I think the overall movie is one of a kind and something you don’t normally see. Again, you may have issues with the film with Miyo as a character and the romance itself that goes on in this movie, but it wasn’t enough to make me knock too many points for the series. I give this film an Apex Score of 7.8/10. I very much recommend giving it a watch. If you want to watch some similar, I also recommend the award winning Spirited Away to look into. Thank you for taking the time to read my review!
Side Note: Hollywood should have totally funded this movie over Cats(2019 film)!

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jun 23, 2024

ggultra2764

Mixed Feelings

A Whisker Away is one of the recent anime films to come out focused on a troubled teen learning a lesson on life through some paranormal circumstances. In this case, middle schooler Miyo Sasaki is dealing with a troubled family life between her father remarrying following a divorce and her biological mother neglecting her. In addition, she has an obsessive romantic interest in her classmate, Kento Hinode. Wanting to get close to Hinode, Miyo obtains a magical mask from a mysterious mask seller that allows her to turn into a cat in order to spend time with him. However, this acquisition comes with consequences as ... Miyo find herself slowly turning into a cat due to not wanting to confront the stresses of her human life.

The film’s attempt at expressing its moral comes with its issues involving its storytelling and characters. Miyo’s character is a bit of a double-edged sword where while it’s understandable that she doesn’t know how to properly express her emotions through her rough family life, it makes her interest in Hinode rather uneasy to see in action due to her actions bordering on being stalker-like with Miyo being in the habit of invading his personal space without his permission, not knowing when to take no for an answer when he turns her down, and using her cat transformations as a means to visit him and gain his trust unknowingly. The other angle to the film, Miyo’s family problems, largely plays second fiddle to focusing on Miyo and Hinode’s relationship developments as Miyo is more focused on her crush and not too concerned with her family issues despite this getting some focus during the middle of the film. Hinode’s character is largely pretty one-note and he largely seems to show little romantic interest in Miyo throughout much of the film. But how A Whisker Away chooses to resolve the relationship comes off as too convenient and unconvincing between Miyo’s troubling behavior getting rewarded and Hinode largely having little interest in a relationship before this point.

Far as the paranormal angle to the film goes, it looked like A Whisker Away was taking cues from Studio Ghibli’s The Cat Returns with elements to its story and will admit this has its moments of decent storytelling. The use of masks for humans to turn into cats and vice versa is a solid story element that offers its moments of solid exploration of the character motives for wanting to use the power of said masks, this nicely shown with Kinako, the pet cat of Miyo’s stepmother. The Mask Seller is also a solid villain for the film with his manipulation of the characters tempting them to use his masks for his personal gain and showing his true character by later in the film. Only major gripe I have with this element was that the land of the cats used in the film’s final story arc largely felt like a backdrop between the lack of exploration of the locale and the storytelling it could have offered up going into more detail on other characters who faced a similar predicament that Miyo’s currently undergoing that they since regret.

Overall, A Whisker Away has a good number of issues with its storytelling and characters that hurt it as a coming-of-age film that mainly involve the direction of Miyo’s character developments and the unconvincing romance the film attempts to sell between her and Hinode. The paranormal elements of the film have their moments to shine, though the final story arc in the land of the cats wastes what storytelling potential this could have offered as the setting largely served as a backdrop for concluding the film. In short, this is one of the more underwhelming and flawed coming-of-age films I’ve seen out of this familiar trend of anime films.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Nov 8, 2023

Mclary

Not Recommended

Funny

delete the movie, its hot garbage.
Is the story unique? Its Unqiuely ass
did you enjoy it anyway because you like this genre/set-up? hell no, gtfo
Do you think the art style is fitting for the story? its aight
Were the characters well-rounded? no, they are ass and creepy
Did they have flaws and strengths? nah bro, this shit straight up creepy, who even came up with this???
were they unusually strong/smart/stupid? Unsually creepy that is
id the characters react to situations and events in a realistic way? no, she should've died the moment she jumped into the tree by getting impaled bruh
Do you think others will enjoy/dislike this series, even if ... you didn't? Why? no one would enjoy this unless they got discord kittens, and their grass is basically plastic and their light doesnt come from the sun

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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	Poll: Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) KANLen09 - Jun 18, 2020	190 replies	by LoryStories »» Oct 16, 6:29 PM
	Poll: should i watch? mrjdko - May 7, 2022	37 replies	by Miryy »» Dec 10, 2023 8:59 AM
	How's the romance? DhoX - Mar 19, 2021	16 replies	by Miryy »» Dec 10, 2023 8:58 AM
	Who is that brown tabby cat? Karren_ - Jun 18, 2020	14 replies	by Animecatlover101 »» Oct 27, 2023 7:57 PM
	About mask seller..... YagamiYash - Jul 25, 2021	5 replies	by mo_lave »» Aug 12, 2023 7:04 PM