During the summer you always encounter a lot of new releases, but this year they have been cut back mostly because of the ongoing pandemic. Except on streaming services. Netflix recently released their new anime feature A Whisker Away, directed by Junichi Sato and Tomotaka Shibayama and animated by Studio Colorido. I saw this film some weeks ago when it came out. It really left me with a warm and fulfilling feeling, perfect for people to watch now at summer evenings, wrapped up in the sunny visuals of a Japanese town near the sea.
A typical summer love story?
The film centers on a girl called Muge filled with charisma and energy, having a hopeless crush on a guy called Hinode in her class. Sound like a typical one-way love story? Well, Muge turns into a white little cat after school and goes over to Hinode‘s house, getting more appreciation there than when she was a human. Hinode, who is a more timid personality, calls the white little cat Taro, after his childhood dog.
Similar to the smash hit Your Name, A Whisker Away is a lot about body-switching, young love, and pretty summery visuals. But A Whisker Away is much more about the naive perspective you have as a young teen and the careless hope that things will get better when you grow older. These themes are touched upon in a similar anime release (with the same writer, Mari Okada) called Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day.
This whole-body switch storyline feels like something that can easily turn strange, especially considering how it is often used as a romantic narrative where one of the characters gets to learn the one they are in love, while the romantic interest is completely oblivious. A Whisker Away starts with that complication at first, but during its 104 minutes runtime, it develops into something more than a little quirky love story.
Wanting to cry, I pretend to be a cat
After the lighthearted beginning, Muge starts coming to terms with why she wants to turn into something else to be appreciated. How it is a lot about her parents’ messy divorce and how she is running away from her feelings. And then she starts understanding Hinode more, and how he always thinks she is an impenetrable happy person. How they both have an emotional vulnerability, and how that is the key to their understanding of each other.
This is where I get a little disappointed with Muge’s narrative because it barely touches upon what could be a good metaphor for depression and anxiety. When she runs away at the beginning of the last act of the film, it feels like it could really turn into more dark territory. But at the same time, it feels like the writers knew what they wanted to do, but it is just a little much at the same time. Especially when it centers on the young love story, and not Muge’s emotional story after all.
It also feels like the promotion of the film has been more centered on the expectations of something more about young love than young sadness, with the English title being quite different from the literal translation of the Japanese title – Wanting To Cry, I Pretend To Be A Cat.
Cats, cats and more cats
That brings me to the other big theme of the film: cats. One of my favorite anime films, and one of the more underrated Studio Ghibli films, The Cat Returns seems to be a big inspiration for A Whisker Away. With the whole “heroine turning into a cat and learning about a secret world of cats” storyline being a big part of both films.
The blend of mundane life and fantasy has a common gateway that is treated with a lot of respect and that is the cats. Both in the cat world and the real world, cats are treated like real characters, and how they are comforters for the humans they live with but still with their own agenda.
But, A Whisker Away makes its own cat mythology, with the main villain of the film being the shady Mask Seller, who is a big cat that sells a cat mask to Muge at a summer festival for her to transform into one. But there’s a catch: the mask seller actually wants Muge’s human face, that is simply put her soul.
Conclusion
With this quite haunting “losing your soul” premise, the plot yet again loses an opportunity to truly make it about Muge’s will to lose herself and not appreciating herself. Then again, everything doesn’t have to be metaphors about underlying themes, and A Whisker Away makes up for it with its stunning original art and world of humanoid cats that are humans who have lost their souls.
Thus, A Whisker Away is a great 104 minutes to spend being swept into this mixture of themes, looking for something lighthearted and cute (and maybe something more, depending on how much you read into the media you consume), it’s a suitable Netflix summer watch for you.
Fellow anime watchers and cat enthusiasts, what do you think? Could A Whisker Away dwelled more into the emotional depths of the characters or was it the cat-filled fantasy you wanted? Let us know in the comments below!
A Whisker Away was released on Netflix on June 18th, 2020.
Watch A Whisker Away
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