'A Whisker Away' Review: Annoying protagonist and haphazard plot make Netflix's anime feature a tedious watch
You might have done strange things to impress your crush, but we are sure that you never transformed yourself into a cat to get cuddles from them. Netflix's latest anime feature titled 'A Whisker Away' tells the story of Miyo (Mirai Shida), nicknamed Muge (an acronym for Miss Ultra Gaga and Enigmatic), a girl who is hopelessly in love with her classmate Kento Hinode (Natsuki Hanae). He barely acknowledges her existence, and so one day, she runs into a mask seller and gets herself a mask that helps her to turn into a cat. There's one problem though: The longer she stays in her feline avatar, the more difficult it is to return to the human form. As the story progresses, the lines between her personality as a human and cat are slowly blurred and she goes on a literal and figurative quest to discover who she really is, and which is the life she prefers. On paper, that sounds intriguing, quirky, and unusual. However, the execution leaves a lot more to be desired.
But we would be doing the film a gross injustice if we say it was just about high-school infatuation, even the story does seem to deal with this theme, with a rather heavy-hand, and glossing over the actual problems of a young teenager. The film shakily attempts to delve into the highly unrealistic fantasies of middle-schoolers, the woes of adolescence, depression, loneliness, and the desire to escape from a staid and insipid life. Loneliness is a painful emotion, and cheery laughs can only disguise it for a short amount of time. Apart from her friend Yoriko (Minako Kotobuki), Muge is practically invisible to everyone else, including her own parents. Irresponsible parenting is another undercurrent in this film. These flux of emotions are what all of us feel on such a daily basis, and in this regard, Muge should be easy to relate to. But instead, for most of the film, her easily-excitable emotions and excitement appeared to be played for laughs, and that's problematic. Occasionally, the real hollowness shines through, but only glimpses of it. Oh, and she is annoying.
The glaring problem is in the romantic storyline. Muge has no respect for Hinode's personal space, even stalks him at points and well, touches him inappropriately, which is something he actually likes. It comes down to this, and the film is inches away from excusing Muge and her behavior. The film tries to do a lot of things, but fumbles along the way. It wants to be for children as well for adults and is lost in the abyss, somewhere in between. The visuals are the strong points of this film, along with some emotionally dramatic and poignant scenes. But that's about it. 'A Whisker Away' had the potential to be one of those wonderfully peculiar films that dealt sensitively with the problems that everyone faces, but it fails to impress.
Watch this film if you want to see some cute cats. It's streaming on Netflix.