Before starting, you can click the following link to enjoy the
songs I like from Kiki’s Delivery Service with this post.
Today I am going to talk about Kiki’s
Delivery Service. Kiki’s Delivery Service can be said to be the second Ghibli
movie I have watched for the most times(the first one is Howl’s Moving Castle
since Howl is so charming lol) because of the thought-provoking plot about
getting mature and independent, and the beautiful songs in the movie.
Also, Kiki’s black cat, Jiji is my
favorite mascot among all the mascots appearing in Ghbli movies like Totoro or
Noh-face! It is super adorable!
(“Kiki!
Look! Look!”)
Movie Information
Kiki’s Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便)
Production company: Studio Ghibli
Directed by: Miyazaki Hayao (宮崎駿)
Written by: Miyazaki Hayao (宮崎駿)
Music by: Hisaishi Joe (久石讓)
Release dates: 1989/07/29
Running time: 102 minutes
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
(Information from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiki%27s_Delivery_Service)
Plot
Every witch has to leave her hometown and live in an unfamiliar city for
an year as a training to become a real witch at the age of thirteen. Kiki, the
protagonist of the movie, is going to leave her home and begin her new life,
learning to be mature. The movie is about her experience facing all the unknown
people and things in a new city, growing up as a witch with strong power of
heart.
Review(Warning: The following part contains spoiler)
I think this movie represents everyone’s growing progress since we are
all like Kiki, leaving hometown to learn to be mature and take care of
ourselves.
We must feel nervous while stepping out from our comfort zone and going
to a new environment. “Will they like me? Do I look weird to them?”must be
questions that we ask hundreds of times to ourselves. Just like how Kiki feels
when she first arrives the city. She causes a traffic accident and is laughed
by some girls because of her appearance. Therefore, she thinks nobody will like
or accept her.
(“She looks so dumb!”)
Then we meet our benefactors in our lives, in Kiki’s case, Osono, the
owner of a bakery. Kiki not only gets a free place to live from her but also
realizes what she can do for a living in the city – delivering things by
flying.
(Kiki’s first delivery is to help Osono
return the forgotten pacifier from a mother.)
After having a real job, meeting customers that appreciate her, Kiki
gradually finds the sense of belonging and acceptance in the city. She also
meets a guy named Tombo, who always wants to fly in the sky and becomes friends
with him. Just like us who start to find our own positions in the new
environment.
However, life is full of ups and downs. In the progress of growing up,
there must be things going differently from our expectation. Seeing Tombo
chatting happily with the mean girls that laughs at her appearance, Kiki feels
bad (maybe out of jealousy) and loses her faith to herself, which leads to the
loss of her magic power, making her not able to talk to Jiji and to fly.
Never be afraid of failures in life since they happen naturally. We just
have to bestir ourselves and remember the lesson after that. After talking to
her friend and an old lady who once gets a massive help from Kiki, she finally finds
confidence and faith to herself, regaining the power of flying and saving Tombo
from an accident by flying with a brush.
(“Everyone has a characteristic that is
born with him or her.”)
The whole movie focuses on the mental growth of a girl, the thing we
have to maintain no matter what happens(Faith), and things we have to sacrifice
with growth.(For example, Kiki can never “talk” to Jiji again even though she
regains her power because she has grown up and cannot depend on Jiji so much
anymore.)
Just like Kiki, I am studying in an unfamiliar city right now. The movie
vividly shows the excitement and intenseness I have while my first days as an
university students in a way that can be accepted by both children and adults.
Although I am gradually used to my life in this city now, things might still go
wrong some day. But I believe if I stay faithful to myself like Kiki, things
will work out eventually.
Trivia
We all know that Studio Ghibli loves to put easter eggs in the movies.
The bus that causes the accident when
Kiki arrives the city says “Studio Ghibli!” It appears for about only a second
and is really hard to discover!
Do you know that Kiki’s Delivery Service is actually based on a novel
with the same name written by Kadono Eiko? The animated movie version from
Ghibli only involves a small part of the novel. In the end of the novel series,
Kiki gets married with Tombo and gives birth to a pair of twins!
(The cover of the first volume of Kiki’s
Delivery Service)
There is also a movie version of Kiki’s Delivery, which is released in
2014!
(Movie poster of Kiki’s Delivery)
See ya!
