Kiki's Delivery Service - 1989
Kiki is a young witch who has recently reached the age at which all witches must leave home for a year. Setting out on the night of a full moon, Kiki seeks a new home for herself and a way to contribute her (admittedly limited) magical services to a community. She is accompanied on her journey by her cynical black cat, Jiji.
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"What makes the film quite unique is precisely its departure from the familiar paths at the levels of both plot and character portrayal, its shunning of theatrical bombast and its gentle exposure of both human vulnerability and human kindness." - The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki
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The opening credits (right) show the beginning of Kiki's journey.
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"Kiki, the thirteen-year old protagonist of this story, is a witch with only one particular strength: her ability to fly through the air. In her world, witches are not unusual at all. The real challenge Kiki faces is that, as part of her training, she must live for a year in an unfamiliar town and get its inhabitants to recognize her as a full-fledged witch." - Miyazaki, 1988
Jiji is the classic witch's companion: a snarky and scared black cat. He gives her advice and is her closest friend. While she is the only one that can hear him, Jiji still manages to aid Kiki in her services.
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Almost always alongside his witch, Jiji is nimble and rides with Kiki on her broom.
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Tombo is a young boy that Kiki meets (and attempts to ignore) when she first arrives in Koriko. He consistently tries to befriend despite her aloof attitude toward him.
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Tombo is obsessed with aviation, part of his fascination with Kiki. He even attempts to build his own flying machine.
Along the way are a number of parental figures, vital to any coming-of-age story. Her birth parents, a woman who takes her in, an elderly woman she delivers to and a young woman she befriends all guide Kiki in her search for purpose in a bustling city.
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The majority of scenes in this film take place in the sky as Kiki soars on her broomstick to and around Koriko. This is nearly all of the bars come from: the bright blues of day and the dark blues and purples of night. To Miyazaki, the color of the sky and the towns below represent the solitude of flying alone.
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In addition, the city of Koriko is located along the sea, creating even more blue. For the most part, the film is a tranquil one,with many scenes of Kiki drifting about. The events in the narrative are also somewhat separate from one another (a result of the original story, I'm sure) which results in the stark contrasts between scenes in the barcode.
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"In this era, poverty is not so much material as spiritual." - The Art of Kiki's Delivery Service
Below is a "smoothed" version, in which the vertical pixels are averaged out.
The most notable (and obvious) inspiration for Kiki's Delivery Service the original novel by Eiko Kadono of the same name. This novel (and eventual series) of illustrated stories is less structured than the film and is simply a series of stories about Kiki, rather than having a typical narrative structure. Miyazaki claims that Kadono's novel "is a wonderful work of children's literature - one that sensitively depicts the spirit and hopes of contemporary girls, especially those straddling the line between dependence and independence."
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"Our goal in completing this film is to send an expression of solidarity to young viewers who find themselves torn between dependence and independence." (Miyazaki 1988)
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The final version of the bay city Koriko is an amalgamation of San Francisco (right), Amsterdam (below), and Stockholm (left) among several other European cities.
