Kiki's Delivery Service

Hayao Miyazaki’s Kiki’s Delivery Service is a 1989 Japanese animated feature produced by Studio Ghibli and released in Japan by Toei. It adapts Eiko Kadono’s 1985 children’s novel Majo no Takkyūbin, although Miyazaki created much of the film’s particular story and its unnamed European-style setting. The film follows Kiki, a thirteen-year-old witch who must spend a year living independently, according to the custom described at its opening. On a moonlit departure night, she leaves her rural home on a broom, accompanied by Jiji, her sardonic black cat. Kiki’s mother, Kokiri, makes potions, while her father, Okino, is not a witch. After being turned away by a city because another resident witch already lives there, Kiki reaches the port town of Koriko. Her broom landing disrupts traffic, and a policeman reprimands her before she meets Osono, a baker. Osono and her husband Fukuo give Kiki a room above their bakery, Gütiokipänja. Kiki begins a flying delivery business, using the broom carried her since childhood. Her first job is taking a cat toy to a customer; when Jiji loses it in forest, Kiki encounters painter Ursula, who has found it. The episode establishes Kiki’s practical setbacks and Ursula’s importance as a friend. Tombo, fascinated by aviation, invites Kiki to join his friends, but she initially resists him. His flying machine reflects interest in human flight alongside Kiki’s magic. Later, exhausted by work and troubled by difficult delivery, Kiki discovers that she can no longer fly or understand Jiji’s speech. Ursula invites her to a cabin in woods and explains that creative ability can falter; she compares Kiki’s problem with periods of difficulty painting. During Koriko’s emergency involving a drifting airship, Tombo becomes stranded hanging from a rope. Kiki regains confidence, borrows a street sweeper’s brush, and flies to rescue him before crowd. Joe Hisaishi composed the score, including “A Town with an Ocean View” and “Departure.” In Japanese version, Minami Takayama voices Kiki and Rei Sakuma voices Jiji. The film tied Only Yesterday as Japan’s highest-grossing film of 1989, another Studio Ghibli release. Disney issued a 1998 English dub featuring Kirsten Dunst as Kiki and Phil Hartman as Jiji; Hartman died before dub’s release. Disney’s 2010 rerelease used a soundtrack that removed extra dialogue and songs added for the 1998 version. The film’s ending shows Kiki established in Koriko, reading a letter home, while Tombo visits on his repaired flying machine.