If you have a crush on someone, it's completely fine to stalk them, invade their personal space and boundaries, gain their trust through a false alias, and keep pushing them to hang out with you or like you back even if they make it clear over and over again that they aren't into you. Your feelings for them always justify your actions, and if you push long and hard enough then eventually they will like you back!
If you have a troubled home life, it's good to pin all your hopes of happiness, meaning, and fulfillment on a romantic crush. They'll like you eventually, and your life really has no meaning outside your crush! (Considering how many Real Life school-aged kids commit suicide due to believing they won't find any happiness if their crush doesn't reciprocate...)
Romance is the best and only way to cure suicidal depression.
Anvilicious: Be grateful for the life you have, no matter how miserable or worthless you think it is. For there's always someone else more desperate, who wishes they could trade places with you.
Ass Pull: Muge spends most of the film shutting out her family to focus on her crush on Hinode. Even after she sees her family and friends worry sick about her during her prolonged time as a cat, it barely phases her and she remains becomes determined to become human again only to stay with Hinode. During the last few seconds of the film, Muge claims she now understands how much her family and friends care about her, and she wants to try to like them back, despite showing no prior interest in them before.
Base-Breaking Character: As noted below, Muge is a HUGE one among viewers. There are many in the camp who believe her backstory and personal issues don't justify her troubling stalker-like behavior and think that her getting together with Hinode was merely a cheap ploy. At the same time, there are many that often explain that she's just a middle school girl who doesn't know any better due to her deep-set emotional issues and believe that the ending will lead her to grow from that.
Funny Moments: When Muge visits her family in the form of a cat to tell them good-bye, she witnesses as her mother belittles her father and stepmother for not being good parents. Then the stepmother calls out the mother on abandoning Muge, before said mother slaps her out of spite. ...All at once, the whole thing quickly becomes an over-the-top Cat Fight between the two mothers, whilst the father nervously tries to break up the fight. Muge can only stare on with a look on her face that clearly says "Well, that escalated quickly".
Memetic Mutation: Mask Seller's question regarding why you want to go back to your miserable human existence struck gold with the audience, as the film's release happened during the middle of 2020, when the world as a whole wasn't exactly doing so great.
Misaimed Fandom: Despite being shown as a bad thing, judging by the comments in the trailers, practically everyone wants to run afoul of the Mask Seller to become a cat. Whether it is mainly for fun or escapism is up for subjectivity.
Moment of Awesome: In its own way, Muge's stepmother calling out Muge's biological mother on her hypocrisy note the mother called Muge's father and stepmother uncaring and not understanding , not to mention her calling her out on Muge's behalf for abandoning her daughter, which led to her developing serious self-esteem issues.
Moral Event Horizon: Despite being shady, the Mask Seller was never truly evil during first two acts of the movie, acting as a sort-of Benevolent Genie who approaches humans who have reached a dead end in their lives, offering them a new life as cats. Not to mention, he gives the human faces obtained to cats who wished to live longer for their human friends. The third act reveals his true nature as a being who steals the lifespans of humans for himself, effectively shortening the lives of his human victims to that of cats, trapping them as such even if they got their faces back. Not to mention, his whole business has an untold "no refunds" policy, as evidenced when both Muge and Kinako want to switch back, only to be denied.
Paranoia Fuel: There are humans who are actually cats wearing human faces while there are cats who were originally humans stuck as a cat after giving up their human life. It is possible that not all of the Mask Seller's victims are gathered in the pub or the cat island...
Spiritual Successor: To The Cat Returns: A middle school girl who's down on herself and has an unrequited crush on a boy is eventually talked into running away from her problems by becoming a cat, realizes her mistake, goes to a magical realm full of talking cats, and must race against the clock to become human again. Obviously, this film lacks a tuxedo-wearing Mr. Fanservice, and focuses more on the girl's troubled home life and school crush.
After taking some time last night to make Hinode's letter, Muge was ready to give it to him until Bandai steps in a takes it from her, and decides to read it all loud in front of the classroom, making Muge feel uncomfortable. When Hinode takes it and looks at Muge, he then says to her that they were never the same, plus her talking out from what he feels makes him feel bad, and to top it all off? He says to Muge that he hastes her, making Muge's heart break into pieces, yet still trying to keep up a smile so no one can see her hurt.
At her bedroom, Muge's stepmother comes to see if her stepdaughter was fine, and while Miyo at first just brushes it off, the more the stepmother questions her the more anxious and angry Miyo felt, enough for her to lash out verbally at her stepmother and then taking her mask with her as she jumped off the window, turning into a cat and escaping into the streets. The next moment we see her is that she's crying while curling herself into a ball, wanting nothing more than die and dissappear from this world.
How many of you wanted to see Hinode as a cat when Kinako placed one of the cat masks on him instead of just changing his arms?
The cat island. Despite being advertised heavily in the trailers, it only shows up in the third act as a backdrop. Not much of the island itself is known along with its inhabitants outside of the human-cat bar. What kind of cats live there? Normal cats? More of the Mask Seller's victims? Or is it another world altogether? We will never know.
Some viewers found Kinako's story of a cat turning human simply to stay with their owner for longer and to take care of them far more of an interesting plot than what the movie is.
When her prolonged transformation into a cat causes her to steadily lose her ability to understand human speech, the movie could've explored Muge gradually realizing: despite how unhappy her human life was, there were plenty of human abilities she had taken for granted (reading, logical thinking, not vomiting fur balls).
Likewise, when Muge learns that her stepmother's cat (who doesn't like her) bought her face to live on as the loving daughter to Kaoru that Muge refused to be, it would been a great opportunity for Muge to realize how much her family (particularly her stepmother) cared about her, how badly she took them for granted, and regret giving them up by becoming a cat. But nope: she remains fixated only on being with Hinode.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The movie depicts Muge as a troubled but lovestruck schoolgirl who desperately wants someone to love her. Though this is sympathetic, and her troubled home life does explain why she is the way she is, her behavior towards Hinode reads less like a happy-go-lucky Cloudcuckoolander and more like a borderline stalker with a lot of disturbing behavioral issues. She relentlessly goes after a single guy, invading his personal space and boundaries, makes sexual comments about him loud enough for everyone to hear, refuses to take no for an answer even after it's implied that he told her countless times to stop, and even after she's called out on it, she never even considers that she might actually be in the wrong and that maybe she should leave him alone. Instead, she continues to go after Hinode, and the movie makes this worse by rewarding her for her behavior by having Hinode return her feelings. Not once does she ever consider how he feels about her relentless pursuit of him, nor does she ever feel any guilt or remorse over what she's done to Hinode and is more focused on her own pain. It can also be hard to appreciate how "troubled" her home life really is when it's clear that her parents and stepmother all love her dearly and try to be there for her, only for her to shut them out and throw their love back in their faces. Yes, it's very believable for a middle school girl to feel that way, and her mother walking out on her when she was a kid would scar her greatly. However, even if the viewer doesn't accept her mom trying to be in her life again, her father and stepmother were clearly always there for her and try their hardest to make her happy.
