Jules ✨’s review published on Letterboxd:
We each need to find our own inspiration, Kiki. Sometimes it's not easy.
Kiki's Delivery Service is a magical coming of age story with beautiful animation about a young witch that must leave her home and find a city to train in order to become a better witch.
One thing I loved —and it's something I've noticed in every Ghibli movie I've seen— is that the ending credits have more development of the characters and wholesome scenes that made them entertaining to watch.
It's totally about leaving the things we know behind, step out our comfort zone and start over and settle down in a new environment as an independent person, even to find balance between her powers and the service she provides and to make a difference in this new city.
We fly with our spirit.
But it's not all fun and happy moments. At one moment she starts losing her spirit and willingness and she starts associate flying with obligations / chores instead of the happiness that inspired her at the beginning, she fels like her work is not appreciated, she feels frustrated, hopeless... exhausted. So Kiki must fight these feelings and overcome her adversity with determination and perseverance.
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And now I really want to compare this movie's other versions. (Spoilers from now on, if you haven't seen it, you might want to skip the parragraph):
I think that the original Japanese version of the movie is quite mature and has its message very clear, while the American version is more childish and focuses more on the comedy than the character arcs.
Something I think it's also a really curious fact is that in the original version Kiki loses her ability to communicate with Jiji permanently, but one of the American versions —cause there are two— added a line at the end that implied she was able to understand her cat again. Miyazaki said that Jiji represented the immature side of Kiki, and the last scene implied that by the end, she had matured.
Even the choices for the dubs where very different: Kiki's voice sounds more like an adult woman than the sweet child we see and Jiji's voice feels so so strange, but it ends up being really funny.
MySpace Challenge (Season 2).
Margot's pick.