Kiki's Delivery Service

A closer look at the story

Kiki is a thirteen-year-old witch. According to the old custom of witches, to become a true witch she must spend a year on her own, away from her family, in a town of her choice. So she takes her cat Jiji with her, climbs onto the broom her mother gave her and leaves home. She eventually settles on a town where no other witch has made a home. Lending a hand at the bakery of someone she meets on her first day, Kiki uses her ability to fly to start the business she has dreamed of: a courier service that makes deliveries by air. But for a young girl trying to stand on her own two feet, fitting into a new community proves much harder than she imagined. Hayao Miyazaki adapted Eiko Kadono's novel for this 103-minute 1989 family animation, a warm coming-of-age story.