She and Her Cat (1999)

She and Her Cat Review

She and Her Cat is a 1999 anime short film directed by Makoto Shinkai. It’s a slight, but artistically inclined film.

It is a story about the relationship between a male cat and his female owner told from the cat’s perspective. This was the first big breakthrough for Shinkai and already he showed a lot of promising talent in the visuals and atmosphere. My issue with this short is its slight plot. It failed to meaningfully develop its characters due to the five-minute runtime constraint and that quick cutting.

However, the movie still functioned well as an early showcase of Shinkai’s animation prowess. The black-and-white animation is gorgeous here and the world that he created is intimate yet fully lived-in due to splendid attention to detail. The film has a lovely score and gorgeous visuals that made for such a uniquely cinematic viewing experience. The editing is interesting as the movie is cut haphazardly and quite often, which for me stood for the cat’s short attention spans and long sleeping times. It is after all told from the cat’s POV. The narration is also quite sweet. The emotional investment is definitely there, but it should have been more emphasized at the end of the day.

She and Her Cat is slightly plotted, but gorgeously animated and intriguingly edited, leading to an interesting early short from Shinkai.

My Rating – 4