ANI-MOVIES, *Kiki's Delivery Service

Eiko Kadono's popular Kiki's Delivery Service book series premiered in Japan during the mid-80s, and was appealing enough for Studio Ghibli to make it an international hit by producing a 1989 animated movie. Hayao Miyazaki once again directs the family-frlendly anime done as a supernatural light comedy. This successful anime had a 4-part manga adaptation, as well as several different dubs, one specifically by Robotech's Carl Macek for international Japanese flights, and then later on by Disney, with various edits made to it for different releases emitting various dialogue that didn't fit with the original script, or replacing the opening/closing theme by American talent. The current version is now available through GKids who ended up re-releasing most of the Ghibli films.

Set in a modern day version of our world where witches are accepted as part of everyday society, teenage witch Kiki sets off on her year long journey away from home to discover her special talent. Aside from having some experience flying a broom, Kiki's only other real witch ability was talking to her cat Jiji. The wannabe witch settles down at a town by the seaside, and sets up business as a fying delivery girl while helping out at a bakery that let her stay there. Kiki reluctantly befriends local aeronautics enthusiast Tombo who becomes fascinated with her flying skills, even though his familiarity with some of the more snobbish teenagers put Kiki off, leading to her having an existential crisis. This depression causes her to temporarily loose her powers, but gains them back when she has to rescue Tombo from a runaway blimp, as most Miyazaki productions tend to have unique aircraft in abundance.

Similar to Whisper Of The Heart, Kiki's Delivery Service is also a coming of age story, but on a somewhat younger scale, and set in a fantasy world. Not your standard "magical girl" anime as Kiki isn't fighting demons every week, the movie is a far less cynical story, not totally on the level of fairy tale, while also not being a dark gothic story with all the typical supernatural elements in various other anime. The animation quality is brilliant with serious detail given to the literal ups and downs involved in human flight, plus the character designs are of standard Ghibli fashion, although slightly more expressive to keep it comedic. The preferred version of the dub you would probably appreciate the most is the current GKids edit keeping the Disney dub, but leaving out the Americanimsms that were done for to make it seem "trendier".