Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and I are watching Comfy, Cozy movies this September and October and this week we watched Kiki’s Delivery Service, a Studio Ghibli animated movie.

We are also announcing a very fun and exciting giveaway for a comfy, cozy gift basket which you can enter to win at the giveaway link at the bottom of this post!

Kiki’s Delivery Service was released in 1989 in Japan by  Hayao Miyazaki, a Japanese animator and filmmaker, and was based on a book called Witches Express Delivery Service.

The movie was animated by Studio Ghibli (which Miyazaki was a founder of) for Tokuma Shoten, Yamato Transport, and the Nippon Television Network.

According to information online, “The English dub was produced by Streamline Pictures for Japan Airlines international flights in 1989. Walt Disney Pictures produced an English dub in 1997, which became the first film under a deal between Tokuma and Disney to be released in English. It was released to home media in 1998.”

This was a very sweet movie with little action but a lot of heart.

First the background – Kiki is a witch and the tradition is that witches leave home at the age of 13 and travel away from their family for a year to learn what their skill in life is.

Kiki’s mother insists she take her old, reliable broomstick so Kiki flies off into the night with her all black cat JiJi and finds a small town to settle in. She ends up living with a baker and starts a delivery service – delivering packages with the use of her broom.

The bakery is owned by Osono and her husband, Fukuo, who are expecting a child.

Kiki also meets a friend – a boy named Tombo who wants to be her friend more than she wants to be his for most of the movie. Tombo likes to invent things – especially things with the potential to fly. At one point he invites Kiki to his aviation club but Kiki gets wrapped up in deliveries and gets caught in a rainstorm. This causes her to become very sick but Osono nurses her back to health and then pretends to have a delivery sent to Tombo so Kiki can see him and apologize.

During her first delivery, Kiki loses the toy she’s supposed to deliver and then she and her cat – who talks by the way – work to find a way to get it back to the child it belongs to.

Much of the movie is like this – just little stories or adventures that aren’t very exciting in some ways, but are calming and sweet.

It isn’t until more than halfway through the movie that more conflict arises because Kiki seems to be losing her powers, which she first notices when she can no longer understand JiJi.

Studio Ghibli is the design studio for many Japanese animated movies. Later many of these movies are dubbed into English and sometimes feature well-known American actors. In the one I watched (which was the Disney dubbed one from 1997) Kiki was voiced by Kiersten Dunst and the cat was voiced by Phil Hartman.

Kiki’s Delivery Service focuses on themes of independence and finding your place in this world.

It was the first Studio Ghibli film to find commercial success soon after being released – earning $31 million.

I wasn’t as swept up in this one as in previous Studio Ghibli films but as it continued it grew on me. It was a very quiet film and some of the Studio Ghibli films have a little more action so I wasn’t ready for it to be so toned down. Once I got into the story, though, I enjoyed it. The scenery and art, as in all Studio Ghibli films, was really beautiful.

I was rooting for Kiki – especially once she lost her powers and seemed confused about her next step.

While the makers of the movie and critics said the movie focuses on themes of maturity and independence, I also saw a strong theme of friendship, family, and trust.

Have you ever seen this one? What did you think?

Read Erin’s impressions of the movie here: https://crackercrumblife.com/2024/10/03/comfy-cozy-cinema-kikis-delivery-service/

Coming up next week will be the 1945 version of Blithe Spirit.

Feel free to link up your own impressions of the movies at our link-ups. The links close at the end of the week but feel free to leave your blog post on future link-ups, even if it is for another movie.

Also, Erin and I are announcing our Comfy, Cozy Gift Basket Giveaway today.

I’m just going to copy what Erin wrote to share here because I am lazy *wink*: “We have some fun little goodies to be sent off to one winner, with more surprises to be added as well! We want to celebrate the season and this is just one way we would like to do that this year.

You can enter anytime between today and October 15th, and the winner will be announced on our blogs on Thursday, October 17th. Please enter via Rafflecopter and it is only open to those 18 or older living in the US.” You can enter here: https://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/3614a4fa2/?

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