A Whisker Away – Nakitai watashi wa neko o kaburu (2020)

Directed by: Jun’ichi Satô, Tomotaka Shibayama | 104 minutes | animation, adventure | Original voice cast: Mirai Shida, Natsuki Hanae

Miyo Sasaki is a teenage girl of the ultra-energetic kind. She climbs and scrambles and prefers not to enter through a door if she can also go through a window. She starts each day with a ‘Hinode Sunrise’, a flying tackle designed to knock over her classmate Hinode. So that kind of person. But inside, Miyo is more sad than happy. She lives with her father and stepmother, she hardly sees her own mother. And she is in love with Hinode (from the flying tackle), but she doesn’t like her.

Despite all her energy, Miyo doesn’t quite know what to do with all this. Until she meets a giant cat from whom she buys a cat mask. With the help of this cat mask, Miyo turns into a little white cat whenever she wants. Really useful if you like climbing and scrambling. In addition, her beloved Hinode is a cat lover and maybe this is the way to get in touch with Hinode.

A movie with talking cats and cat masks with magic has to be Japanese anime. ‘A Whisker Away’ combines a number of elements that are characteristic of anime. A brave, funny and rather clumsy heroine. A serious undertone. Youthful romance, wonderful scenes and a sweet and fairytale atmosphere at the same time. And all this in a universe where even the single bad guy isn’t that bad.

What is striking about ‘A Whisker Away’ is the strong alternation between painfully realistic scenes (such as when Miyo’s love note is read to Hinode in class), intimate scenes between Miyo (as a cat) and Hinode, and the more bizarre scenes with the cat mask salesman. This all comes together in a great final act, when we leave with Miyo (as a cat) to the fantasy-esque cat island. There the film gains in beauty as well as in tension.

‘A Whisker Away’ does everything you would expect from a Japanese anime. There is laughter and cry and there is beautiful animation to admire. Intended for those who are in a dip for a while, for those who are ready for some youthful romance and for those who want to know what it is like to go through life as a cat. And who doesn’t want that?