A Whisker Away review – a charming anime on heartbroken escapism

By Daniel Hart
Published: June 18, 2020 (Last updated: December 20, 2023)
0
Netflix anime film A Whisker Away
4

Summary

A Whisker Away is wonderfully animated and it’s propped up by an ambience of light music and steady writing bringing the magic and love to life. Within its own strange world, it’s easy for the audience to consume.

Netflix anime film A Whisker Away was released on the platform on June 18, 2020. This review contains no spoilers.


Anime can bring some quirky forms and in the case of A Whisker Away, it toys with the idea of a teenage girl wanting to catch the attention of her crush by turning into a cat. That’s most certainly an invasive way to spend time with someone unknowingly, and the Netflix anime film brings that concept to life.

The real story absorbs the audience when the peculiar girl begins to fail at grasping reality, with the line between human and animal beginning to blur. A Whisker Away harnesses the teenage problems and the routine issues of growing up but the message is abundantly clear when the ‘cat life’ becomes a problem.

A Whisker Away is a pure form of escapism born from intensive school life and that first teenage heartbreak. Becoming a cat is an escape to wedge in the anxiety and social issues that occur when being human. It encapsulates all those feelings and brings an engaging story on love, magic and cats — conspiracy theorists will be surfacing that ‘cats run the world’ after viewing this anime.

If you remember Brie Larson’s Unicorn Store, that insufferable film centered around a character that refused to accept that life is hard work, so endured a fantasy instead. A Whisker Away is oddly similar except the fantasy for the lead character is seemingly real — she’s not ready to face the pitfalls of life, which is why reality begins to blur. Plus, this anime film is not insufferable, it’s heartwarming and sits nicely in Netflix’s anime library.

Netflix anime film A Whisker Away is wonderfully animated and it’s propped up by an ambiance of light music and steady writing bringing the magic and love to life. Within its own strange world, it’s easy for the audience to consume.

More Stories

Movie Reviews, Netflix