A Whisker Away has a great beginning, engaging content and an ending that may not leave you unsatisfied. The story begins with a girl named Miyo who is referred as “Muge” by her peers because of her peculiar and lively personality. She is full of energy with a smile plastered on her face all the time. Her eyes are on a guy named Kento who despite of her several attempts of being noticed by him, never gave any attention to her. When she stumble upon a way to become a cat, she doesn’t lose the chance and make the best use of this opportunity to get his love and attention. But sadly, her real identity can never be revealed to Kento who adores her as a stray white cat. Miyo doesn’t seem to care about that as she is pleased to be around him most of the time and loves being called Tarou by Kento.
But this new happiness cannot last forever as Miyo has to decide to either live her entire life as a stray cat or turn back to her human form, Muge, knowing that she would be able to be loved by Kento in that form. But this is not the only issue that Miyo is dealing with as she is as she doesn’t seem to be happy with her father new marriage after her mother’s death as she has not completely accepted his new wife as her mother.
When she comes to know about the problems that kento is dealing with, she writes him a letter but unfortunately that letter gets in the hand of a classmate who reads it out loud in the class infront of everyone making Kento embarrassed. This makes him angry with Miyo and he calls her out and tells Miyo that he hates her. She runs away while crying and when she gets back home, her step mother tells her to not smile if she is not feeling happy. This leads Miyo to runaway from her home with her cat mask as she decides to live the rest of her entire life as cat, until she comes to know that she is being searched everywhere by everyone including Kento.
Things are a little rushed towards the end of the movie when Miyo and Kento look for her human face and get back to their world. When things get back to normal, Kento musters up the courage to confess his feelings to Miyo. Visiting the cat world was all it took to make that happen.
With the advancement of technology in the world of animation, a good animation with eye compelling visuals has become the most important aspect to grab viewers’ attention. The animation of A Whisker Away is remarkable. The animation of cat especially her glimmering eyes is very attractive and overall the anime is visually appealing and vibrant
A very simple message has been conveyed in a very effective way that you will not be able to stop thinking about it for a while after the end. People should not be judged on the basis of their demeanor because we don’t know what they are dealing with in their personal lives so their behavior should be disregarded when it comes to their personal lives. The other message that is the most important one is that love can solve any problem.
Although the movie is not particularly for a specific kind of viewers but cat lovers will definitely love this movie. The anime is full of all kind of cats roaming here and there, eating, drinking and even talking. So if you are a cat person, you will love this anime from start till the end.
One major problem in the anime is the problematic characters. The personality of Miyo is lively and energetic which makes it hard to get used to it. But, after knowing her situation it become easier to become empathetic towards the character. Kento on the other hand is completely opposite of Miyo. He is reserved and quiet and doesn’t like to talk much. He doesn’t care about his surroundings. Later we come to know what he is dealing with in his personal life and just can’t bring himself to talk about it.
The anime is nice and heartwarming and the message is conveyed in the eight way but there are things that have been left unexplained like the story behind Miyo’s mum who abandons her leaving us with the question, why. There was just one brief scene where it was mentioned but it was the topic that should have been given a little more importance. There was not any explanation for her return, it becomes a little dissatisfying.
Although it’s a happy ending but there are many things that are unanswered in the movie like the role of tabby cat. The character appears many times in the movie and in one scene we see Miyo threatening him while she is human but there is not more to it making that character and all those scenes pointless. We don’t know why all those people visiting cat-human café want to turn into cats and the story behind their human faces? These and many other things are left unanswered which makes it a little frustrating when you are left with all those questions in the end.
A Whisker Away is a fascinating movie that you will enjoy while watching it but you might not remember it for longer time but that doesn’t make it bad as the movie is enjoyable with interesting story that will keep you engaged till the end.
