If you’re not familiar with Kiki’s Delivery Service, then you should definitely get to know it. It’s a magical story about a young witch named Kiki. She’s trying to find a town to fit into that can find usefulness in her budding skills as a witch. With the help of her cat, Jiji (pronounced gee-gee), She ends up in a small coastal town and finds herself involved in a ‘delivery service’, which she started. More importantly, she meets new friends and truly finds her purpose thanks in part to a runaway blimp.
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The brilliance of Miyazaki films is that they focus in on internal struggles with the young characters involved. For example, Miyazaki brings Kiki’s fear of change and especially her fear of fitting into a new town to light right from the beginning of the film. As she is traveling through the ‘big costal city’, she seems to be lost, a true fish out of water an not getting any sort of help or love from her soon-to-be citizens. She has no idea where she is going or what she is doing, but somehow she lands on her feet (pun intended) and finds a way to start shaping her individuality. Kiki is a young witch off on her first real journey out in the world, a witch walkabout of sorts. Miyazaki shows us her struggles, while putting a nice layer of humor and beauty into the process. Kiki’s cat, Jiji, is a perfect comic relief to the potential stress that Kiki goes through. He also acts as a perfect companion when Kiki is in need of someone. He’s a great device to support our main character.
Anyway, another point of the film is there isn’t really any bad reaction to Kiki’s life as a witch. When she enters her new homestead and finds work delivering goods at the local bakery, it’s wonderful to see the town folk accepting her for what she is, a witch. Miyazaki is basically telling his viewers that being different is a part of life and everyone serves a purpose; no matter who they might be or what background they might come from. That in itself is a message that most kids need to hear as they are growing up, and Miyazaki’s way of telling it through the life of Kiki is subtle and amazing.
Much like Miyazaki’s other films, Kiki’s Delivery Service sends a wonderful, comfortable message to its viewers. Unlike Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, it’s not over the top; it’s just simple. Kiki’s Delivery Service proves that you don’t have to be epic to be good; much like the Kiki.
On the Blu-ray side of things, the 1989 film has aged just a bit, but for the most part, the HD transfer on Blu-ray comes through with shining colors. The opening sequence with Kiki lying in the field looking up at the sky looks the most worn of the film. You can see the age a bit in the colors, as they’re just slightly faded. Once the film gets going, the colors and animation come through beautifully and the blues/blacks/reds/yellows and whites stand out in stunning fashion. There is no sign of graininess in the transfer, which is great considering its age. There aren’t any compression issues either. It’s truly a gorgeous film on Blu-ray and one that fits with the rest of the Miyazaki Blu-ray releases.
The audio only comes in DTS-HD 2.0, sadly. I think that 5.1 would have suited it much better. The aspect ratio of the film is 1.85:1.
As for the special features portion of this movie, here’s what you’re getting:
– Introduction by John Lasseter
– Ursula’s Painting
– Original Japanese Storyboards
– Original Japanese Trailers
– Producer’s Perspective
– Creating Kiki’s Delivery Service
– Scoring Miyazaki
– Behind the Microphone
– The Locations of Kiki’s Delivery Service
– Kiki & Jiji
– Flying with Kiki & Beyond
The original release on DVD in 2010 didn’t have nearly the same amount of features as the Blu-ray release this last month. You get a nice solid set of features that compliment the film beautifully. The featureless on the scoring and the features on the creation of the film is probably the most interesting of the bunch. All said, this is a great set of features accompanying a fantastic film.