It’s time. And that’s great!
Kiki’s mom and dad are less sure. I mean, they’d much rather that she ease into any big life decisions. But for Kiki, the time has definitely arrived. She just turned 13, finished making her own broom, and the weather report has predicted clear skies. So, tonight’s the night!
For most kids, heading off on your own at 13 isn’t really a thing. But for a young witch like Kiki, it’s incredibly important. Like those in her magical family tree before her, she needs to find a city or town with no witch and learn how to serve, to help, to become the useful person she’s supposed to be. And Kiki has been on pins and needles with excitement over the chance.
Now, granted, her magical power is pretty ho-hum. Kiki’s mom is a potion-maker par excellence. She’s been keeping their little town healthy for years. All Kiki can do is kinda wobble and careen about on a broom. But she’s got to start somewhere.
So Kiki hugs and kisses her parents goodbye, she waves happily at her gathered friends and neighbors, and she sets off. Well … she sorta tumbles around in the sky, but she’s flying! With her little cat, Jiji, she heads off on her own.
The town she and Jiji pick is simply perfect. It’s huuge compared to their hometown. But it’s by the ocean, it’s beautiful and filled to the brim with happy, milling people and their cars. So, Kiki swoops in with a smile.
By the end of the day, she’s no longer smiling.
It’s not that the day was particularly bad. But she almost caused an accident flying in the streets. She hasn’t been able to help in any way. And she has no place to stay. What a sigh-worthy situation!
Then something happens almost by accident. A very pregnant bakery owner waddles breathlessly out of her store with a baby pacifier in her hand. It seems that a customer left it behind. And that woman is now at least three blocks away. What will her little baby do?
Of course, that’s no problem for Kiki. She takes the binkie, and she flies it quickly to the needy mom. And just before the baby lets out a wail, the pacifier is back in its proper place.
The lady bakery owner, Osono, is so pleased, she offers Kiki a treat. And before you can say, Aren’t you new in town? Kiki has not only found a place to stay, but she’s gotten an idea for the job she’ll perform.
She will henceforth be the proprietor of Kiki’s Delivery Service.
Isn’t that great!?
Nearly every older person in Kiki’s life treats her kindly and lovingly. The adults are super pleased with the young girl’s willingness to leap in and clean, run errands or help in any way she can. Even total strangers find her delightful (especially in comparison to other, less-enthusiastic teens); they praise and reward her appropriately.
For example, after helping an older woman create a special dessert for her granddaughter, Kiki delivers the present and becomes quite angry at the granddaughter’s disrespectful and dismissive response. Kiki goes out of her way to continue helping the older woman. So that grandmother gratefully bakes Kiki a cake, welcoming her like a family member. (The film uses these kinds of reinforcements to teach young viewers a positive lesson about working hard and serving other’s needs.)
Kiki also gains a great friend in a boy named Tombo. At first she’s reluctant to talk with him—especially in light of a bad interaction she has with the above mentioned snooty teen. But the two explore things that they have in common and grow close. Later, Kiki even saves Tombo’s life in a self-sacrificial way. In so doing, she demonstrates to local naysayers that she can be trusted and praised.
The film also makes some repeated subtle statements about trusting the values and things of the past. For instance, when Kiki is about to leave home, her mom insists that she take her solid and dependable old broom. “But Mom, that one is so old,” Kiki moans. “That’s why it’s good,” Mom replies. “You can rely on it time after time in any kind of weather.”
Obviously, this story revolves around a young character who is a witch. That said, the origin of Kiki’s magical abilities (and those of other witches, for that matter) are never explained. We don’t, however, see any dark or occult connection to spiritual sources for these powers. Instead, they’re more akin to what some have called “mechanical magic,” more like the kinds of powers superheroes might employ.
And late in the film, Kiki begins to lose those magical powers. She laments, “If I lose my magic that means I’ve lost absolutely everything!” But the film actually critiques that claim, making it clear that, in truth, Kiki has a great many good things in her life—including friends and loved ones—that don’t rely on her magic at all.
Kiki’s cat, Jiji, has the magical ability to talk.
Kiki and Tombo go to the beach once. We see young women in conservative bikinis.
Kiki meets a young female artist and announces that the woman wants to paint her picture. “Naked?” Kiki’s talking cat, Jiji, asks. “Jiji!” Kiki scoldingly responds. The female artist whom Kiki befriends is mistaken for a boy. Angrily, she yells, “What kind of boy has legs like these, mister!”
Jiji also meets another pretty cat in the neighborhood and the two felines spend time together as Jiji loses his magical ability to talk. At the end of the film, we see Jiji surrounded by several kittens that look exactly like him and the pretty cat, implying that they’ve been doing what non-magical cats do.
Kiki almost gets hit by traffic while on foot and while piloting her broom through town. She has several other tumbles and near misses with her broom, one time falling down through the branches of a tree. She also gets feverish after getting stuck in a rainstorm. Kiki also barely misses being struck by lightning.
Tombo creates a flying vehicle (using a bicycle, among other things) that crashes with him and Kiki onboard. (They’re scraped up a bit.). A windstorm snaps a large dirigible’s tethering lines, causes it to drift from its moorings. As a crashing, smashing result, Tombo ends up dangling precariously by a rope high about the town. The blimp crashes into a clock tower and other buildings and Tombo loses his grip before being saved in the nick of time.
A woman goes into labor in the midst of an emergency and is rushed to a hospital.
We hear a person say, “Jeeze.” Others exlaim “oh my gosh” several times. A person calls something “stupid.”
None.
Some people look down on Kiki as being either below their station or just being strange.
So, you’re looking for some charming movie fare, eh? Something that harkens back to the days when families were always loving, and neighbors were friendly and kind? Well, Kiki’s Delivery Service is ready to swoop in with the goods.
The only potential crosswind tumble in the mix is the fact that the cute and effervescent lead, Kiki, is a witch.
I will note, though, that she’s not a worship-the devil-with-your-coven type of witch, or even a Harry Potter-ish wand waving type. No monsters, no supernatural mumbo-jumbo here. Kiki is simply a girl with magic, just like her mom before her. And her only magic skill is the ability to fly wobblily on a handmade broom. Thus, helming her own delivery service and giving aid in the big city is her growing-up job of choice. She’s like a courier … only with a flying broom instead of a bike.
Some may well view Kiki’s kind of sweet-and-helpful witchery as lending a cute face to darker spiritual currents. And that’s a perfectly legitimate response.
For me, though, I couldn’t help but appreciate this Studio Ghibli film’s beautiful animation and sweet coming of age tale. It delivers a quiet goodness and a sense of yesterday’s values that we rarely see on screen anymore.
And that kind of movie magic suits this old dad just fine.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
