Kiki's Delivery Service
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Kiki's Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便) is an anime feature film, produced by Miyazaki Hayao in 1989.
This movie was made based on Eiko Kadono's original story, Majo no Takkyubin (Published by Fukuinkan Shoten Publisher Inc.)
This animation depicts the gulf that exists between independence and self-reliance in the hopes and spirit of common Japanese teenage girls.
Kiki is a 13 year-old witch in training. By tradition, it is time for Kiki to leave her home to spend a year alone in a new town to establish herself as a full witch. Kiki sets herself on her mother's broom with her closest companion, Jiji, a loquacious black cat. She flies off to a new life.
Kiki settles in the beautiful (fictional) seaside island city of Korico, and after initially finding it difficult to adjust to the pace of life, starts a delivery service that takes advantage of her ability to fly. Kiki experiences several setbacks such as slow business, misplaced merchandise, rude customers and illness. She also has to deal with her loneliness, worries, and homesickness.
One day, she even loses her magic. Eventually Kiki overcomes these obstacles with the help of her newfound friends, most notably a young artist who gives some good advice about the kind of inspiration she needs to regain her magic. In a moment of crisis, she finds that inspiration to regain her flying ability to rescue a boy she has befriended when he is involved in a dirigible accident - thanks largely to her independence, self-reliance, and with encouragement and help from others.
Trivia
The crows featured in this movie seem to be Collared Crows (Corvus torquatus), which live in China.
The architecture of Koriko (Korico/Corico) seems to be an amalgamation of various north European styles. Parts of the city resemble Scandinavian, Russian or German cities. According to the official pamphlet sold at Japanese cinemas screening this film the design crew went to the Swedish cities of Stockholm and Visby, and also to Ireland, for location hunting. The pamphlet also acknowledges similarities between parts of Korico and Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo's Ginza district.
The technology is generically an imaginary mid-20th century time where World War II did not occur, including black and white television, trams and airships - although Kiki also owns an anachronistic transistor radio. The cars mainly have 1940s designs.
"Kiki" is the nickname of actress Kirsten Dunst, who voiced the character in the 1998 English language dub. The English dub was also possibly Phil Hartman's last voice-acting performance before he died.
External links
- Kiki's Delivery Service page at Nausicaa.net (http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/kiki/)
- Kiki's Delivery Service page at OnlineGhibli.com (http://onlineghibli.com/kiki)
- Review at THEM Anime (http://www.themanime.org/viewreview.php?id=158)de:Majo no Takyuubin