Review of A Whisker Away

I'm gonna be clear up front, this review is mostly going to be me gushing about Mari Okada. Don't get me wrong, the other stuff is great; Junichi Sato's direction is fantastic, the animation is nice and fluid and consistent and the artwork is nice (if fairly conventional). But Mari Okada. I'm not shy about the fact that she's my favourite writer in the medium, and this is such a good example of why. She's certainly got plenty of experience with 'coming of age story with a supernatural twist' and plenty of experience with romance, and it brings the best of what she does so wellwith both genres.

It's an emotion-driven story, from someone who just nails every emotion she brings up. It's a character-driven story, from someone who has a gift for complex and multi-dimensional characters. Especially, it's a teenage-story from someone who is so, SO talented at telling these stories; she takes the little issues and treat them how they feel when you're that age, when your crush ignoring you feels like the end of the world. She respects those stories, and it makes her so good at telling them. She does it like no one else.

So yeah, I liked this film a fair bit.