If Cats Disappeared from the World
If Cats Disappeared from the World is a 2016 Japanese fantasy drama film directed by, starring Takeru Satoh and Aoi Miyazaki and based on the novel Sekai kara Neko ga Kieta nara by. It was released in Japan by Toho on May 14, 2016.
Plot
An unnamed young man, living alone and working as a postman, is given a terminal diagnosis of brain cancer. As he despairs and wonders who will miss him when he dies, he returns home to find a doppelganger of himself, who claims to be the devil. The "devil" tells the man that if he agrees that one type of thing, chosen by the devil, will be removed from the world, then the man can have another day of life instead of dying the next day. The items are removed at the end of that day, giving the man one last day ostensibly to enjoy them before they disappear from the world. The story proceeds through successive days with new things being removed each day: after phones, then movies, clocks, and finally cats. The story focuses on the way in which the world is different for the man and his backstory without the removed items. Each of these is somehow crucial to his relationships with his few friends and family: an ex-girlfriend, a best friend who only knows how to interact with others through sharing movies, an acquaintance met in Buenos Aires, and most importantly, the man's late mother, whose cat he inherited. The story is told both in the present and in a series of flashbacks, and the viewer comes to have a better understanding of the young man's relationships with family and friends, and the pain and beauty of mortality.Cast
- Takeru Satoh as Postman / Devil
- Aoi Miyazaki as She
- Gaku Hamada as Tsutaya
- Anna Ishii as Mika
- Eiji Okuda
- Mieko Harada