DVD, Studio Ghibli (Japan)
Anime
July 29, 1989
Fantasy
English Subtitles
103m
No English dubbing on this one, and the menu showed subtitles as undetermined. They were in excellent English. Yes, I do prefer the original language and subtitles.
I had seen this one before, and it’s great fun. A young witch leaves her home at age 13 to go somewhere else for a year to study her specialty. Kiki and her cat, Jiji who she can understand, leave her family and friends. She wants to go to a seaside town, to see the ocean. After being blown off course, they arrive at a city on a hillside overlooking the sea.
She is having a hard time in the city, having never been in one. She nearly causes accidents, and finally ends up outside a bakery on the hillside. A woman with a baby in a pram leaves the bakery and the owner’s wife come out trying to stop her, she’d left the baby’s pacifier. Kiki takes it, flies to the woman, returns the pacifier, thereby quieting the baby, and starting her new job.
She goes to work for the bakery, delivering baked goods, and works for anyone else who comes to her with something to be delivered, until she realizes she can no longer understand Jiji, who would rather be with the white cat a couple houses away. And then she can no longer fly her broom, which breaks. She becomes depressed. A friend is hanging onto a rope attached to a blimp that broke away from its moorings. She must fly. She must save her friend.
Oh, come on, this is a kid’s show, you know it’s gonna have a happy ever after ending. That’s why I bought the collection. You know if you have young people in your household, it’s safe for them to watch anything from Studio Ghibli, and better if you join them.
Very cute 🙂