If Cats Disappeared from the World (世界から猫が消えたなら, Sekai kara neko ga kietanara) is a 2016 Japanese drama film directed by Akira Nagai [ja], starring Takeru Satoh and Aoi Miyazaki[3] and based on the novel Sekai kara Neko ga Kieta nara by Genki Kawamura [ja].

[1] 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 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.

[6][7] The lyrics of "Fantasou Apla" by Greek artist Despina Vandi also suggest imagining a world where a class of items disappears one at a time, and focuses on how the world would differ each time, as a means of revealing the importance of a relationship vanishing.