Anime Eiga Review: Kiki's Delivery Service

Film Synopsis

Young Kiki (voiced by Minami Takayama) has finally decided to begin her training as a witch. Although ignorant of the world beyond her home, she is filled with awe and excitement over what the future might bring. She packs up her things and heads out on her trusty broomstick with her closest friend, her black cat Jiji (voiced by Rei Sakuma), at her side.

Kiki soon finds herself in a busting port town. The hustle of city life is unlike anything she's been accustomed to, but she's determined to make a name for herself. Yet, starting fresh isn’t the easiest thing in the world and city folk aren’t as accommodating as one might hope.

Doubt slowly begins to fill Kiki’s head; nearly driving to the point of giving up and moving on to the next town. Then a chance run-in with a local baker, Osono (voiced by Keiko Toda) gives the novice witch her second wind.

In exchange for helping out around the bakery, Osono offers Kiki a place to stay as well as a base for her to start up her own business. Most witches tend to specialize in a single area and Kiki believes the only skill she's even sort of good at is flying around on her broom.

Placating to her abilities, Kiki opens a delivery service and thus Witch Delivery Business is born. Things are a little slow at first, but word soon gets around. While independence is still a daunting prospect, Kiki does become accustomed to her new life bit by bit.

However, growing up often goes hand in hand with loss of child-like confidence. As she tries to make a mark on her new town, Kiki has to realize what truly keeps her going.

Film Positives

Kiki

I loved this one; like a lot.

In exactly the same way as My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service doesn’t rely on grandiose adventures or epic journeys. Instead this is slice of life, only in movie form and Kiki nails it right on the head.

Themes

I could go into how much I enjoyed the characters, the settings, and the overall story. But I’ll just get to the point and say they were amazing. Yet none of those were the main reason why I liked this movie so much. Instead, there were two elements I took from this film and was blown away by how well they were portrayed.

The first was shown during Kiki’s first night in her new town. Upon seeing the big city on the horizon, she got excited for what might be in store. That excitement was strong, but it didn't make her impervious. From the moment she arrived, it was clear there was a well-established flow; what with the large crowds and busy streets. The city and its residence didn’t care that a witch had arrived because she was no different than any other another newcomer. 

Kiki does consider leaving and trying again somewhere else. Luckily she meets Osono and is able to find a place to rest. It’s fair to say Kiki’s day didn’t go as planned and she was utterly exhausting from it all. Having a chance to finally sit down and think it over, she decides to stick it out.

Her drive was real, but there was uncertainty; which made all the sense in the world to me. For anyone who has lived alone in a new place, particularly if that new place was in a different country, I’m willing to bet you’ve experienced this type of anxiety. Note that I said lived not traveled. When traveling, everything is different and exciting. That first night remains fun because you know you’ll be back in your own bed soon.

The first night of actually living in a new place, where the culture, language, and customs might be nothing like what your familiar with is not just new, it's possibly very lonely. The apprehension Kiki felt was real; I know because I’ve felt it.

This made me reminisce, but what made me smile was when Kiki chose to keep trying. She was scared, but that didn’t stop her from doing what she wanted to do. Still, it was that fear which preluded the second of the two elements I was referring to.

Part of being a witch, according to the story, is that there's usually one specific field one would try to master. Riding a broom stick is as basic as you can get and any witch can do it. Being only thirteen, Kiki doesn’t have any clue what specialty she should focus on. Therefore flying is the only witch-like thing she can do.

The actual act of flying was something Kiki could always manage. She isn’t quite sure how it works, but like all magic it's directly connect with a witch’s spirit. This becomes relevant when over the course of the film Kiki starts to second guess herself to the point where she forgets how to fly. Since it was always something she just knew how to do, she had no idea what she was suddenly doing wrong.

And the film provides a perfect parallel to this.

Kiki meets an aspiring artist named Ursula (also voiced by Minami Takayama) and the two quickly become friends. Kiki confides in Ursula that she doesn’t know why she can’t do magic anymore. Ursula realizes a witch’s spirit is like an artist’s spirit and she herself went through a similar slump.

When Ursula first fell in love with art, she would look at what the great masters of history had done and would try to replicate them. For a while it was great, but eventually it lost its luster. It got so bad to the point where she could barely pick up a brush at all. Ursula even toyed with idea of maybe she would have to give up art all together.

It was then she realized what the problem was. She had spent so much time trying to do what others had done instead of creating her own work. That epiphany put the love of painting back in her hands. Kiki needed to do the same.

She was too focused on what it means to be a witch. Others may be doing their thing, but they are not Kiki and Kiki is not them. Who care if she doesn’t have that one specialty figured out yet, especially since she's already seems to have found it. If flying around and delivering packages is the thing which makes her happy and gives her purpose, that means she's found exactly what she wanted to do.

As kids, we naturally gravitate to something that makes us feel good. We keep doing that one thing because we enjoy it and we don’t stop to question why. As we get older though, we can no longer afford to accept that blissful ignorance; particularly if we want to make a future out of it. A day will come when we have to remember what it was that made us happy or we'll have to give it up.

Kind of depressing if you think about it, but that’s why I loved this film. Kiki didn’t give it up.

Film Negatives

There's one thing that I didn’t quite grasp. It’s an important detail and I could probably put together some kind of reasoning. But unlike before when I saw purpose in what the movie was doing, I would have to take a stretch with this one.

I’m not entire sure why Kiki lost her confidence.

Yah a little big, but roll with me on this.

There was a moment in the film that deeply offended Kiki. Nothing happened to her, but she couldn't help feeling awful about it. The granddaughter of one of her customers was completely ungrateful for the birthday cake which was made with a ton of heart. For someone as kind as Kiki, this would rub her the wrong way.

How that connects with her losing her confidence is a bit of a mystery.

The best I can come up with is maybe she felt there may ultimately be no point in doing anything thoughtful for anyone because there’s a chance people are jerk offs. Earlier I couldn’t stop thinking of things to say, but for this I’m at a bit of a loss.

Final Thoughts

I want to say it again. I loved this one.

Kiki’s Delivery Service is a lot of fun, incredibly cute, really meaningful, and I’m going to break a rule a little bit, absolutely gorgeous. Not edge of your seat excitement, but I got a lot out of this movie and it's totally one that is worth checking out.

Ghibli Month will continue tomorrow with 1991’s Only Yesterday.

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