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This review is my first and may contain mild spoilers.

"What do you want to be?" I asked. "A cat! So I can stalk my crush," the main character said.

What do you want to be? A firefighter? A doctor? A soldier? Or perhaps, a different organism because you hate your own environment because of your selfishness? I hope you aren’t like that. Yes, I hope you aren’t like the main character of this series.

“Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu”, or in a more known title, “A Whisker Away”, is an original Netflix movie in 2020, animated by Studio Colorido, the studio responsible for this movie, "Penguin ... Highway", and "Burn the Witch". This film talks about a female second-year junior high student who has a power to transform into a cat to stalk her crush. How did this film workout? Below are my ratings in several aspects.

STORY
Rating: 5.5/10
I want to give it lower but I just can’t. The good point of the story is the concept of transformation into a different species and talking about running away from your problems, or maybe your environment too. What ruined it for me is the execution of the story. They had to turn it into a somewhat improper romance anime. Like, imagine. A stalker falls in love with a hardworking boy, but the boy loves the cat version of the stalker. When he found out the cat was actually the stalker, he had to approach her to save on some conflict, then voila, couple.

The moral was good too, and necessary. I think many people would say this has no moral stories, but for me there is. I think the lesson is to not only think of yourself and be responsible for your actions.

CHARACTERS
Rating: 3/10
Yes, we all know who ruined the show. It’s the selfish stalker! All she cares about is her crush, then suddenly, she just hated everything that surrounds her, so that she can be a cat and stalk her. But guess what? She only thought of herself and wanted to be a cat because she hated being a human. Then she regrets it. Wow. We do (not) understand you. For the development, it’s fine but at some points, weird. (For example, the boy’s sudden development)

The decent characters for me are probably the stalker’s parents and the stalker’s friend. Congrats on managing your temper for her!

Oh, and also, that guy's character development for "loving the cat/stalker" feels very off.

VISUALS
Rating: 8.3/10
Nothing special here. Neat art, great usage of colors. The designs for the “cat world” are honestly great too. No character design is weird, cat looks normal and has the “fluff” of the fur, proportions are okay. Computer graphics are well done too. It could be better, but nonetheless the visuals are very well. I won’t go any deeper here.

AUDIO
Rating: 8/10
I don’t focus much on audio because of that damn main character. But everything is fine. Won’t go deeper here too. Great job here, for me.

ENJOYMENT
Rating: 5/10
Do I have to mention what ruined my enjoyment in this movie? I hope I don’t have the need to reiterate it again.

Overall Rating: 149/25, 59.6%, or 60%
As a summary, this film has a great art, audio, and story concept, but the characters and story execution made it downhill.

If you want to be a different animal, or maybe an object or something, always take note to talk about your problems.

Anyways, what do I want to be? I still don’t know. Maybe a chemist, perhaps.


edit: this review is also on anilist, from the same account. https://anilist.co/review/7885