Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)

Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989)

 

6/10

Starring the voices of

Minami Takayama

Rei Sakuma

Kappei Yamaguchi

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Kiki’s Delivery Service is a fun fantasy Japanese animation (anime) which is fun for both children and adults alike. The movie keeps its plot steady and the pace is just cool breeze.

What I like most about this animation is the different levels to which the character Kiki relates with everything happening around her. She is thirteen and she gets to experience boys, being picked on and then she goes through a phase of self-doubt. The whole self-doubt phace is very cheering and deep enough to be enlightening to an adult.

The whole struggle she had to face to be independent and yet reliant on others to be able to guide and help her to be independent just makes you torn and adds to the fun.

Starting a new business is never easy and Kiki had to face that first hand in yet another Hayao Miyazaki masterpiece. Kiki’s delivery service is based on a 1985 children’s fantasy novel of I suppose the same name by Eiko Kadono.

This here animation is fun, and the whole idea does not go overboard with spirits and other magical creatures. It keeps itself steady in the world it builds where witches and humans co-exist peacefully.

The movie sets a premise which states that at age thirteen a young witch must set out on her own to be independent and secure being the witch of a town. The movie starts on Kiki’s thirteenth birthday and she jumped at this adventure. We also witness the care in her parents eyes, but Kiki was all excited and with her is her cat Jiji coming along for the ride. Jiji talks and from the movie you get to understand that only Kiki can understand her cat.

When Kiki jets off on her mother’s broom, she flies to a town and when she discovers that there are no witches there, she tries to make it her home. It was as she was standing a pregnant woman who runs a bakery ran out of her bakery holding a slip which belonged to a customer who was now at a distant. Kiki decided to help and flew the slip to the customer. It was from there the idea to start her delivery service started.

We get to see how she reacts to difficult weather, customers and a young boy who fancies her. His fancy grew from seeing her fly, something he seems to be obsessed with doing himself.

The movie was a critical and commercial hit, earning numerous awards. Disney made their own voice over English version which is not bad.

The movie ended like there is still much more in Kiki’s adventure that we will get to see in a second movie, but since 1989 there has not been any followup to this, like there have not been for many of Miyazaki films.